Rounding out our Christmas gifts in 2011 was the General Atomics MQ-1B Predator UAS AI model by Mike Guenthner and Michael MacIntyre.
The smaller brother of the MQ-9B Reaper, the Predator was the original combat drone on the modern battlefield first armed with a Hellfire missile as an "experiment". Originally designed as an unarmed ISR platform, it quickly gained weapons in the form of two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles that it most commonly carries into action today.
This AI model shares the same features with its bigger AI brother with an actively scanning optical sensor system and realistic flight behaivor as modeled by Michael MacIntryre. In all there are three main versions included with this release, the early Block 5 version which features shorter wings, only one forward looking pilot camera and squared off tail planes along with the later Block 15 versions for both the USAF and the Italian AMI. The Block 15 version sports a larger wingspan, modified tail surfaces and a second pilot camera for redundancy. Both main versions feature their own paint kits to allow for additional textures to be created.
We hope you enjoy the MQ-1B UAS model, the original battlefield drone!
Download the model here