Project Noctua & the Heron UAV - Interim capability to support Afghanistan Ops

[aesop081]

would be very useful

When "very useful" meets "budget"..........

and frankly the day of the UAV has come to stay for quite some time.

Yes, we know. I think the entire military knows this. Yet again, the Heron was contracted out as a result of the Manley report and for the current Afghan mission only. That contract is ending, as planned. Hopefuly, the JUSTAS project will be able to continue in the near future.

 

[Container]

We're running into issues in the police world right now with UAV's. There are some incredibly useful applications for us that we could get some serious leg work from but Transport Canada has thus far been uncooperative. I believe the OPP has been lobbying for change, unsuccessfully for three years now.

Not completely applicable but it underlines that its not as easy as "keeping the program" in Canada.

And police "UAV's" are not nearly as complex, or for what i've seen, as large as the military ones (small though they be).

 

[dimsum]

UAVs can be fairly big.  Heron is about the size of a light single-engine plane (think Cessna 172).  Reaper is larger than that, and Global Hawk is...well, big.

 

[aesop081]

Transport Canada has thus far been uncooperative.

The RAAF crash in Suffeild has not made them more cooperative. One of the other Sgts in my section was on the Heron course there at the time and after TC said "no more UAVs", they had to go do their flying phase in Israel.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We're running into issues in the police world right now with UAV's. There are some incredibly useful applications for us that we could get some serious leg work from but Transport Canada has thus far been uncooperative. I believe the OPP has been lobbying for change, unsuccessfully for three years now.

Not completely applicable but it underlines that its not as easy as "keeping the program" in Canada.

And police "UAV's" are not nearly as complex, or for what i've seen, as large as the military ones (small though they be).

As I mentioned elsewhere, TC took 25yrs to deal with hovercrafts, despite being one of the biggest users thereof in Canada. So grappling with UAV’s will take them a long time.

However are you sure it’s TC causing the issue or perhaps TSB?


4.0 GENERAL INFORMATION
4.1 Application
1. Transport Canada is responsible for the conduct of civil UAVs. As stated in section 102.01 of the CARs, these regulations do not apply in respect of

1. military aircraft of Her Majesty in right of Canada when they are being manoeuvred under the authority of the Minister of National Defence, or

2. military aircraft of a country other than Canada, to the extent that the Minister of National Defence has exempted them from the application of these Regulations pursuant to subsection 5.9(2) of the Act (i.e. foreign military UAVs)

2. In these cases, the operation of UAVs are not subject to the Canadian Aviation Regulations, but are subject to Military Flying Orders. Military operations being conducted in civil airspace require coordination with NAV CANADA and may require assistance from Transport Canada’s Aerodromes and Air Navigation branch. Where a UAV operator is a civil agency or person and the operation is being conducted in restricted military airspace, the operation will require a Special Flight Operations Certificate issued by Transport Canada, in cooperation with the Department of National Defence in the administration of that airspace.

3. The staff instructions contained in this document apply to all civil applications to conduct unmanned air vehicle flight operations. In cross border operations, where the UAV pilot is in another state (e.g. control station is in the United States), the Certificate holder is still responsible for compliance with the regulations of the state in which the UAV is operating (i.e. Canada).

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/opssvs/managementservices-referencecentre-documents-600-623-001-972.htm

edit: I don't see anything on the TSB report page either searched 2008 & 2009
http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/index.asp