Rotational Force Commander Colonel David Banning confirmed in a telephone interview Thursday that\u00a0RQ-21 Blackjack drones will soon arrive in Australia to support Marine Rotational Force.<\/p>\n
He declined to reveal exactly how many Blackjacks will support the force until the aircraft arrive in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first time for the rotational force to incorporate unmanned aircraft,\u201d said Col Banning of the RQ-21s.<\/p>\n
He did, however, confirm that the drones would be used\u00a0to monitor remote battlespace, and that the troops will practice deploying the drones and using them to relay information back to unit command.<\/p>\n
The rotation troops consist of US Marines from Twentynine Palms, California, Combat Logistics Battalion 5 from Camp Pendleton, California, and a command element from the III Marine Expeditionary Force from Okinawa.<\/p>\n
While these RQ-21 Blackjack drones don\u2019t belong to the Australian army,\u00a0it is currently working on getting its hands on\u00a0its\u00a0 own MQ-4C Triton drones and MQ-9 Reaper drones. Australia said in 2018 that it will be purchasing six MQ-4C Triton drones with three of those currently being in its hands.<\/p>\n
The RQ-21A Blackjack is a small tactical unmanned aircraft system designed by Insitu, a Boeing company, to meet the requirements of the US Navy and the US Marine Corps.<\/p>\n
The Blackjack can be deployed in persistent maritime and land-based tactical intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, data collection, target acquisition and dissemination missions.<\/p>\n
The twin-tailed successor to the previous ScanEagle iteration, the Blackjack’s roll-on, roll-off capability makes it particularly suited to\u00a0ship-to-objective manoeuvres.<\/p>\n