{"id":28276967,"date":"2026-10-16T16:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/mq-9-reaper-radar-detection-why-large-drones-are-easy-targets\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T16:25:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T14:25:44","slug":"mq-9-reaper-radar-detection-why-large-drones-are-easy-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/fr\/mq-9-reaper-radar-detection-why-large-drones-are-easy-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"MQ-9 Reaper vs Radar: Why Big Drones Are Easy to Find"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\r\n\r\n<style>\r\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid 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It orbits. For twenty hours at a stretch it flies long, patient racetracks over somebody else\u2019s country at the speed of a fast train, hauling a sensor turret and a pair of Hellfires, in full view of anything with a radar antenna and a reason to look.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>That is not a flaw in the design. That <em>is<\/em> the design.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>This magazine recently explained why radar has so much trouble finding a quadcopter: a hobby drone is small enough that the physics stop cooperating, and the clutter filter throws it out with the pigeons. The <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/mq-9-reaper\/\">MQ-9 Reaper<\/a> has the exact opposite problem, and it is worth understanding, because it explains something that confuses a lot of people: how a militia with improvised surface-to-air missiles can knock down an aircraft that costs as much as a small airliner.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f1f3f6;border-left:4px solid #0d1117;padding:18px 22px;margin:26px 0 30px;font-size:15px;line-height:1.65\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:16px;color:#0d1117\">Quick Facts: General Atomics MQ-9A Reaper<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Wingspan:<\/strong> 66 feet (20.1 metres)<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Length:<\/strong> 36 feet (11 metres)<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Maximum takeoff weight:<\/strong> 10,500 pounds (4,760 kilograms)<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Powerplant:<\/strong> One Honeywell TPE331-10GD turboprop, 900 shaft horsepower<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Cruise speed:<\/strong> Around 230 mph (200 knots); General Atomics quotes speeds of 240 KTAS<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Ceiling:<\/strong> Up to 50,000 feet<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Endurance:<\/strong> Over 27 hours (General Atomics)<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>Crew:<\/strong> One pilot and one sensor operator, flying it from somewhere else<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><strong>US Air Force inventory:<\/strong> 351 aircraft in FY2022; 135 remaining as of congressional testimony in May 2026<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The opposite problem from a quadcopter<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Radar struggles with very small objects because of a scale problem. When a target is much smaller than the radar\u2019s wavelength, the energy it sends back collapses away to almost nothing, and what little comes back looks a great deal like a bird. That is the regime a consumer drone lives in, and it is genuinely hard.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>A Reaper lives nowhere near that regime. Its wing spans 66 feet, or 20.1 metres, according to the US Air Force\u2019s own fact sheet. That is an aircraft you could not hide behind a house. The Pentagon files it as a Group 5 uncrewed aircraft system, the category the Congressional Research Service describes as covering \u201cthe largest and highest-flying drones\u201d. At that size, radar returns behave the way they do for any other aeroplane: the target is far bigger than the wavelength, the return scales with geometry rather than vanishing into the noise, and the question stops being \u201ccan we see it\u201d and becomes \u201chow early\u201d.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Even the smaller end of the military fleet is not small. The <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/bayraktar-tb2\/\">Bayraktar TB2<\/a> that made Baykar famous has a 12-metre wingspan and a 700-kilogram maximum takeoff weight, on the manufacturer\u2019s own published figures. It is a light aircraft that happens to have nobody in it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/10\/bayraktar-tb2-runway.jpg\" alt=\"A Bayraktar TB2 on a runway, Turkish Air Force fin flash visible\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">A Bayraktar TB2 at rest. Baykar publishes a 12-metre wingspan and a 700 kg maximum takeoff weight: this is a light aircraft with nobody in it, not a toy. Photo: Bayhaluk \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Nothing about a Reaper is trying to hide<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Size is only half of it. The other half is shape, and the Reaper\u2019s shape was never asked to do anything about radar.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Walk around one. There is a bulbous forward fuselage housing the satellite antenna. There is a sensor ball hanging underneath on a gimbal. There is a Y-shaped tail with large flat surfaces meeting the fuselage at exactly the sort of angles that make a corner reflector. There is a pusher propeller turning behind the wing, which is a rotating metal object and therefore a gift to anything looking for a Doppler signature. There are weapons and their pylons hanging in the airflow. Nothing is faceted, nothing is edge-aligned, nothing is buried, and no part of the airframe appears to have been shaped with a radar in mind.