Friday, May 23, 2014

MQ-1 Predators to Nigeria - search for Boko Haram

Defense.gov News Article: DOD Sends UAV, 80 Airmen to Help Nigerian Search
Predator team deploys to find kidnapped Nigerian girls | Air Force Times | airforcetimes.com

WASHINGTON, May 22, 2014 – The Defense Department’s addition of an unmanned aerial vehicle and 80 Air Force troops to U.S. efforts supporting Nigeria’s  search for over 200 missing schoolgirls has turned the mission into an  air operation, Army Col. Steve Warren, director of Pentagon Press  Operations, said today.
Poway Drones Reported Searching for Missing Nigerian Schoolgirls | Times of San Diego
UAVs involved in the search include the Predator MQ-1, built by General Atomics of Poway, according to media outlets, including Defense News and The Wall Street Journal.


Nigerians can't keep their own UAV up.

Murphy's Law: The Mishandled Nigerian UAVs
It appears that the military did not want to draw any attention to the Aerostars lest the shady circumstances of their purchase be revealed. So it wasn’t until someone else revealed the Aerostar situation that knowledge of Nigeria’s UAV fleet became widely known. Now the Nigerian military and procurement officials (some now retired) are running for cover and trying to shift the blame. In the meantime American UAVs have been brought in to search for the missing girls, who have apparently now been located.
 
Insecurity: NAF completes two unmanned test flights Friday, 23 August 2013
Two surveillance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) unveiled by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) in Kaduna have completed their maiden test flight yesterday.The vehicles are to tackle insecurity through enhanced air surveillance.The test flight took place under the close scrutiny of the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Alex Sabundu Badeh at the Nigerian Air Force Base, Kaduna.

Speaking after the flights of the UAVs and another unmanned jet, the Air chief said the UAVs are invented by the air force while 12 officers are undergoing training on how to operate and assemble the vehicles. He said to have train the 12 officers outside the country, it would have cost the air force $2million to $3million, but are training them in-country and try to develop their capabilities.

Nigerian Air Force UAV fleet grounded | defenceWeb
The Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) acquired by the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) in 2006 have reportedly been grounded due to a lack of maintenance, limiting surveillance operations against Boko Haram militants. Meanwhile the US has deployed a Predator team to Chad to search for kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls.

The nine Aerostar UAVs were acquired in 2006 and 2007 from Aeronautics Defense Systems (ADS), a company based in the Israeli capital Tel Aviv in a contract which also included the supply of unmanned patrol boats to the Nigerian Navy, bringing the net value of the contract to $260 million.

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