Drone has soaring potential
THE Black Hornet 3 Nano Unmanned Aerial System is a capability that was on trial last week at Townsville Field Training Area.
Personnel from the 3rd Brigade introduced the drone in a combat scenario following the strike of the Protected Mobility Vehicle – Light Hawkei.
Sergeant Steven Frater of the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment reconnaissance platoon said the Black Hornet allowed information on both enemy and terrain to be retrieved without running the risk of detection.
“It’s an outstanding piece of technology coming through it gives us the ability to conduct nearly 2km from the operational location with a 20- minute radius,” Sgt Frater said. “It has both thermal capability as well as day optics, it can detect a person on the ground if they’re out in the open.”
Officer Commanding 1st Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment Charlie Com-pany and Combat team for Land Trial Major Todd O’Callaghan said the device was flexible.
“We can use the Black Hornet in a number of ways. It can be reactive or it can be proactive,” Maj O’Callaghan said.
“In that combat scenario we used it as a reactionary device to be able to identify where enemy were, once they started to make contact with us we can identify their strength, location and we can try to manoeuvre them and destroy them.”