UAVs on display at the Smithsonian

Published 28 April 2008

As the scope and breadth of UAV deployments grow, so is the public interest in them; the Smithsonian put some of them on display; “UAVs are the future of combat air forces,” says the curator, himself a retired Air Force pilot

UAVs have not been around for very long, but they are already included in a museum display. Last week officials at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum unveiled a new exhibit of military unmanned aerial vehicles representing each branch of service. Of the six UAVs on display, three artifacts came from the U.S. Air Force: - MQ-1L Predator A; RQ-3A Darkstar; and X-45A Joint Unmanned Combat Air System. “UAVs are the future of combat air forces,” said Dik Daso, the museum curator for modern military aircraft. “This generation is familiar with UAVs and most of what they see here they’ll recognize.” Each of the UAVs in the exhibit is unique in its individual accomplishments. The Predator in the display, for example, was one of the first three MQ-1s over Afghanistan after 9/11. In addition, it was the first Predator to launch a missile in combat. The curator said the Predator on display flew 196 combat sorties, racking up more than 2,700 flight hours, about the same number of flying hours Daso himself accumulated as a pilot during his twenty-year Air Force career.

Daso said their goal is to inform museum patrons about the role UAVs play in modern warfare. “We want to educate our visitors even more on what UAVs have done and what they currently do for us today,” he said. “We used unmanned aerial vehicles in World War II and Vietnam, but things like the Predator have utterly revolutionized the way our military fights. The UAVs in our display have significant combat histories and important stories to tell. That’s why they’re here.”