The Pentagon is working on a plan to fly more daily drone missions, saying Monday that “demand exceeds supply” for drone use around the world.
The Air Force flies about 60 combat air patrols daily with unmanned aerial vehicles, said Capt. Jeff Davis, Pentagon spokesman. The military is working on a plan that would expand that to about 90 missions a day by 2019, a 50 percent increase over the next four years.
“Demand exceeds supply on these types of missions across all combatant commands,” Davis told reporters. Combatant commands refers to joint geographical commands such as U.S. Central Command and U.S. Pacific Command.
Under the new plan, the Army would fly 10 to 20 missions, units from Special Operations Command would fly about 10 and contractors would fly about 10 unarmed missions every day, in addition to the 60 already being done by the Air Force.
This number does not include tactical sorties done at the service level, Davis said, adding that the plan will be used to inform future strategic planning and budget requests.
