While the world focused on the high drama taking place around Taiwan during the recent visit of House Leader Nancy Pelosi, and the military reactions of The People's Republic of China in retaliation, something far more impactful slipped quietly under the media radar in the Asia-Pacific region..Yes, there was much media talk of the fear of war breaking out as President Xi Jinping went Mau Mau, ordering his vast and overwhelming forces to surround the breakaway democratic island and conduct live exercises..They even fired a dozen missiles, some of which may have passed over Taiwan, and some of which landed uncomfortably close to Japan..America, for its part, didn't take the bait — although it ordered the USS Ronald Reagan carrier group into the China Sea, labelling it a "manufactured crisis," they vowed to continue to fly, to sail and to operate wherever international law allows, and that includes in the Taiwan Strait..It was a draw, albeit a noisy one. And apparently it's still ongoing..Meanwhile, something happened in June, just before all hell broke loose, that was actually far more significant than Chinese or US sabre rattling over Taiwan..In one word: Reaper..Taking part in operation Valiant Shield, which involved more than 200 aircraft and 13,000 personnel, the US Air Force's MQ-9 Reaper drone did something that had never been done before..And it could change the way war is fought by US Marines in the Pacific theatre..With just a handful of boots on the ground, a Reaper flew thousands of miles from Creech Air Force Base, Nev., stopping in Hawaii, Guam and finally Palau..During that monumental flight, the Reaper switched its radar to maritime mode and helped scan for enemy ships, relaying data to the carrier strike group involved in the operation.. ReaperReaper .But that wasn't the breakthrough..Usually, Reapers are controlled from the continental US during flight, while take-off and landing are controlled by crews in-theatre..However, in Valiant Shield, the MQ-9 showed off new software which allows it to take off and land all by itself. That's right, by itself..How does it do this?.According to Task&Purpose.com, it uses a camera to conduct a survey of the runway in real-time, building a 3D model in its memory to enable automatic takeoff and landing operations..And so, while a small group of advance airmen waited in Palau, the Reaper made a picture-perfect landing without ground control — for the first time ever..The demonstration means the platform can be flown using satellites over the horizon for thousands of miles across the Pacific and then when it’s time to land, a small Reaper team — two operators and eight maintainers — using the ATLC (automatic takeoff and landing capability) system are sufficient to safely refuel and relaunch..“It’s fundamentally shaking up how we present our force, because I don’t need everybody downrange anymore,” Lt. Col. Michael Chmielewski, commander of the 556th Test and Evaluation Squadron at Creech, which oversaw the MQ-9s, told Air Force Magazine..“What we started doing was just full control over satellites,” he explained. “It turns out, you can do everything on the ground, except for start the aircraft.”.Normally moving Reapers to theatre requires three to four days of preparation to break down the airplanes, ship them on C-17s, then reassemble the planes..That load out takes 55 maintainers and four “cockpits,” or antenna control towers, must be set up and tested around the landing strip to assure an uninterrupted signal to the platform for a pilot on the ground to land it..With ATLC, however, all that’s needed fits in a six-foot-square box. That negates the need for the C-17, and enables the package to move on a CV-22 Osprey or C-130 Hercules, Task&Purpose reported..What exactly can a Reaper do, you ask?.Well, for starters, in 2015 and 2016, Reapers were part of the ‘kill-chain’ for 50,501 out of 61,723 airstrikes across US Central Command, which oversees the Middle East and Southwest Asia..In other words, just more than 81% of the time the US Air Force attacked, its enemies had been under a Reaper’s crosshairs..Its long 66-foot wingspan allows the drone to loiter for up to 30 hours and carry a wide range of weapons and sensors to do anything from convoy overwatch to bombing terrorist leaders..“The Marines want these things for rapid detection, location, and characterization of enemy forces in order to protect the force,” said an Air Force officer, who preferred to stay anonymous..“Sure, they could use them to lob Hellfire missiles, but that’s not nearly as helpful as using them to create a persistent, coherent, and accurate picture of the battle space, especially when they’re on the move in vast but dangerous combat arenas.”