Canadian Heron UAV’s become operational in Afghanistan
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2008/12/18/7787631-sun.html#print
KANDAHAR — Canada’s soldiers in Afghanistan have new eyes in the sky.
The first of several Heron pilotless spy drones were unveiled yesterday shortly after their arrival at Kandahar Air Field, where they will soon be keeping tabs on the Taliban from above.
The drones — also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs — will help coalition forces ferret out Taliban fighters planting roadside bombs or planning ambushes, Canadian Forces officials say.
The commander of Canada’s air wing, Col. Christopher Coates, said the Herons can stay in the air longer than the current crop of unmanned surveillance planes.
“The UAV that we’re using right now deals with a smaller area for a shorter period of time, measured in a few hours at most, whereas this UAV could be in the air for more than a day,” Coates said.
“If the enemy hears the small UAV, which is possible, then maybe he’ll stop what he’s doing. He knows he only has to stop for a short period of time. That’s impossible with this UAV.”
The Air Force will use the unarmed tactical drones for intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance.
Two Taliban fighters were killed earlier this week after drones spotted them planting explosives in a culvert not far from where six Canadian soldiers were killed recently in a pair of separate roadside bomb attacks.
Acquiring the pilotless spy planes was a key condition of the Manley commission report last winter.
The Herons were needed to replace the Sperwer tactical drones, which have been used in Afghanistan since 2003 but are becoming outdated.
The Conservative government has dithered about replacing the Sperwers. Cabinet rejected a proposal last year to buy U.S.-made Predator drones because the contract would have been awarded to a single firm.
TP400 flies for the first time…
Airbus has today carried out the first flight of the EuroProp International TP400 powerplant for the belated A400M military transport, a test lasting 1hr 15min. A single example of the engine has been fitted to the left inboard position on a Lockheed C-130K test-bed aircraft.
It departed at 10:44 from Cambridge in the UK and landed at 11:59. Airbus’ military division says the test involved assessing the TP400 at a thrust equivalent to the maximum level of the C-130’s other three Rolls-Royce Allison T56s – although the new engine is capable of delivering twice the power. The TP400’s response was tested in several aircraft configurations at speeds up to 165kt and to a height of 8,000ft.
“This was a first step in the aircraft envelope opening,” says Airbus Military. “It will allow progress towards the completion of the approximately 50 flight-test hours planned to reach sufficient maturity for the engine itself.”
Airbus says that the engine will be able to fly on the A400M once the powerplant reaches a “satisfactory” state. “This and subsequent flights will comfort us in the performance of the new engine itself, as well as its reliability, in a real flying environment,” says A400M programme chief Rafael Tentor.
He says that completion of the first flight is a “significant step” for the project, which has been plagued by delays centred on development of the powerplant. EuroProp International has so far clocked up over 2,100hr in ground tests of the eight-bladed TP400. Airborne testing using the C-130 is being conducted by Marshall Aerospace.
Jet-Incursion Flap Highlights India-Pakistan Tensions
A purported midnight incursion of Indian air force jets into Pakistani airspace Saturday brought tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors to an even higher pitch in the wake of the attacks on India’s financial capital of Mumbai that killed 171 last month. Within minutes, the Indian jets were chased back by the Pakistani air force, say Pakistani officials, and retired air force commanders interviewed on Pakistani TV swore to defend their nation. The Pakistani air force claimed that Indian planes intruded as much as 2 miles (4 km) into the country, but the government says it accepted Indian assurances that the incursions were inadvertent; the Indian government, for its part, denied publicly that an incursion took place at all. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari dismissed the incident at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Sunday, calling it a “technical incursion — two planes flying 50,000 miles up in the air; when they turned, they slightly entered Pakistan soil.” Brown was in Islamabad after visiting India and Afghanistan to discuss security in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.
Still, the planes allegedly entered Pakistan near the two cities of Lahore and Muzaffarabad, where the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba — which has been accused by Indian and British investigators of planning the Mumbai attacks — had been allowed to operate under the aegis of its charitable wing Jamaat-ud-Daawa until its leader was put under house arrest on Thursday. Pakistani analysts suggest that the “inadvertent” incursion may have been a warning that if strong action was not taken against the accused terror group by the Pakistani government, the Indian government would take matters into its own hands. Zardari stressed that the government was doing all it could to help in the investigation, and complained that doubts about its efforts were unhelpful. “We are investigating, and the Indians say they are investigating, but to say that we could come up with proof before they can would be asking too much from us,” he said.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1866307,00.html
Sign In
