Poland Announces MQ-9A Leasing
On October 20, Polish Minister of National Defense Mariusz Błaszczak announced on Twitter that Poland had signed a contract with General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. for the leasing of MQ-9A Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles, to be used until Poland purchases MQ-9Bs. FlightGlobal reports that the contract, with a value of $70.6 million USD, would lease two MQ-9A Reapers from General Atomics. Alongside Minister Błaszczak’s tweet, he included a photograph of the first of two Reapers for Poland.
N508HK is a MQ-9A Block 5 Reaper, of the same version as ones popularly used by the United States Air Force. It has been painted with the Polish roundel on the wings and tail.
This is not the first time Poland has been host to Reaper drones. Under Detachment 2 of the 52nd Expeditionary Operations Group, the United States Air Force has previously flown Reapers out of Mirosławiec Air Base, in north-western Poland. In 2020, MQ-9A N428HK was photographed carrying L3Harris’ SOAR signal intelligence pod over Łask Air Base. It is not known if a similar capability will be flown aboard this batch of Polish-operated Reapers.
The news of Polish-leased Reapers comes shortly after the beginning of the deployment of Japan’s leased MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones. In that situation, and as is common for leased Reapers, the Japanese MQ-9Bs will be piloted by General Atomics corporate pilots. This type of contract is typically referred to as “COCO”, or “contractor-owned, contractor-operated”, and is common in the US.