.And it just so happens, this is exactly what the new, revamped Marines need and want in Asia-Pacific, in their request for a "Guardian Angel" (also nicknamed the "Grunt Angel")..Reapers can stay aloft way longer than human pilots (two hours loitering, compared to 30 hours); provide secure communications with other service members; fire close-in precision strikes; provide actionable targeting solutions as part of the Joint kill chain; interfere with enemy communications; serve as a look-out over a wide area; help coordinate fire support from other platforms; perform Arctic domain awareness; drop buoys to detect enemy submarines and be able to take off and land from small, undeveloped airfields in the middle of nowhere..What aircraft does the US military already have that can perform all of those tasks? The Reaper..Having a smaller footprint does not just allow for faster movement; it also complicates the enemy targeting process by presenting a smaller target, thereby making it not as tempting as a large facility like Andersen Air Base in Guam might be, Task&Purpose reported..Oh, and what about the cost. Right..Would you believe, that flying a top of the line F-35B fighter jet for one hour costs $51,300, while the MQ-9’s per hour cost is $3,624, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies..Starting to get the idea? Cheaper, longer, better, more accurate..Powered by a 950 horsepower (710 kW) turboprop with a top speed of 260 knots (480 km/h; 300 mph), Reapers can also be refuelled in flight, extending its range even further..More importantly, they can serve as a cheap and effective tool for service members to get the information they need to win future battles, especially for the ground-pounders who would likely face some of the toughest conditions on the way..Still, flying an aircraft from a cockpit in another hemisphere introduces a possible vulnerability: the satellites that link together the entire operation..Many military planners predict enemies such as China or Russia may try to disrupt US satellite use in a conflict, so how will the Reaper keep flying without them?.Well, in recent years, the Air Force developed new systems for making its aircraft-satellite connection more resilient than usual. Efforts like Global Lightning allow the Air Force to put communication terminals on aircraft, where they can share data with satellites and ground terminals..Commercial satellite constellations, such as the 2,700 small satellites that make up SpaceX’s Starlink, also provides users with high-speed, low latency broadband internet across the globe..The sheer number of Starlink sats in orbit also makes the network difficult to shut down by an adversary. Case in point: Ukraine..Dave Tremper, the Pentagon’s director of electronic warfare, described Starlink’s resistance to Russian jamming attacks in Ukraine earlier this year as “eye-watering.”.In fact, Starlink is the only [low Earth orbit] satellite network provider that is currently being used in a contested environment, for a Starlink satellite services contract worth a little more than $1.9 million. Peanuts, to the military..When combined with resilient satellite links, it’s pretty tough to keep Reapers from flying, especially when compared with manned aircraft..At 90%, the MQ-9 enjoyed the highest mission readiness rate in the Air Force in fiscal year 2021, Task&Purpose reported. The F-35A had a 69% readiness rate at the time..“We proved out what we could do by just going up there and just flying the plane to a location that we’ve never operated from,” the squadron commander, Lt. Col. Michael Chmielewski, told Air Force Magazine..“There’s this monumental change in mindset, that I don’t need to pack all this stuff up and go. I can go places just with a very small piece of maintenance equipment and less amount of people,” he said..Essentially, the USAF risked sending a multi-million dollar aircraft over 9,000 miles of open ocean to prove it could serve both as a persistent source of targeting and sensor information and also relay that information to service members throughout the Pacific in a possible war against China..And guess what, it worked. Trust me, that is really big news..“With a platform like this, you know, we’ll set up shop for a week, run ops for a week from our location with reduced footprint, and then go back,” Chmielewski told Air Force Magazine..“Take your smaller footprint, put that forward in a different location, then go persist there for however long you want to persist.”.It may not be as stealthy as an F-35 fighter or as fast as an F-18, and Tom Cruise isn't in the cockpit, but it seems the military still has benefits to reap from the Reaper..Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Xi Jinping — the Marines and the Reaper may soon be on your doorstep.."Semper-Fi."
