Army buys spy drones for Afghan mission

[Jason Jarvis]

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
National Post

Friday, August 08, 2003 - The Canadian Forces has bought four French-built spy drones for use in the army‘s deployment to Afghanistan, John McCallum, the Defence Minister, announced yesterday.

The $33.8-million contract for the high-tech unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) was awarded to Oerlikon-Contraves Inc., of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., the subcontractor for the French firm that builds the drones, the Minister said in a news release.

The UAVs will be used during the current Canadian Forces‘ mission in Afghanistan, where 1,900 Canadian troops are now being shuttled into the capital to join the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

"Every effort is being made to ensure [Canadian troops] can safely and successfully carry out their duties in Kabul‘s high-risk environment," said General Ray Henault, the Canadian Forces‘ top general.

"Tactical UAVs will offer troops a better level of situational awareness, a requirement for today‘s theatres of operation."

The three-metre "Sperwer" drones are manufactured by the French firm SAGEM and are in service with France, Netherlands, Sweden, Greece and Denmark.

The remotely piloted craft can cruise at up to 16,400 feet altitude for as long as five hours, sending back images of targets up to 150 kilometres from its operators on the ground.

Major Paul Romano, director of the military‘s UAV project office, said the Canadian Forces wants to get the new drones to the troops in Kabul "as fast as we possibly can.... Realistically, we‘re hoping to get it into theatre in October. We going to do our d@mnedest to do that."

He said the military will begin training the operators for the UAVs next week, but said the drones are simple to fly.

"You have a digital map.... You set the altitude, the patrol area and the aircraft takes off and flies itself basically," Maj. Romano said.

"Once it‘s in the air, the computer senses the air, the wind direction and speed and compensates for all those factors and follows the path you laid out on the map."

At the moment, ISAF is using German "Luna" UAVs to patrol the skies over Kabul, he said.

"But our new system will be much better.... What we‘re getting is a very capable system and we‘re very excited about it."

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.

 

[Cycophant]

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.

 

[Devlin]

I always thought drones were Ocdt‘s.

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

:soldier:

 

[deathwing5]

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

 

[Danjanou]

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.

 

[Recce41]

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.

 

[Gun Shy]

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.

 

[K_Willcox]

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

 

[Slim]

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: