Australian Defense Forces Selects General Atomics MQ-9 Predator Drones

The Australian Government has selected General Atomics (GA-ASI) Reaper UAVs to provide the Armed Remotely Piloted Aircraft System under Project Air 7003 for the Australian Defense Forces (ADF).

“We look forward to providing our world-leading RPAS to meet the Air 7003 requirements,” said Linden Blue, CEO of GA-ASI. “We’ll work closely with Team Reaper Australia partners to provide a highly capable and affordable RPAS to the ADF,” a GA-ASI release said.

The ADF joins other top-tier military forces in choosing a MQ-9 variant because of its proven multi-role combat performance. Known as the ‘operators’ choice, the MQ-9 is part of GA-ASI’s Predator series of RPAS, which is the world’s most trusted and capable Armed Medium-Altitude, Long-Endurance (MALE) RPAS, and hails from a family of RPAS which recently surpassed five million flight hours.

GA-ASI announced its intention to offer a MALE RPAS to the ADF during AVALON 2017 – the Australian International Aerospace and Defence Exposition – with the launch of Team Reaper Australia, a grouping of Australian industry partners.

The team currently consists of ten Australian companies providing a range of innovative sensor, communication, manufacturing and life-cycle support capabilities that includes Cobham, CAE, Raytheon, Flight Data Systems, TAE Aerospace, Quickstep, AirSpeed, Rockwell Collins Australia, Ultra, and SentientVision.