Aurora pilots to fly UAVs for Afstan

I guess their reconnaissance expertise comes in handy; interesting that they'll be based at CFB Suffield (and note the MacDonald Dettwiler link near the end):

Capt. Fred Jones is about to go from "flying a desk" to flying a drone.

He’s one of 10 Aurora pilots at 14 Wing Greenwood who will start learning Monday how to fly the Israeli-built Heron unmanned aerial vehicles the Canadian military is leasing for two years.

It’s a dream come true for a 47-year-old who once hankered for a remote-control plane.

"When I was a kid, yeah, I absolutely wanted one," Capt. Jones said Wednesday.

"Never did get it; too expensive and that was that. But now it looks like I’m getting a second chance."

Flying the drones from a distance means the pilots won’t be in jeopardy.

"That has appeal from a personal point of view, of course," Capt. Jones said.

"But also, it lets you do things that you wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. . . . You can dare to be a little bit bolder and fly a little closer to the action. . . . And if something were to happen to it, of course, it’s a shame, but it’s not tragic."

Getting a handle on the Herons, which are flown from the ground via a computer monitor, is going to take some time.

"There’s a huge difference in size. The Aurora’s over 100 feet long and, fully loaded, weighs about 70 tonnes.

"The new (unmanned aerial vehicle) is more the size of a Cessna or something along those lines. It’s pretty tiny."

Capt. Jones, who earned his pilot’s wings a decade ago, has been stationed at the Annapolis Valley base for eight years. He stopped flying Auroras in 2004.

"Since then, I’ve been flying a desk at wing ops," he said, noting the outfit co-ordinates search and rescue missions.

Capt. Jones doesn’t know yet how tough it will be to get back in the air.

"If I got into a plane, I’d certainly feel rusty," he said. "I think the (unmanned aerial vehicle) world may be different enough from flying manned aircraft that I won’t notice the rust so much."

The military discussed the possibility of using Auroras, which can fly more than 9,000 kilometres without refuelling, to conduct surveillance in Afghanistan. But the plan never came to fruition.

Instead, starting in February, Capt. Jones will be among the first Heron pilots to fly the drones over the skies of Kandahar.

The military is hoping the sophisticated spy planes will allow soldiers to avoid ambush and spot insurgents planting roadside bombs that have plagued the International Security Assistance Force, of which Canada is a part.

"I hope we’ll be able to help out the army because that’s really what the scope of the mission is all about," Capt. Jones said.

"You get the bird’s-eye view of what’s going on on the ground, so it’s possible to see things that wouldn’t be seen from ground level because of obstacles and hills."

After going through ground school for a month-and-a-half at Greenwood, the new Heron crews will travel to CFB Suffield in Alberta to fly the drones.

"That will give us a chance to not only operate the vehicle in flight, but also to co-operate with the army, because that’s the main thrust of the job."

The drones can stay aloft for hours and hours, allowing them to "loiter" in the skies until they’re needed, he said "So with a few of them, you could get round-the-clock coverage."

Airborne electronic sensor operators from Greenwood who normally fly in Auroras will be training on the Herons to use their cameras and various pieces of surveillance equipment.

"There will also be one person from the intelligence section watching because they would be the experts on interpreting what you see," Capt. Jones said.

Employees of the British Columbia firm supplying the drones will pilot the aircraft during takeoffs and landings from Kandahar [emphasis added--firm is MacDonald Dettwiler, here's the list of UAV personnel they're hiring]. That means the military won’t have to pay for any runway crashes like the ones that wrecked a few Sperwers, another type of drone the Canadian Forces sent to Afghanistan several years ago.

"That takes some of the pressure off, I guess," Capt. Jones said.

Babbler's interjection: "Runway crashes"...hunh? What exactly are they talking about?



Note that the Sperwer takes off launched from a track, not from a runway.



Note also that it lands under a parachute, not touching down on a runway like a conventional aircraft.

A cursory Google check will confirm the Sperwer has little use for runways, let alone problems with them:

Sperwer’s pneumatic rail-launcher is carried by a 10-tonne truck. Sperwer sits in a cradle which is propelled along this elevated rail to gain flying speed. Post-mission recovery is via a 117-square metre parachute – which deploys from a hatch in the upper fuselage. The landing is cushioned by airbags under each wing as well as the fuselage.

The Sperwers have had crashes, but they weren't the result of Canadian operators screwing up on "takeoffs" or "landings" on runways. So having contractors pilot the Herons on and off the ground may well reduce future liabilities, but it wouldn't have reduced past losses, since the new UAV's don't operate the same way the old ones did.

But hey, "journalists live for details," right? - Damian