Canada is set to ramp up surveillance of insurgent activity and boost safety for its troops in Afghanistan with the arrival this week of the first in a fleet of new long-range aerial drones.

The CU170 Heron UAV has the capacity to fly for more than 24 hours at a time and to detect insurgents planting deadly roadside bombs or planning ambushes across a 200-kilometre range. The first in a fleet of long-range drones arrived at Kandahar Air Field on Wednesday. The CU170 Heron will replace the smaller Sperwer UAVs, which are limited in the time and distance they can fly. The first in a fleet of long-range drones arrives at Kandahar Air Field on Wednesday. The Canadian Forces had put forward a proposal to purchase UAVs last spring, but the plan was derailed over political concerns the contract would have awarded without competition to a U.S. firm. The government later agreed to lease the Heron UAVs from MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates, a firm based in Richmond, British Columbia. The Manley report had earlier recommended Canada's military mission in Afghanistan continue as long as certain conditions were met, one of those being the government acquire high-performance surveillance UAVs before February 2009.

(Source: Canada.com, Darah Hansen.)



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