U.S. Army Colonel Greg Gonzalez, who is the project manager for the UAS segment, has revealed the U.S. Army is going to purchase 50 new back-packable Raven UAVs. Additionally, 200 Ravens already in service will be retrofitted and all will be fielded for missions early in 2010.

The reason for the procurements are to enable the U.S. Army to fly additional sorties for in-theatre combat sorties. Part of the aforementioned retrofit will be an AeroVironment supplied data link move into the UAV to enable the use of more aircraft, doing away with the analog link that limits data flow. Earlier this year, the U.S. Congress approved $300 million to buoy up the assets used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Some 376, 12-1/2 pound Ravens (pictured here) have already been acquired by the U.S. Army and have logged 40,000+ flight hours. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Army.)