Australia — ScanEagle’s final flight

The ScanEa­gle Unmanned Aer­i­al Vehi­cle (UAV) has flown its last mis­sion in Afghanistan, with the Shad­ow 200 Tac­ti­cal Unmanned Aer­i­al Sys­tem (TUAS) tak­ing over the sur­veil­lance role in full.

ScanEa­gle UAV Source: Aus­tralian Depart­ment of Defence

Here you can find more infor­ma­tion about:  The Aus­tralian Defense Indus­try – Mar­ket Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Entry Strate­gies, Analy­ses and Fore­casts to 2016 Aus­tralia — Defense Expen­di­ture to 2015 — Mar­ket Siz­ing and Fore­casts: Mar­ket Pro­file — GlobalDefence.net — Defence Studies Home­land Secu­ri­ty Expen­di­ture in Aus­tralia to 2016: Mar­ket Review

Joint Oper­a­tions Chief Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Ash Pow­er said the ScanEa­gle had pro­vid­ed con­stant intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance sup­port to ground ele­ments in Afghanistan since 2007. 

“Dur­ing that time the ScanEa­gle has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the force pro­tec­tion and sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness of the coali­tion force sol­dier on the ground,” he said. 

“This was an aver­age of 22 hours per day over the four-year-and-10-month peri­od – a tremen­dous effort.” 

About 180 Aus­tralian Defence Force per­son­nel deployed in sup­port of the ScanEa­gle, most­ly from 20th Sur­veil­lance and Tar­get Acqui­si­tion Reg­i­ment, with ele­ments from 16th Air Defence Reg­i­ment, Defence Imagery and Geospa­tial Organ­i­sa­tion, 1st Topo­graph­ic Sur­vey Squadron and 16th Avi­a­tion Brigade. 

“ScanEa­gle has been the vehi­cle for the Aus­tralian Army to devel­op its UAV capa­bil­i­ty and the Army is now tak­ing the next step by employ­ing the Shad­ow 200 TUAS,” Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al Pow­er said. 

Dur­ing its five years in oper­a­tion in Afghanistan, ScanEa­gles flew about 32,000 hours in more than 6,200 mis­sions in sup­port of the Recon­struc­tion Task Force, Men­tor­ing and Recon­struc­tion Task Force, MTF, Com­bined Team – Uruz­gan and the Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Task Group. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia