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| Science & Technology |
| Saab Converts Reaper Drone to Airborne Early Warning Unit |
| 2026-09-08 |
| [DE] Swedish Saab, together with the American General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI), in an extremely short time began flight tests of the MQ-9B UAV with LoyalEye radar sensor for detecting and tracking air targets. Due to this, the MQ-9B is turning into an unmanned Airborne Early Warning (AEW) solution. About the first flight of the MQ-9B from GA-ASI with Saab's LoyalEye, which was carried out on May 19 this year at the Desert Horizon test site in California, was simultaneously announced by both companies on Thursday, May 21 of this year. Thus, from the announcement of the development in June 2025, to the first flight, less than a year has passed, which is an extremely short period for this kind of task. As the developers stated, the tests are also planned to be carried out in a very short time – they will last several months and will end with a demonstration of the full readiness of the unmanned AEW system later this year. At the moment, any details regarding the characteristics of LoyalEye radar sensor, the range of target detection, as well as the flight time of the MQ-9B UAV with LoyalEye containers are not reported. We can only assume that the weight of the system is unlikely to exceed 2.1 tons, which is the maximum permissible load for the MQ-9B. Saab limited itself to a general phrase: "LoyalEye on the MQ-9B offers critical airborne sensing, supporting extended persistence and operational reach. As a complement to manned assets, it aims to enhance situational awareness and, in combination, enable greater operational reach and flexibility" Defense Express notes that such a solution is very interesting for Ukraine, because it is AEW aerial vehicles that can provide effective detection of low-altitude targets. If any ground-based radar has natural limitations in the range of target detection through the radio horizon, which, depending on the terrain, can be 40-50 km, then by raising the radar to a height of 7 km, this radio horizon can be expanded to 350-380 km. |
| Posted by:Dopey Photch2701 |