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>That is not an accusation. It is the design brief. The Reaper was built to loiter for a day at a time over places where nobody was shooting back, carrying the best sensors that weight budget allowed. Low observability costs money, range, payload and maintenance hours, and for the mission the aircraft was bought to fly, it would have bought nothing. The Air Force has been unusually direct about this.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;was not designed for operation in a future highly contested environment&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>United States Air Force officials<\/strong> &mdash; quoted in the Congressional Research Service report on the MQ-9A Reaper, September 2026<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/c8OWHnHjIpA\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin:-14px 0 24px;font-style:italic\">A working primer on how radar actually builds a picture, from a channel run by an electronic-warfare practitioner. The section on detection ranges is the one that matters here.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Slow, straight and extremely patient<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Then there is the flying. The Air Force fact sheet gives a cruise speed of around 230 mph, about 200 knots. General Atomics quotes speeds of 240 KTAS. Either way, it is slow, and slow is the least of it. The aircraft\u2019s whole value is that it stays in one piece of sky for most of a day, watching. It flies predictable orbits, at medium altitude, for hours.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Every one of those qualities helps the radar operator. A long dwell over the same patch of sky gives a tracking radar an enormous amount of time to accumulate returns and refine a track. A steady, repeatable orbit makes the track trivial to predict. And medium altitude puts the aircraft inside the engagement envelope of a great deal of ordinary air defence equipment rather than above it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Compare that with the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/rq-4-global-hawk\/\">RQ-4 Global Hawk<\/a>, which answers the same problem by flying very high for a very long time. Altitude is not stealth, but it is a form of protection, and it is the one the Reaper mostly does without.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">What the record actually shows<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>None of this was abstract in 2026. The Reaper was heavily used in Operation Epic Fury, the US military operation against Iran, and the Air Force Chief of Staff told Congress in May what he thought of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7\"><em>&ldquo;maybe the most valuable player&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>General Kenneth Wilsbach<\/strong> &mdash; Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, congressional testimony, May 2026, as reported by the Congressional Research Service<\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p>In the same testimony cycle, another Air Force official said the service was \u201cconcerned about how they\u2019ve attrited\u201d. The Air Force has not officially disclosed how many Reapers it lost in the operation. An August 2026 news report, citing US government sources, put the figure at 45 aircraft; that number is a press report rather than an Air Force statement and is worth treating as such. What is documented in the budget papers is the trend: an inventory of 351 MQ-9As in FY2022, and an Air Force official telling Congress in May 2026 that 135 remained in service.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Those two facts sit together uncomfortably and honestly. The aircraft was the most useful thing in the theatre, and it was also the thing being shot down, because it was doing its most useful work inside the range of people who could see it coming.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/10\/x-47b-flight-007-usaf.jpg\" alt=\"A US Navy X-47B unmanned combat air system banking, showing its tailless flying-wing planform\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The X-47B, photographed on its seventh test flight. Note what is missing: no vertical tail, no corner between fin and fuselage, and leading edges swept to a handful of common angles. This is what an airframe looks like when radar is part of the brief. US Air Force photo by Christian Turner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The shape that does hide<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The contrast is the point. Put a Reaper next to an X-47B and you are looking at two completely different answers to the question of what an uncrewed aircraft is for.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>The X-47B is a tailless flying wing. It has no fin to form a corner reflector with the fuselage, its leading and trailing edges are swept to a small number of repeated angles so that returns are thrown into a few narrow directions rather than scattered everywhere, its engine inlet is buried on top, and its weapons go inside. It is a demonstrator rather than a fielded combat aircraft, and it never entered service, but it shows what the design looks like when survivability is written into the requirement instead of assumed away.