unhappycamper note: Since the Pentagon has ‘requested’ that I only post one paragraph from articles on Army Times, and Airforce Times, I’ve decided to give ya’ll an unhappycamper summary of the article and a link to the OP. To keep in that same (new) tradition, I will also do the same for for articles on Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, stripes.com and military.com.
To read the article in the military's own words, you will need to click the link.
(This space reserved for a legally correct snark dump.) It sure is beginning to smell like fascism.
unhappycamper summary of this article: If I'm reading this correctly, the Air Force has 'lost' 'at least' $104 million dollars of Reapers. Ka ching.
Since the service began flying MQ-9s in 2004, at least eight of the planes have crashed, according to the Air Force Safety Center.
The planes, equipped with sensors, cost about $13 million each. Most of the 50 Reapers not required for stateside training or testing are deployed to fly missions over Afghanistan and Iraq.
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2010/09/nt-uav-crash-090110/