The U.S Air Force set to launch drones from AC-130

Flying above cloud cover to remain hidden from the enemy and being able to detect those target has always posed a problem military pilots. To resolve the problem the United States Air Force told their Special Operations Command to come up with a solution. The answer was small, portable drone that could be deployed from the AC-130 gunship.

“Right now today, in many cases, we’re giving the cover of weather to the enemy,” he said during a briefing with reporters this week at the Air and Space Conference near Washington, D.C. “The enemy is maneuvering, massing against an objective often times because of the weather. We need to take that away.”
The gunship will deploy the drone through their 8-inch diameter launch tubes. The drones wings will then unfold so the drones can fly below the cloud cover. The drones will fly a pre-programmed grid pattern. Then, once the enemy targets are located the drones will then transmit the coordinates back to the AC-130.

“It’s tethered — not physically tethered, electronically tethered to the gunship,” Heithold said. “Now I’m seeing below the deck, feeding coordinates.”

He added, “Once I’ve got the coordinates, it directly feeds it into my fire control system. I can shoot. I can put a small diameter bomb on those coordinates … I can shoot a 105mm [cannon] at a set of coordinates — which I can do today, I just can’t see where they go. So I put a sensor below the deck [and can] adjust fire. It’s like boring your rifle.”

Drones have been used in several different ways by our military forces. They have used as aerial and ground intelligence gathering mission. Foot soldier have used mini drone to scope out buildings before going inside. Sometimes drones have been used in areas deemed to dangerous for troops. There have been the infamous seek & destroy drones we have heard about that took out several insurgents. This is the first time that drones have been used as extensions of an aircraft's sensors.