rwandan-flyer.blog4ever.com

03/12/2013

IMPORTANT : the aim of this article is to inform  , and not to say who is right or wrong in this conflict. There are many websites or forum which talk about tensions between DR Congo and Rwanda.

Since now some days, United Nations deployed drones, here are some informations about them:

 Falco is a state-of-the-art medium-altitude endurance and tactical unmanned air vehicle (UAV) manufactured by the Italian sensors developer Selex Galileo. It will be co-produced by Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) at its Kamra facility in Punjab province. The co-production of Falco began in August 2009. Falco is principally employed by the Pakistan Air Force for optronic and electronic surveillance applications, and homeland security operations.

The Falco UAV flys at a height of 6,500m and can carry a maximum payload of 70kg. It has the capacity to fly at a maximum speed of 60m/s with an endurance of eight to14 hours. It is powered by a single 49kW (65hp) gasoline engine to provide required electricity for the aircraft during its operation in air.

It is also building an upgrade kit to increase the UAV's payload capacity to 120kg and endurance to 18 hours with a maximum take-off weight of 750kg.

The flight campaign of the Falco UAV was completed in September 2009. Selex Galileo has integrated and tested multiple payloads including electro optic and infrared sensors, and synthetic aperture radar during this campaign. Another six-month campaign was completed in December 2009. The extensive flight test was conducted under extreme weather conditions ranging from the ice-cold temperatures of Northern Europe to 50°C hot desert climate.

The system is equipped with automatic take-off and landing facility (with STOL performance), fully redundant and fault-tolerant control systems, digital buses and control link equipment, automatic area surveillance modes and near-real-time target image processing, mission preplanning, retasking, mission simulation and autonomous navigational systems.

Falco comprises a ground control station (GCS), ground data terminal (GDT), ground support equipment (GSE) and four Falco air vehicles including payloads. The GCS manages mission planning and retasking, mission simulation for operator training, and mission rehearsal and playback.

The fixed tricycle-type landing gear has been designed by Selex Galileo. It can avoid payload and structural damage caused to aircraft by heavy landings (decks landings or parachute recovery). It is also used in semi-prepared landing strip operations.

The radars being used by the Falco UAV include synthetic aperture radar (SAR), maritime surveillance radar (MSR), self-protection equipment and ESM (electronic support measures). The synthetic aperture radar deployed in Falco captures high-resolution images of the battlefield even in bad weather conditions, using highly modern digital electronics technology.

The ground data terminal (GDT) offers communication link range between the GCS and Falco air vehicle flying at a range of over 200km. It uses jam-resistant data transmission in real time. The GDT provides data, reports, annotated images and processed video clips of the battlefield to commanders at the ground control station.

SOURCE : AIR FORCE TECHNOLOGY : HERE

Copyright to Selex Galileo Falco

United Nations set to deploy Drones to monitor the Congo-Rwanda-Uganda's border in June 2013 ?

15/02/2013

By Jonny Hogg

You can read related articles : HERE.

Surveillance drones could be used by peacekeepers in the rugged hills of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the first such deployment of unmanned aircraft in a U.N. mission, as early as June, Congo's prime minister said on Thursday.

The Security Council approved their use last month in Congo's porous and volatile borderlands, where U.N. experts claim a year-old rebellion has received support from neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda, a charge both countries deny.

"The process of acquiring drones has already been launched. By June or July they should be operational," Augustin Matata Ponyo Mapon told reporters after returning from New York where he met Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon.

A spokesman for Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MONUSCO, said he was not aware of a deployment date for the drones.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told the Security Council in January that aerial systems were needed to monitor an area of rugged terrain, thick forests and possessing few roads. But unlike unmanned U.S. aircraft that have carried out strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, the U.N. drones will not be armed.

The Council said it would be a trial deployment "to enhance situational awareness ... on a case-by case basis" after concerns from Russia, China and Rwanda over the use of aerial surveillance equipment delayed the decision for weeks.

(SOURCE : REUTERS : HERE)