America will export armed drones for sale to its military allies around the world for the first time, the US state department announced yesterday. America's own use of drones in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Syria and parts of Pakistan has been highly controversial. So how will this proliferation on remote-controlled deadly weapony be managed? And who will be able to buy them? Previously, the only country to which the US sold military armed drones was Britain. The United Kingdom currently has 10 US-manufactured Reaper drones, used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Armed with Hellfire missiles and laser-guided bombs, the RAF uses them for both surveillance and air strikes. But US industry has long been looking to open up overseas markets to its drone technology, said Huw Williams, an expert in unmanned technology at defence analysts IHS Jane's. He said: "There's a lot of customers who want this sort of capability and US industry has been looking to sell its systems.

Reaper and Predator have been very successful in British and American hands and a lot of people have wanted that but not been able to get access to it." As well as European nations, potential customers include India, Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Asian allies such as Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia. There is a limited number of countries that could afford the expensive technology however, he said. The US state department policy sheet - entitled 'US Export Policy for Military Unmanned Aerial Systems' - does not specify which countries will now be allowed to purchase the deadly machines. It says: The United States’ new UAS export policy establishes the standards by which the United States will assess, on a case-by-case basis under the US Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, potential exports of military UASs, including armed systems The US already sells non-lethal intelligence drones to "a larger number of countries, including Nato allies such as France and Italy". According to the Washington Post.

"allied nations from Italy to Turkey to the Persian Gulf region" are clamouring for the aircraft. Some countries such as Israel and China already operate their own armed drones. How would a country go about buying one? Although US armed drones are made by private firms such as Northrop Grumman and General Atomics, sales would be made through government-to-government negotations. Mr Williams said strict US State Department rules on who could buy armed drones meant the new market would not be a free-for-all. ar drone 2 latest firmwareNew customers will have to satisfy the US they will comply with international humanitarian and human rights laws. ar drone 2 eliteCountries applying to buy drones would be subjected to a "strong presumption of denial", meaning that they would have to make a strong case for needing the weapons. phantom 2 drone buy

Successful countries will need to prove that their applications constitute the "rare occasions" set out in a 1987 treaty signed by the G7 - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States - known as the Missile Technology Control Regime. This includes assurances they will only use the weapons for the stated purposes, will not modify them without America's consent, and will not transfer the weapons (or replicas of them) elsewhere. ar drone 2 foroHow will the drones be operated ? best drone to buy under 200Again, this is not specified by the document. ar drone 2 windevHowever, the example of Britain buying American armed drones is potentially instructive. In this case, the drones were operated from Nevada for the first two or three years, before a control centre was built in Waddington, Lincolnshire to enable British drone pilots to operate from home soil.

For more detail on how British armed drones are operated, read our visit: Inside Britain's drone base Click on the above graphic for more What can buyer countries do with the drones? Countries that buy the drones must agree to a set of "proper use" principles set out by America, which entail using them for national defence or according to international law. They cannot use the drones to carry out " unlawful surveillance or use unlawful force against their domestic populations". America will also retain the right to monitor the buyer country's use of the drones after sale, referred to in the state department document as "end-use monitoring" and "additional security conditions". Inside a control room for a Reaper drone at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire (GEOFF PUGH)From the earliest days of the War on Terror, the U.S. has had one weapon that none of its enemies -- and few of its allies -- possessed: drones. Specifically, MQ-1 Predator drones built by privately held defense contractor General Atomics.

Twenty-seven feet long and sporting a 55-foot wingspan, the Predator is nearly as big as an F-16 fighter jet, but weighs just one-sixteenth as much. With its tiny 115-horsepower engine, the Predator buzzes through the air at just 84 miles per hour. It can only fly about 770 miles -- less than half the range of an F-16. But that's far enough to make the drone a valuable surveillance asset -- and armed with two laser-guided AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, the Predator can shoot, as well as search. But now, it's the Predator itself that's in the crosshairs -- of the U.S. Air Force. , the U.S. Air Force "is currently on track to retire all [145 of its] MQ-1 Predators and move to an all-MQ-9 fleet with an estimated completion in 2018." News mil-tech website FoxtrotAlpha lamented that "throngs of perfectly flyable MQ-1s" will "be sent to the boneyard." Apparently, the plan is not just to mothball these Predators for use at a later date. Rather, the drones will be placed in "non-recoverable storage" -- left to rot in the Arizona desert.

Henceforth, their duties will be taken over by General Atomics' successor aircraft, the much larger MQ-9 Reaper. MQ-9: Not nine times better than MQ-1 -- but close Why retire the Predator in favor of the Reaper? According to the Air Force's specifications, the MQ-9 Reaper offers a much more robust platform than the MQ-1 Predator -- for surveillance, and for attack, as well. Reaper measures 66 feet across the wings, and is 36 feet long. Its 4,900-pound curb weight is more than four times as massive as the Predator, and Reaper can carry twice as many Hellfire missiles as Predator can -- and lug along two 500-pound smart bombs for the ride. Most crucially, Reaper's 900-horsepower engine can carry the Reaper 50% farther (a 1,150 mile-range). At a cruising speed of 230 mph, Reaper can get on-station nearly three times as fast as a Predator can. What it means to investors That last factor -- Reaper's superiority to Predator for long-range missions -- appears to have been key to the Air Force's decision to retire the one drone and switch to the other.

But just as important in a constrained spending environment is the fact that, while a Reaper costs about three times as much as a Predator to buy, it costs only about 29% more to fly. A 2013 report from the U.S. Air Force comptroller's office confirms that the Reaper's cost per flight hour is only $4,762 versus $3,679 for the Predator. Given that a Reaper gives the Air Force 50% more range, and more than twice the payload of a Predator, switching to an all-Reaper drone force makes sense. It does, however, risk opening up a hole in the Air Force's capabilities: namely, its ability to fly shorter-range reconnaissance missions economically. Even at just $4,762 an hour, you don't necessarily want to spin up the propellers on a Reaper for a local surveillance flight if a cheaper option is available. With the Predators going away, there may be an opportunity opening up for makers of shorter-range surveillance drones to poach some business from General A. Who are these drone makers?