The UK Ministry of Defence has printed new photographs of the primary deployments of the MQ-9B Protector RG1 to RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus, together with a number of the finest official views of what’s believed to be the ‘Outdragon’ SIGINT pod.
As we coated extensively on The Aviationist, the Royal Air Power’s new fleet of MQ-9B Protector RG1 plane – which changed the MQ-9A Reaper – started working from RAF Akrotiri through the second half of 2025. After a collection of native sorties – which might be publicly tracked on flight monitoring web sites – the uncrewed plane commenced operations over the Center East itself as a part of the long-running Operation Shader.
Official touch upon these operations was sparse – very like these concerning earlier operations involving the MQ-9A Reaper, which flew from bases within the Center East itself like Al Udeid in Qatar. Now, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has printed imagery of the Protector RG1 plane at Akrotiri by way of its official Defence Imagery service.
In addition to offering essentially the most official documentation of the operations up to now, the photographs have additionally confirmed the energetic use of weapons and podded capabilities on the Protector RG1 platform. In quite a few the pictures, taken – in keeping with the digital camera EXIF knowledge – in April 2026, a Paveway IV precision guided bomb could be seen carried by the plane underneath the port wing alongside a big, distinctive pod on the starboard wing.
This pod just isn’t an formally disclosed functionality past deliberately obscure statements concerning the MQ-9A and the Protector RG1’s suite of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) sensors, although it bears a powerful resemblance to these seen beforehand on U.S. Reapers.
An replace to this one from final yr. A pair people introduced a collection of pictures to my consideration exhibiting a blurred pod on board an MQ-9A in Kuwait a couple of days in the past. A picture set detailing the identical coaching train however in July has what’s most probably the identical pod, unblurred. pic.twitter.com/Y49H9J0Tv0
— Emma Smith (@ameliairheart) August 29, 2023
For a short time, the Royal Air Power’s personal documentation for the Protector RG1’s loadouts (Type 725) was printed overtly on the official GOV.UK web site. From this file, we will see a bit of kit listed for station 8 on the starboard wing often known as ‘Outdragon’ or ‘OD’. Newer variations of those types should not publicly out there.
Within the pictures, a big blade antenna can also be seen fitted to the centreline of the fuselage. This too is famous within the type, and options solely on loadouts designated for ISR features – together with the ‘Outdragon solely’ loadout.
The precise perform of Outdragon just isn’t in a position to be definitively confirmed, however its obvious pairing with a big blade antenna in addition to the dearth of any seen apertures for optical, infrared, and even radar-based sensors means that it may type a part of what was described to Janes as a “complete” indicators intelligence (SIGINT) suite.
Different UK ISR Payloads
RAF Reapers weren’t unfamiliar to undisclosed payloads. As referenced within the Janes article listed above, and as featured in lots of official pictures of the RAF’s MQ-9s, of their later years they’d apparently at all times carry two ‘cheeks’ on both aspect of the fuselage. Their actual nature has, equally, not been confirmed, although U.S. Air Power price range paperwork have referenced the relocation of Air Handler (a cell phone geo-location system) gear from the ‘payload tray’ to the cheeks. Different paperwork have referred to them as ‘Air Handler cheeks’.
Whether or not this implies the cheeks are solely for Air Handler, or whether or not they’re configurable areas for extra payloads is unclear. The size of every cheek, and the situation on both aspect of the plane, would make them fairly appropriate as a substitute for a podded functionality whereas offering the same quantity of area for gear and a very good area of view for any directional sensors.
The blade antenna talked about above has been seen in use alongside these cheeks on the MQ-9A – if the blade is straight associated to Outdragon, this might imply that the cheek antennas (which, as talked about above, have been known as Air Handler cheeks) have beforehand additionally been used for Outdragon gear. It may additionally counsel a connection between Outdragon and Air Handler.
🎥 Behind-the-scenes footage of the RAF Museum’s newest acquisition, the Common Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, making its approach onto the Royal Air Power Cosford airfield prepared for the @cosfordairshow this Sunday! 🎉
This would be the first alternative for aviation followers to see it on… pic.twitter.com/yHdqiPwSew
— RAF Museum (@RAFMUSEUM) June 12, 2026
These cheeks haven’t but been seen on the Protector RG1, and notably they’ve remained on an MQ-9A Reaper airframe even after it was transferred to the Royal Air Power Museum for public show.
Self-Deployment
A Protector RG1 lately accomplished a primary of a sort deployment flight from RAF Waddington within the UK by means of the airspace of varied European nations and presumably to RAF Akrotiri. Earlier deployments to Akrotiri have concerned the disassembly of the plane, then cargo by air transport.
That is made attainable by the Protector RG1’s certification to function outdoors of specifically segregated airspace, having been granted a army kind certificates. In contrast to the MQ-9A Reaper, which by no means flew in UK airspace throughout its years of RAF service, the Protector RG1 is ready to function straight from RAF Waddington and self-ferry to a ahead working location or, if crucial, full sorties in and across the British Isles.
Many because of Emma Smith for aiding with this text utilizing her expertise of the MQ-9’s extensive and ever increasing array of exterior gear. You could find her on X/Twitter and Bluesky.
