# Army buys spy drones for Afghan mission



## Jason Jarvis (8 Aug 2003)

Didn‘t Canadair pioneer the development of UAVs in the 1960s? This is great for the army and long overdue.



> *Army buys spy drones for Afghan mission*
> _$33.8-million contract: Unmanned French planes increase troop safety during high-risk operations_
> 
> Chris Wattie
> ...


Can someone find a link to pictures of the Sperwer? I did a quick search but only came up with news releases.

Let‘s hope the army gets the money it needs to keep these in service once it returns from Kabul.


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## Cycophant (8 Aug 2003)

Well, they _did_ say they would be sparing no expense to keep our soldiers well prepared and protected.  Glad to see they‘re not going back on their word.

A quick search on the internet revealed many photos of the bird the UAV is named after (a neat looking predator bird, to boot), however, I think I finally came across something:






If you want the website I got it off of, it‘s  here.  There‘s a few more pictures, too.


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## Devlin (8 Aug 2003)

I always thought drones were Ocdt‘s.

Seriously though very cool too see some high tech weapons in our arsenal now. 

  :soldier:


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## deathwing5 (8 Aug 2003)

Hopefully we can buy those robots that look like Arnold Schwarznegger.  Austrian engineering.


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## Danjanou (8 Aug 2003)

Yeah great piece of kit, and about time.

Sad part though, as Jason noted in the original post, we were one of the pioneers in this field 40 years ago, and sold them to other militaries then. Now that we decide to equip our own forces with them we have to go and buy foreign.


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## Recce41 (9 Aug 2003)

We are buying a smaller version. Canadian design and built for Recce Sqns, in the next yr or two. These will be one per Troop.


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## Gun Shy (9 Aug 2003)

yeah, but the Canadair Peanut is still a weird looking UAV. While it is not the ideal UAV. However there are better UAV on the market. Like the American Predator or Shadow.


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## K_Willcox (21 Nov 2003)

Predator is to big
Shadow still has problems not an accurate position fix for artillery adjustment


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## Slim (21 Nov 2003)

The question is are there going to be enough to go around. The Armoured Corps Recce units ( a Brigade Asset) has a huge priority when it comes to kit like that...However so do the Artillery, and overseas deployment in an active theatres.
However I guess one thing at a time. I should be glad we have a few rather than none.  :warstory:


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