United States Forces Korea (USFK) plan to deploy the MQ-1C Gray Eagle, a war-tested Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV), to the Korean Peninsula as early as July, the Chosun Ilbo reported Wednesday.
The Gray Eagle was first implemented by the U.S. Army unit deployed in Camp Taji, Iraq in 2010. It has retained its popularity among U.S. Army aviation units, as the Army ordered 19 additional Improved Gray Eagles from General Atomics last year.
The USFK public relations office declined to confirm or deny the deployment of the Gray Eagle, or the number of units that might be deployed.
“It seems like the Chosun Ilbo has came up with the news on the Gray Eagle after cross-checking with many other military sources such as the South Korean military’s newspaper, General Atomics’ announcement from November last year and so on. But we cannot discuss anything related to our operational capability,” the USFK told NK News.
The vehicle participated in the ROK-U.S. joint training exercise last August from Kunsan Air Base, South Korea.
During the last year’s joint training, the Gray Eagle provided streamed video and metadata directly to an AH-64 Apache helicopter. The data transmitted to the Apache was re-transmitted to the control terminal, allowing ground forces to share the view of the video captured by the helicopter, according to a previous announcement from General Atomics.
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