[R-G] Canada's next drones will carry bombs

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/Technology/Canada+next+drones+will+carry+bombs/1356414/story.html

Canada's next drones will carry bombs
By Archie McLean , Canwest News Service March 5, 2009 11:01 AM

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Unlike the drones currently patrolling the  
Afghan skies, Canada's next generation of pilotless aircraft will  
carry bombs or guided missiles, says Canada's top air force commander.

“Armed UAVs with air to ground weapons are a valuable capability and  
it's a good option to have,” said Lt.-Gen. Angus Watt, who was in  
Kandahar.

It is the first time the chief of air staff has confirmed the  
military's intention to buy weaponized drones. Watt has expressed  
skepticism about armed UAVs in the past. He reiterated some of those  
concerns this week, but said the weapons are a worthwhile capability.

“Canada very much respects the law of armed conflict and you have to  
satisfy a number of conditions before you drop a weapon on anything,”  
he said.

“In the case of the UAV, those conditions will be very difficult to  
satisfy.”

Watt's comments were under a security embargo until he left  
Afghanistan Wednesday.

Canada is currently leasing several Heron UAVs that are flying over  
Afghanistan right now, conducting surveillance and reconnaissance  
missions. Under a program called JUSTAS - the Joint UAV Surveillance  
and Target Acquisition System - Canada is exploring weaponized models  
such as the United States is currently using to hunt and kill  
insurgents in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The program still needs government approval and could cost as much as  
$750 million.

The next generation UAVs “have a huge role to play in the future of  
the Canadian Forces,” Watt said.

Pilots are already testing the Heron. They sit in front of screens,  
manipulating joysticks, trackballs and control boxes like an elaborate  
video game.

Capt. Brent Peardon says it's actually pretty similar to a  
conventional aircraft except he has fewer senses to guide decision- 
making.

“You're not experiencing the three-dimensional realm the same as a  
pilot,” Peardon says.

“You have to pay extra close attention to our instrumentation and  
parameters.”

The Heron looks like a cross between a glider plane and a 1,100  
kilogram insect with a 16.6-metre wing span. It can fly for up to 24  
hours at a time and carries equipment designed to detect IEDs or other  
explosive material on the ground.

It has advantages, too, over the older Sperwer UAVs, which are smaller  
and sound like a flying lawn mower.

“The Heron can go further, it can stay up longer, it can do it without  
being detected and it provides very high fidelity image back to the  
operators here,” says Col. Christopher Coates, the air wing commander.

But while Canadians are just starting to ramp up their robot fleet,  
the Americans have been using them for increasingly sophisticated  
jobs. According to P.W. Singer, the author of the book Wired for War:  
The robotics revolution and conflict in the 21st century, the U.S. has  
more than 5,300 unmanned aerial drones, including the heavily armed  
Reaper drone, which can carry four Hellfire missiles and a pair of 227  
kilogram laser-guided bombs.

The Americans also have thousands of ground-based robots, including  
one that can shoot down incoming rockets, artillery or mortar rounds.  
Here in Afghanistan, Canadian combat engineers use robots to diffuse  
IEDs in the same way police bomb squads do in Canada.

UAVs may never eliminate conventional aircraft completely, but for  
some jobs - the dull, dirty or dangerous ones - they are particularly  
well suited.

Darren Daigle, an operations manager with MDA, the company maintaining  
the Herons as part of the lease, envisions them being used for long  
cargo flights, search and rescue patrols or forest fire fighting.

Canada's new UAVs could be flying as soon as February 2012.

Edmonton Journal