AeroVironment Raven, Al Asad AB

Al Asad AB, Iraq. In 1999, the US Army bought four AeroVironment Pointer small UAVs for testing in the service's "Military Operations In Urban Terrain" and was enthusiastic about the usefulness of the Pointer. The Pointer system is too large to be conveniently carried by soldiers and is normally hauled around in a Hummer vehicle or the like, and so the Army asked AeroVironment if the company could come up with a more portable solution. AeroVironment agreeably developed a half-sized control system and a cut-down version of the Pointer called the Raven (no relationship to the Flight Refueling Raven).
The Raven has the same configuration and central pod of the Pointer, but a shorter tail and a wing reduced to a 52% span of 1.34 meters (4 feet 5 inches). The Raven has an endurance of 80 minutes. The entire system can be carried by two soldiers. Following the Afghanistan campaign in 2001:2002, the US SOCOM ordered 80 Ravens from AeroVironment, which was more than the total number of Pointers that had been sold to that time. The US Army also placed orders for up to 105 Ravens in the late summer of 2003 after the US occupation of Iraq led to persistent insurgent attacks on US forces. Since then, the RQ-11B Raven B has become the official standard SUAS (Small Unmanned Aircraft System) for USSOCOM, US Army, US Marines, and several international countries. As of early 2007, over 5000 Raven airframes have been shipped to customers worldwide. Ravens have been operational in combtat in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other undisclosed locations.
Encouraged by such successes, AeroVironment is also working on a larger version of the Pointer, named the "Puma", with greater endurance and payload.