If you guessed the U-2 \u2013 formerly the TR-1 – give yourself a pat on the back.<\/p>\n
Yes, you read that correctly.\u00a0 Although I don\u2019t remember hearing much about it at the time, buried in the USAF\u2019s fleet retirement proposals back in February was a proposal to retire the U-2 along with the A-10.\u00a0 The stated reason was that RPV\u2019s could now perform the mission at an acceptable cost.<\/p>\n
Color me a bit skeptical.\u00a0 In prior years, the USAF had stated outright that even our latest RPVs couldn’t perform that mission an affordable cost.\u00a0 And despite recent improvements in the efficiency of RPV operations (and thus lower operating costs), not long ago the USAF also said that RPVs still don\u2019t provide equivalent SIGINT and IMINT capabilities<\/a> to those provided by the U-2.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing that\u2019s still the case today.<\/p>\n As I understand it, RPVs today still can\u2019t carry some of the U-2\u2019s sensor packages – so either the platforms or their sensors will have to be substantially \u201cimproved\u201d to do so.\u00a0 And we all know that improvement will be a “snap”, and will be really<\/i> cheap and quick too.<\/p>\n Oh, and the USAF is also scaling back it’s proposed RPV fleet, too.<\/p>\n