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>It also shows why that choice is rare. Shaping of that kind constrains the wing, the inlet, the exhaust and the payload bay all at once, and the aircraft that results is expensive. The reason most of the world\u2019s armed drones look like Reapers and TB2s rather than flying wings is not that nobody thought of it. It is that the mission did not pay for it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oRTFbMKzakg\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin:-14px 0 24px;font-style:italic\">A clear walkthrough of what actually makes an airframe stealthy, and why shaping does most of the work.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">When a stealth drone does come down<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Low observability is also not a cloak. In December 2011 Iran displayed an intact Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, a tailless stealth reconnaissance aircraft, on television. The circumstances of how it came down are still disputed and the Iranian account has never been independently verified, but the aircraft on the table was real, and it was not a Reaper.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g-jdL7FyYDA\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin:-14px 0 24px;font-style:italic\">Iranian state television displays the captured RQ-170 Sentinel, December 2011. Contemporary news footage of the airframe itself.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Which is why the replacement is cheap, not stealthy<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>The most revealing thing about this whole argument is what the Air Force decided to do next. It did not ask for a stealthy Reaper. It asked for a cheaper one.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>The service approved a successor concept in May 2026 and released it in July, called the Massed Modular Aircraft. The CRS summary describes a Group 5 aircraft that costs less than the Reaper while retaining \u201cthe ability \u2026 to execute missions that the MQ-9A performs today\u201d, reportedly at around 10 million dollars a unit against a Reaper\u2019s 30 to 50 million, with a goal of 500 aircraft in service by 2032. General Atomics has publicly questioned whether that cost target is realistic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Read that as an answer to the detectability problem and it makes complete sense. If you cannot stop the enemy seeing your drone, and you cannot afford to make it invisible, the remaining option is to make losing it hurt less. That is a real strategy. It is just not a comfortable one, and it is a long way from the decade when a Reaper orbit was something only one side in a war got to have.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: US Air Force MQ-9 Reaper fact sheet (AFSOC); General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-9A product page; Congressional Research Service, \u201cAir Force MQ-9A Reaper: Background and Issues for Congress\u201d (IF13318, 23 September 2026); Baykar Bayraktar TB2 published specifications.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\r\n\r\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<style>.mfq{margin:34px 0 8px}.mfq h2{font:26px\/1.3 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117;padding-top:22px;margin:0 0 6px}.mfq .qa details{border-top:1px solid #5C91FF;margin:0;padding:0}.mfq .qa details:last-of-type{border-bottom:1px solid #e2e7ee}.mfq .qa summary{cursor:pointer;list-style:none;display:flex;justify-content:space-between;align-items:center;gap:16px;padding:22px 26px;font:18px\/1.7 \"Gilroy semiBold\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#0d1117}.mfq .qa summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mfq .qa summary::after{content:\"+\";font:24px Helvetica,sans-serif;color:#3568e0;flex:0 0 auto}.mfq .qa details[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mfq .qa details:hover summary{color:#3568e0}.mfq .qa .a{font:16px\/1.7 \"Gilroy regular\",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#454e5e;padding:0 26px 24px}.mfq .qa .a a{color:#3568e0}@media(max-width:680px){.mfq .qa summary{padding:18px 14px;font-size:17px}.mfq .qa .a{padding:0 14px 20px}}<\/style>\r\n\r\n\r\n<section class=\"mfq\"><h2>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2><div class=\"qa\"><details open><summary>Can radar detect an MQ-9 Reaper?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Yes, easily. The MQ-9 Reaper has a 66-foot (20.1-metre) wingspan and no low-observable shaping, so it reflects radar energy much like any other aircraft of that size. The difficulty radar has with small consumer drones does not apply to it. Detection has never been the hard part with a Reaper.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Why do military drones get shot down so often if they are so advanced?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Because most armed drones were designed for airspace where nobody was shooting back. US Air Force officials, quoted by the Congressional Research Service in September 2026, said the MQ-9A \u201cwas not designed for operation in a future highly contested environment\u201d. Slow speed, long predictable orbits and medium altitude all make an easy target.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How big is an MQ-9 Reaper?