Royal Canadian Air Force aiming to have armed drones
The Royal Canadian Air Force is hoping to pull the trigger on the purchase of new armed drones within six years after spending nearly two decades weighing different options.
The Canadian Forces has been working since the early 2000s to identify and buy a fleet of UAVs that can conduct surveillance over Canada’s vast territory as well as support military missions abroad.
Yet aside from purchasing a small number of temporary, unarmed drones for the war in Afghanistan — all of which have since been retired — the military has never been able to make much progress on a permanent fleet.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, air force commander Lt.-Gen. Al Meinzinger said he is confident that is about to change after the Trudeau government officially approved the purchase of a fleet of armed UAVs through its defence policy.
That decision was one of the most notable shifts in the new policy, released in June 2017, which included a promise to spend an extra $62 billion over the next 20 years to expand and strengthen the military.
No previous federal government had authorized adding drones — armed or not — as a permanent fixture within the Canadian Forces in the same vein as fighter-jet or helicopter squadrons.
“We say we’ve got policy top-cover, which means we can see that program clearly in our defence policy,” Meinzinger said. “So we’re moving that project forward ... That will be a capability we will see in the next five to six years.”
The Royal Canadian Air Force has been quietly evaluating options and will soon present its ideas to procurement officials, he added. The plan is to buy one type of mediumaltitude, long-endurance UAV for the military.
Drones have taken on an increasingly important role in militaries around the world; a report in the Royal Canadian Air Force Journal in late 2015 said 76 foreign militaries were using them and another 50 were developing them.