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Unmanned Systems

Low-Cost Attritable Drones May Have Range of Air Force Roles

Frank Wolfe

Thursday, October 1st, 2020

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Low-Cost Attritable Drones May Have Range of Air Force Roles

Kratos' XQ-58A Valkyrie completed its inaugural flight March 5, 2019 at Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona. The drone is a potential candidate for the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. (Air Force Photo)

The U.S. Air Force may develop and field low-cost attritable/reusable (A/R) drones with a range of roles over the next decade, but the service has yet to say how or whether such drones would count toward its 2018 goal of increasing the number of Air Force squadrons by 24 percent, from 312 to 386. One possibility is a number of composite squadrons having manned and low-cost unmanned aircraft for different missions, such as air dominance and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance…

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