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The US Air Force gives a wingspan of 66 feet (20.1 metres), a length of 36 feet (11 metres), a height of 12.5 feet (3.8 metres) and a maximum takeoff weight of 10,500 pounds (4,760 kilograms). It is a substantial aircraft, not a small one, and the Pentagon classes it as a Group 5 system.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>Is the Bayraktar TB2 bigger than a light aircraft?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">It is comparable. Baykar publishes a 12-metre wingspan, a 6.4-metre length and a 700-kilogram maximum takeoff weight for the Bayraktar TB2, with an 18-hour-plus endurance. Those are light-aircraft numbers, which is why the TB2 is straightforward for radar to detect.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>How many MQ-9 Reapers has the US Air Force lost?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The Air Force has not officially disclosed its losses in Operation Epic Fury. Its budget papers show an inventory of 351 MQ-9As in FY2022, and an Air Force official told Congress in May 2026 that 135 remained. An August 2026 news report citing US government sources put combat losses against Iran at 45 aircraft, which remains a press figure rather than an official one.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What makes a drone stealthy?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">Shaping does most of the work. A stealthy design such as the X-47B is a tailless flying wing with no fin-to-fuselage corner, leading and trailing edges aligned to a few repeated angles, a buried engine inlet and internal weapons. Each of those choices costs payload, range or money, which is why most operational armed drones do not have them.<\/div><\/details><details><summary>What is replacing the MQ-9 Reaper?<\/summary><div class=\"a\">The US Air Force approved a successor concept in May 2026 called the Massed Modular Aircraft. It is a Group 5 aircraft intended to cost far less than the Reaper while flying the same missions, reportedly around 10 million dollars per unit, with a goal of 500 in service by 2032. General Atomics has questioned whether that price is achievable.<\/div><\/details><\/div><\/section>\r\n\r\n\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Can radar detect an MQ-9 Reaper?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes, easily. The MQ-9 Reaper has a 66-foot (20.1-metre) wingspan and no low-observable shaping, so it reflects radar energy much like any other aircraft of that size. The difficulty radar has with small consumer drones does not apply to it. Detection has never been the hard part with a Reaper.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why do military drones get shot down so often if they are so advanced?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Because most armed drones were designed for airspace where nobody was shooting back. US Air Force officials, quoted by the Congressional Research Service in September 2026, said the MQ-9A \u201cwas not designed for operation in a future highly contested environment\u201d. Slow speed, long predictable orbits and medium altitude all make an easy target.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How big is an MQ-9 Reaper?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The US Air Force gives a wingspan of 66 feet (20.1 metres), a length of 36 feet (11 metres), a height of 12.5 feet (3.8 metres) and a maximum takeoff weight of 10,500 pounds (4,760 kilograms). It is a substantial aircraft, not a small one, and the Pentagon classes it as a Group 5 system.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Is the Bayraktar TB2 bigger than a light aircraft?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"It is comparable. Baykar publishes a 12-metre wingspan, a 6.4-metre length and a 700-kilogram maximum takeoff weight for the Bayraktar TB2, with an 18-hour-plus endurance. 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General Atomics has questioned whether that price is achievable.\"}}]}<\/script><div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Related Posts<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/why-radar-cannot-detect-small-drones-rcs-micro-doppler-birds\/\">DJI Phantom vs Pigeon: Why Radar Still Cannot Find Small Drones<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/passive-radar-drone-detection-bistatic-illuminators-lte450\/\">Passive Radar vs Drones: The Sensor That Never Transmits<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/china-anti-stealth-radar-network-detection-firing-solution-vhf\/\">China\u2019s Anti-Stealth Radars: Detection Is Not a Firing Solution<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/usaf-massed-modular-aircraft-mma-10-million-mq-9-replacement-2026\/\">USAF Wants a $10 Million Reaper Replacement by 2029<\/a><\/p><\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Share this story A Reaper does not sneak. It orbits. For twenty hours at a stretch it flies long, patient racetracks over somebody else\u2019s country at the speed of a fast train, hauling a sensor turret and a pair of Hellfires, in full view of anything with a radar antenna and a reason to look. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":28276765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28276967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>MQ-9 Reaper vs Radar: Why Big Drones Get Seen | MiGFlug<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why radar finds an MQ-9 Reaper so easily: 20-metre wingspan, no stealth shaping, slow predictable orbits, and what Operation Epic Fury did to the fleet.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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