AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 190 / 190

Plate 190 of 190 · Modern age · Remotely piloted reconnaissance and strike aircraft

General Atomics MQ-1B Predator

MQ-1B Predator, painted as 03-3119, the RAF Museum London’s General Atomics MQ-1B Predator, a Block 10 aircraft flown by the US Air Force’s 432nd Wing from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, lent to the museum as the type was retired and hung in the Hendon hall since 2018: the remotely piloted reconnaissance and strike aircraft that made armed drones part of air warfare, 55 ft 3 in in span, with one turbocharged Rotax 914 piston engine driving a two-bladed pusher propeller at the tail, a bulbous nose housing the satellite-communications dish, a long, thin straight wing, an inverted-V tail with a small ventral fin under the propeller, and a sensor turret under the nose, shown standing level on its tricycle undercarriage without weapons: light grey overall with a low-visibility black-and-white star-and-bar and a black ‘AF 03’ and ‘119’ on each side of the rear fuselage, the 432nd Wing’s black ‘CH’ tail code and a small badge on the upper faces of the tail surfaces, a navy, red and green chequered band near each tail tip, a unit badge on the port side of the nose and a grey propeller with yellow tips, as displayed (in the museum it hangs with its main legs removed, the nose wheel retracted and a blanking plate in place of the sensor turret, so the undercarriage and turret follow in-service MQ-1Bs, and the star-and-bar above the port wing follows US Air Force practice rather than a photograph).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as 03-3119, the RAF Museum London’s General Atomics MQ-1B Predator, a Block 10 aircraft flown by the US Air Force’s 432nd Wing from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, lent to the museum as the type was retired and hung in the Hendon hall since 2018: the remotely piloted reconnaissance and strike aircraft that made armed drones part of air warfare, 55 ft 3 in in span, with one turbocharged Rotax 914 piston engine driving a two-bladed pusher propeller at the tail, a bulbous nose housing the satellite-communications dish, a long, thin straight wing, an inverted-V tail with a small ventral fin under the propeller, and a sensor turret under the nose, shown standing level on its tricycle undercarriage without weapons: light grey overall with a low-visibility black-and-white star-and-bar and a black ‘AF 03’ and ‘119’ on each side of the rear fuselage, the 432nd Wing’s black ‘CH’ tail code and a small badge on the upper faces of the tail surfaces, a navy, red and green chequered band near each tail tip, a unit badge on the port side of the nose and a grey propeller with yellow tips, as displayed (in the museum it hangs with its main legs removed, the nose wheel retracted and a blanking plate in place of the sensor turret, so the undercarriage and turret follow in-service MQ-1Bs, and the star-and-bar above the port wing follows US Air Force practice rather than a photograph). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (652 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (); engine, crew and dimensions are for the MQ-1B Predator modelled here.

History

The MQ-1B Predator

The Predator grew out of the work of Abraham Karem, an Israeli-born engineer who built long-endurance drones in California in the 1980s. His company was bought by General Atomics in 1990, and its Gnat 750 was flown by the CIA over the Balkans in the early 1990s. In January 1994 the Pentagon gave General Atomics a contract to build a larger, better-equipped version as a quick demonstration programme, and the first Predator flew on 3 July 1994. It was a slender aircraft with a long, thin wing for endurance, a small Rotax piston engine driving a pusher propeller at the tail, an inverted-V tail and a bulbous nose holding a satellite dish.

Within a year Predators were flying over Bosnia from Albania and Hungary, sending live video back to commanders, and in 1996 the US Air Force took the type over as the RQ-1. A pilot and a sensor operator flew it from a ground station, at first close to the battlefield and later from bases in the United States by satellite link, while a small team near the runway handled take-off and landing. It could stay in the air for about a day, circling at a few thousand metres and watching with cameras and infra-red sensors in the turret under its nose. In 2001 it was fitted to fire Hellfire anti-tank missiles, and Predators flew armed missions over Afghanistan from the first weeks of the war that October. In 2002 it was redesignated MQ-1, the M for multi-role.

Around 360 Predators were built, and the US Air Force flew them over Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen, with its main base at Creech in Nevada, while Italy also bought the type. From 2004 RAF crews of No. 1115 Flight flew US Air Force Predators alongside American squadrons before the RAF bought the larger MQ-9 Reaper. The Predator was slow and vulnerable to air defences, but it changed how air forces think about watching and striking from the air, and its descendants, the Reaper and the US Army’s Gray Eagle, have carried on its work. The US Air Force retired its last MQ-1 in March 2018. In the gazetteer the Predator can be seen at the RAF Museum London, IWM Duxford and the RAF Museum Midlands.

This airframe

MQ-1B 03-3119

03-3119The airframe modelled

03-3119 is a Block 10 MQ-1B, built with the longer wing of the later Predators, and it flew with the US Air Force’s 432nd Wing from Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, whose ‘CH’ tail code it still wears. As the Air Force retired the type it was lent to the RAF Museum, arriving in 2018, and it now hangs from the roof of the Hendon hall. The model shows it as photographed there: light grey overall, with a low-visibility star-and-bar of a black disc, white star and black-outlined white bars on each side of the rear fuselage, a black ‘AF 03’ and ‘119’ behind it, ‘CH’ and a small badge on the upper faces of the tail surfaces, a navy, red and green chequered band near each tail tip, a unit badge on the port side of the nose only, and a grey propeller with yellow tips. In the museum its main legs have been removed, the nose wheel is retracted and a blanking plate fills the place of the sensor turret, so the model’s undercarriage and turret follow in-service MQ-1Bs. It carries no weapons, as displayed. The star-and-bar above the port wing follows US Air Force practice; no photograph shows that surface.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum London

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the MQ-1B Predator in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 190 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.