So I get an email today from one of my co-workers. It's a link to a YouTube video with a question: "Is this news for us?"
Well, Rob, I think so.
US Southern Command has posted an extremely intriguing video of a project in El Salvador involving an Israeli Aircraft Industries Heron unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The Salvadoran military is involved, but it appears to be SOUTHCOM experimenting with the Heron for the counter-drug mission.
The US military experiments with dozens of UAVs, so why is this news?
A version of the Heron called the "Heron 2" lost a huge US Army contract competition in 2004. It was called the extended range/multipurpose (ERMP) UAV program. The army picked the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc's Sky Warrior, a UAV that falls between the Predator and the Reaper in capability.
The new SOUTHCOM experiment begs the question: Could the Heron re-emerge as a contender to join the US military's inventory?
on May 29, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply
I think that this is a sop to the Israeli's in order to gain concessions in the ongoing peace process. Gifts to their industry as a way to grease the skids with their new conservative government. If it was just a thing about operations I can't see why a current model US UAV wouldn't do. It meets the specs. Southern Command with a foreign country tie in puts enough distance between it and US military needs so that Dems won't complain, the Israeli's get a military purchase and SouthCom gets the equipment they need ...regardless of origin.
on May 29, 2009 3:06 PM | Reply
The conspirational theories of greasing the Israelis palms for this or that should be treated with more than a pinch of salt.
Perhaps the Heron is being used as it is a very good aircraft?
It lost in the US Army tender due to the familiar "buy US products" policy, and not because it was an inferior platform.
on June 9, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply
I think that if Southcom REALLY wants to support the few Latin American efforts to attack the drug problem they should look to into using their own UAVs. Mexico has divulged the existence and use of what seems to be a very powerful system that surely will fit in Latin countries better than the Heron. I had the chance to see the aircraft at the General Dynamics booth at the AUVSI show in San Diego, las year. By the way, the system is 100% designed and manufactured in Mexico.
The greasing theory gets solid.