It is the way that the men suddenly scuttle the second before they die that sticks in the mind. What do they hear? The sudden roar of rocket presumably, fired from an invisible unmanned machine 25,000ft (7,600m) above them that captures the flaring, explosive moment of death in granulated infra-red video footage.

Reaper, the RAF's latest high-tech acquisition for the insurgency in Afghanistan, piloted by US operators back in distant Nevada: smart technology, futuristic, remote, impressive even, but as the name suggests, it still kills.

“We fly, operate and fight the aircraft at a height where people on the ground won't know we're there: it's a very quiet aeroplane,” explained one of the two RAF personnel responsible for arming, launching and recovering British Reapers from Kandahar airbase.

“It is remote-controlled warfare, a term we hate but that's very much the truth.”

Purchased from the US the two unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) have been used by British Forces in Afghanistan since September.

Primarily a night-time reconnaissance asset, each is nevertheless equipped with Hellfire missiles and 500lb laser-guided bombs, the same payload as an F16. Unlike jets however, which may only be on call for ground troops for half an hour at a time, Reaper cruises the sky in twelve-hour shifts.

Launched by the two RAF operators using radio antennas linking the machines to a ground-control centre inside Kandahar airbase, once airborne the link is severed and reconnected via satellite to Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where it is piloted on screen for the duration of each mission before being landed again by the two servicemen in Kandahar.

The control console bears similarities to the inside of a jet cockpit, complete with throttles and control pedals. Yet since the Reaper video cameras point downward, the Kandahar operators, both pilots, have no peripheral vision.

The rules of engagement for the British Reaper operators are exactly the same as for jet pilots. A parallel series of questions are asked addressing whether a strike could be undertaken and should be undertaken.

Commonly a joint tactical air controller (JTAC), already on the ground with forward troops, will have access to the realtime Reaper footage on a battlefield computer.

He will call in the strike, which will be then executed by the Nevada operator. The rules of engagement are different to those of their US counterparts and, unlike the Americans, the British stated that their Reapers did not cross the border to Pakistan.

Though one senior RAF officer was reticent about the exact number of strikes the machines have performed it seems that the Reapers bomb regularly. One RAF Reaper was reportedly to have crashed recently over Afghanistan.

Certain details of this report were omitted at the MoD's request

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