US Drones – Drone Wars UK

US spy drones out of ‘RAF’ Fairford – public meeting and demonstration in January 2025

17/12/202419/02/2025Chris Cole

Drone Wars, together with Oxfordshire Peace Campaign and CND, will host an online public meeting and in-person demonstration in January 2025 to oppose flights of US Global Hawk and Reaper drones from RAF Fairford military base in Glos.

The US Air Force (USAF) has applied to the UK’s air regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), to change airspace rules to allow RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-9 Reaper drones to fly regularly from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.

In August 2024, a US Global Hawk drone flew into Fairford, conducted two sorties over the following days and then departed. It appears these were two ‘demonstration’ flights to trial temporary air corridors. Following a Post-Implementation Review, in which it was revealed that ten flights into Birmingham airport had to be diverted because of the drones flight, the CAA has ordered the USAF/MoD to investigate “mitigation strategies” to resolve the impact on Birmingham Airport.

According to one document submitted to the CAA, the “working assumption” by the USAF is that the corridors would be activated 2-3 times per week but they are “exploring activation periods that exceed these assumption, both in frequency and time periods of utilisation.” The proposal is that the drones would take off and land overnight: “all activations will be between 1 hour after sunset and 1 hour before sunrise unless in extremis.” While the application to fly Global Hawks from Fairford is on-going, the application to fly Reapers has been ‘paused’, likely till after Global Hawk flights have been approved,

Online public Meeting: Wednesday 15th January, 7.00pm – 8.30pm

Join us online to learn more about these dangerous development
and its worrying consequences both locally and globally.

Please register here: Eventbrite registration

Demonstration at RAF Fairford: Saturday 25th January, 1pm, Main Gate

UPDATE: Protest will go ahead.

Bring banners and placards, food for lunch, and dress appropriately for the weather.

Demonstration will be by the main gate at corner of Horcott Road /Maine Street.
Postcode for Sat Nav: GL7 4DL

There will be parking for some cars at main gate with additional parking nearby (See below)

There are some spaces available on mini-bus from Oxford £10/£5 low-waged.

Pick up point will be the Ashmolean Museum with minibus departing at 11.15 am.
To book a place email: oxonpeace@yahoo.co.uk on first come/first served basis.

If you can make a donation to cover cost of transport we would be grateful. Read more →

Task Force 99: New US drone unit begins work in the Middle East

16/11/202205/12/2022Chris Cole

Task Force 99 at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. (Credit USAF)

A new unit tasked with field-testing aerial uncrewed systems and AI technologies has begun work in the middle east according to the head of US Air Force Central Command (AFCENT), Major General Alexus Grynkewich. “It’s a small group of super-empowered airmen that I’m going to provide resources to so they can rapidly innovate and experiment in our literal sandbox that we have in the Middle East” the General told the US Air, Space and Cyber conference in September. It is unclear how the description of the Middle East as “our literal sandbox” was received by allies attending the conference.

Some of Task Force 99’s work will be focused on countering the threat of small drones from state and non-state actors, but it will also ‘experiment with off-the-shelf technologies’ in the ‘hope of harnessing new technologies in innovative ways’ according to reports in defence press.

The new Air Force unit is similar to the US Navy’s Task Force 59, which is based in Bahrain and has been conducting experiments with maritime drones for the past 12 months, (although the US has been using maritime drones in the region for a good deal longer). Tension flared in September 2022 between the US and Iran when two of Task Force 59’s surface drones were seized by an Iranian ship in the Red Sea. After the US demanded that the drones be returned, the Iranian ship released them into the water the following morning.

The US Air Force’s Task Force 99 will mainly be based at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar but will also have a small ‘satellite innovation cell’ at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, from where US and British Reaper drones operate. The Al Udeid unit will ‘experiment with variable payloads on small drones’ according to a report in ‘Air and Space Forces’ magazine. Read more →

Three-month snapshot shows expanding use of armed drones

06/04/201818/02/2020Chris Cole

Over the past few years States, international organisations and civil society groups have expressed concern about the increasing proliferation and use of armed drones. To illustrate what is happening, Drone Wars has compiled details of the use of armed drones in the first three months of 2018. Due to both the lack of transparency by operators and the difficulty of reporting strikes from the remote locations where they often occur, this survey is undoubtedly incomplete. In addition the fact that multiple nations are operating armed drones to launch strikes against differing groups in Syria (US, UK, Israel, Turkey and Iran) and Yemen (US, UAE and Saudi Arabia) makes attribution and accountability for strikes there almost impossible. Nevertheless this short survey (1 Jan 2018 – 31 March 2018) gives something of an insight into the use of armed drones by multiple operators to launch strikes in multiple countries. Read more →

Military drone crashes show spread of drone wars

08/10/2015Chris Cole

US drone crashed in Iraq, July 2015 — US drone crash in Samawa province, Iraq, July 2015

Drone Wars UK has updated the Drone Crash Database with details of a further 19 large drone crashes since our last update in February 2015. Sixteen of the crashes occurred in 2015 while three previously unknown US drone crashes from 2014 have been revealed through the publication of accident investigation reports.

For the past five years Drone Wars UK has been recording crashes of large military drones (Class 2 & Class 3) as a way of tracking the spread and expansion of the use of drones. Due to the secrecy surrounding their use the database is almost certainly not complete. Read more →

Drone proliferation in light of increased targeted killing

25/09/2015Chris Cole

The news that the UK has followed the US and Israel in using armed drones to launch a targeted killing outside of UN sanctioned armed conflict should make the international community even more concerned about the growing proliferation of armed drones.

All three countries known to have used armed drones have now gone beyond the generally accepted provisions of international law in this area, although perhaps unsurprisingly the countries themselves refute this. Read more →

Resisting the Drone Wars: Campaign Day 14 June

07/04/2014Chris Cole

The Drone Campaign Network is holding a day gathering for those interested in campaigning on the growing use of drones. The event will take place at Friends Meeting House, Euston on Saturday 14 June. The day will include speakers, workshops and planning for the Week of Action on Drones later this year. Speakers include