Inside The New Stealth Arsenal

Dec. 18, 2014
A top secret class of autonomous drones is changing the way war is waged.

On May 2, 2011, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)—locked in a steady, predawn orbit above a residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan—transmitted live video of an unfolding military raid to a laptop in the White House Situation Room. There, President Barack Obama and his national security advisers watched as a team of Navy SEALs infiltrated the walled compound and killed its chief resident, Osama bin Laden.

By almost any account, the mission was a tremen­dous success, but an elemental part of the victory has gone all but unnoticed. The operation might never have happened were it not for a new aircraft, the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, which had been monitoring the location for months.

More details here.