“cost benefits aside” – er, well, I don’t think you can really exclude them.

With this system you don’t need a runway. Predators – and even more, Reapers – are expensive, so you’re not going to have many. Operate them continuously, loitering for targets of opportunity, & you fall foul of their high accident rate: one of the costs of UAVs which is often ignored. This thing looks slow, & will take a while to get on station, but it won’t take anywhere near as long as a Reaper coming from a runway a lot further away.

Maybe but I am assuming that this is a one way craft, ie once its launched thats it, at least with a Reaper if it does not find a target it can come home. I would also be intrigued to know how they intend on targetting this thing, if it has its own sensor package it cant be abything special becouse of cost reasons, if it needs a seperate platform then you may as well just have SDB armed Reapers and be done with it. However I would agree this is an interesting concept, if a cheap enough truck portable long endurance ramp launched UAV could be provided which could move with the launch vehicles I certainly think it could have alot of potential. Something like Phoenix for instance or in more secured and prepared areas Watchkeeper.