The Air Force Is Adding Missions For Its RQ-170 Sentinel Spy Drone
The drone was captured by Iran in 2011.
by David Axe
Key point: The steady addition of new missions over the Sentinel’s roughly 15-year existence represents a strong vote of confidence on the part of the Air Force in the stealth drone’s usefulness.
The U.S. Air Force in its 2021 budget proposal asked Congress to let the service retire scores of aircraft, including 24 of its 34 high-flying Global Hawk spy drones.
Air Force chief of staff Gen. David Goldfein said that new, secret technology would replace the RQ-4s and other planes the service wants to retire. “Most of what we’re giving up is unclassified,†Goldfein told Defense News. “What we’re buying — not all but a lot of it — is in the classified realm.â€
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/air-force-adding-missions-its-rq-170-sentinel-spy-drone-142647
