This American-designed aircraft has equipped the French army in the Sahel since 2014. It closed the air parade for the first time.
As always on July 14, Parisians had their eyes glued to the sky on this national holiday morning. And as always, the Alpha Jets of the Patrouille de France opened the parade, leaving their blue, white and red plumes in the summer sky. 65 planes, including Rafale and Mirage, and 25 helicopters, then followed one another over the capital. But this year, the Champs-Élysées were flown over by an unprecedented aircraft: the MQ-9 Reaper drone took part in the parade for the first time, closing the flypast.
This unmanned aircraft, built by the American General Atomics, has equipped the ranks of the French army since 2014. This Thursday, it was piloted from Cognac air base 709 by the 1/33 “Belfort” drone squadron. A gigantic metallic bird 11 meters long with a wingspan of 20 meters and weighing 4.5 tonnes, it has a cruising speed of 370 km/h and can reach 480 km/h, thanks to a 900 horsepower turboprop. Endowed with an autonomy of 24 hours, it can peak at 15,000 meters above sea level.
Terrifyingly effective in the Sahel
Ordered by Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in the summer of 2013, the Reaper drones were delivered to Niamey, Niger, in January 2014, to equip the Barkhane force in the Sahel. The aircraft is primarily used for surveillance and observation missions. It is also thanks to one of them that the wreckage of the Air Algérie Flight 5017 plane, which crashed in Mali in July 2014, was found. Since 2019, the device can also be equipped with guided bombs and air-to-surface missiles. Its nose houses “optronic” equipment, which allows these munitions to be guided by laser.
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Tracking down jihadists is its main function. On August 17, 2021, for the first time, a Reaper Block 5 drone from the Barkhane force carried out an operational strike in the Sahelo-Saharan context. On February 10, 2022, a Reaper strike and three airstrikes kill 40 jihadists in Burkina Faso. By 2025, the Air and Space Force should have 12 of these unmanned aircraft, then 24 by 2030.
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