![]() The IGE is designed for increased endurance, with 23 additional hours compared to its Block I predecessor. On 27 July 2013, General Atomics announced the successful first flight of the Improved Gray Eagle (IGE). In August 2010, the US Army announced that the MQ-1C had officially been assigned the name Gray Eagle. The Army sought to have the Warrior designated MQ-12, but the United States Department of Defense allocated the designation MQ-1C instead. Initial focus was on expanding capability and achieving an availability rate of 80 percent, then addressing reliability. Reliability problems were attributed mostly to software issues from newly installed sensors, which did not reappear once fixed. 11 unplanned software revisions had generally improved reliability. In October 2011, a report concluded the Gray Eagle was meeting only four out of seven "key performance parameters," and its reliability fell short of predicted growth. Sensors failed at 134 hours, compared to 250 hours required. The ground control station's time between failures was 27 hours, while the minimum time required is 150 hours. Flight testing was delayed until the chip was replaced but had left it with fewer available flight hours the average time between failures of the aircraft or components was 25 hours, while the minimum required is 100 hours. During that month, one Gray Eagle crashed in California when a faulty chip blocked commands to part of the aircraft's flight control surfaces. In March 2011, Gray Eagles started showing poor reliability across all major subsystems. The Army announced on 3 September 2010 that the integration of the AGM-114 Hellfire missile on the UAV had been so successful that 4 weaponized MQ-1Cs would be deployed to Afghanistan in late 2010. With an expected total program cost of $1 billion, the aircraft was to enter service in 2009. The Army intended to procure eleven Warrior systems, each of these units having twelve UAVs and five ground control stations. In August 2005, the Army announced the Warrior to be the winner and awarded a $214 million contract for system development and demonstration. Two aircraft were entered, the IAI/Northrop Grumman Hunter II, and the Warrior. Army initiated the Extended-Range Multi-Purpose UAV competition in 2002, with the winning aircraft due to replace the RQ-5 Hunter. It was developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) for the United States Army as an upgrade of the General Atomics MQ-1 Predator. The General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle (previously the Warrior also called Sky Warrior and ERMP or Extended-Range Multi-Purpose) is a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aircraft system (UAS).
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