WASHINGTON \u2015 What can fly for 12 hours straight, launches from a catapult on the deck of a Coast Guard cutter and has helped apprehend more than 11 tons of contraband?<\/p>\n
Answer: small unmanned aircraft systems, and the U.S. Coast Guard has asked for a lot more of them.<\/p>\n
The Coast Guard began the hunt for an economically priced and multipurpose drone earlier this year after recording its third-largest drug bust of all time with the help of sUAS.<\/p>\n
Faced with the challenge of policing millions of nautical miles of sea for cocaine smugglers, the Coast Guard specified the need for an sUAS able to \u201cconduct surveillance, detection, classification and identification operations.\u201d The drone also needs to \u201csupport prosecution by providing real-time imagery, data, target illumination, [and] communications relay\u201d to Coast Guard vessels.<\/p>\n
Now, the Coast Guard seems convinced it has found the answer in the form of Insitu\u2019s ScanEagle.<\/p>\n
Cmdr. Daniel Broadhurst, unmanned aircraft systems division chief in the Office of Aviation Forces, praised the \u201ctransformational technology\u201d of the sUAS as \u201can incredibly important first step in realizing the Coast Guard\u2019s vision of fleetwide\u201d drones. He also said in a statement that the Coast Guard is \u201cexcited\u201d to contract with Insitu.<\/p>\n
Though the U.S. Navy has experience operating the ScanEagle aboard its vessels, Insitu is presented with an entirely new challenge when it comes to the Coast Guard, according to Ron Tremain, Insitu\u2019s business development executive for the U.S. Coast Guard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe USCG isn\u2019t like other militaries \u2015 they routinely operate in extreme atmospherics that other services don\u2019t typically operate in\u201d Tremain explained. Moisture proved to be the biggest challenge, as the engineering team had to weatherize the ScanEagle (originally built in 1994 to collect weather data) to operate in rain, squalls and heavy sea states.<\/p>\n
The Coast Guard has good reason to be excited about the potential of the ScanEagle and the improvement of drone capabilities. The \u201csUAS capability was involved in 17 drug interdictions resulting in the confiscation of 10,202 kilograms of contraband,\u201d according to a Coast Guard statement. That\u2019s roughly 11 tons.<\/p>\n
Insitu employees with \u201cproper military credentials\u201d operate alongside crews to ensure the ScanEagles are expertly handled, Tremain noted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis contract is only the beginning for unmanned systems within the Coast Guard,\u201d Jeff Bishop, program manager with the Office of Aviation Acquisition, said. \u201cAnd to be at the very beginning of this paradigm shift is an amazing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
__ __ __ __<\/p>\n
Credit: Defense News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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