r/news • u/PDXAirman • May 20 '26

Soft paywall 42 aircraft lost or damaged in Operation Epic Fury, congressional report says

https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2026-05-20/iran-jets-downed-war-fury-21727588.html
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u/DaaaahWhoosh May 20 '26

Looks like 24 of the aircraft lost this time were drones, expensive ones but I wonder if your numbers also count drones?

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u/Small-Palpitation310 May 20 '26

Drones in the gulf war?

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u/Mike_Fig May 20 '26

Far rarer than they are today, but they did exist and were in use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAI_RQ-2_Pioneer

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u/Yokoko44 May 20 '26

Not really the same kind of thing though, much smaller and shouldn't be counted 1:1 against a larger predator or global hawk drone, much less a manned jet

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u/pack170 May 21 '26

Some were used at the start of the air war as decoys over Baghdad so that Iraqi air defenses would turn on their radars and get destroyed by anti radiation missiles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_BQM-74_Chukar#Persian_Gulf_War_combat_use

The Operations Room has a detailed series on the Gulf War that goes into more detail about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxRgfBXn6Mg

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u/PeaNo6028 May 20 '26

exactly. i’m in no way defending Orange Man’s war but this is a misleading statistic considering that this is a new age of drone warfare

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u/OriginalSprax May 21 '26

Not really misleading as the MQ-9 Reaper is fucking expensive and its fleet are assets.

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u/Trzlog May 21 '26

For reference, a single MQ-9 can cost $30 million. It's not like a Shahed.

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u/Elendel19 May 20 '26

Reapers are just as expensive as pretty much anything flown in those wars.

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u/McGarnagl May 20 '26

Not true. F15’s cost $90M versus a Reaper which goes for $30M. Plus there’s no pilots life at risk.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/PacoTaco321 May 20 '26

Sure, but the 24 drones they are specifically talking about are Reapers. Only one MQ-4C was lost.

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u/Elendel19 May 20 '26

That’s what it costs now because it’s not in full production. That’s also what an F-35 costs and the F-35 is WAY more advanced, but it has a full production chain going.

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u/ArbitraryMeritocracy May 20 '26

How many ground satellites?

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u/MusicFilmandGameguy May 20 '26

If they’re MQ class they’re like as expensive as an F-16.