Boeing Insitu to build six ScanEagle small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for Lebanon in $8.2 million order
PATUXENT RIVER NAS, Md. –Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designers at Insitu Inc. in Bingen, Wash., will build six ScanEagle small UAVs for the government of Lebanon under terms of a $8.2 million U.S. Navy order announced late last month.
Officials of the Naval Air Systems Command at Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Md., are asking Insitu to provide six ScanEagle UAVs, support equipment, training, site activation, technical services, and data for Lebanon. Insitu is a subsidiary of the Boeing Co.
The ScanEagle UAV is 5.1 feet long with a 5.6-foot wingspan. It weighs as much as 48.5 pounds and can carry a 7.5-pound sensor payload. The UAV can fly for more than 24 hours at altitudes as high as 19.500 feet, and at speeds to 80 knots.
The unmanned aircraft can fly on gasoline or heavy fuels like jet fuel, diesel, or kerosine.
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The mission of ScanEagle is to provide persistent surveillance and reconnaissance imagery on land or at sea at lower costs than other surveillance methods for military and agriculture missions.
ScanEagle can carry a sensor payload consisting of visible-light camera, medium-wave infrared imager, or both integrated in one turret. The UAV ans has an analog digitally encrypted video data link, as well as encrypted or unencrypted command-and-control data link.
The UAV can be launched autonomously and uses a no-nets recovery system that recovers with its wing tip on a rope that hangs from a boom.
On this contract Insitu will do the work in Bingen and White Salmon, Wash., and should be finished in June 2020. For more information contact Insitu online at www.insitu.com, or Naval Air Systems Command at www.navair.navy.mil.
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John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
