Coast Guard closer to acquiring ship-based drones.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security News

A decade ago, the Coast Guard had a vision for its fleets of national security and offshore patrol cutters: Vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned aerial vehicles would greatly expand the number of square miles the service could conduct searches beyond a ship's line of sight, while improving the loiter time by orders of magnitude over manned helicopters.

Once a key part of the now defunct Deepwater Integrated Systems, the VTOL unmanned aircraft called Eagle-Eye was initially going to look a lot like a miniature V-22 Osprey, which features tilt-rotors. Hangar space on the national security cutters could have accommodated up to two of them.

Once that effort came to a halt for cost and technical reasons, the Coast Guard put that plan on ice. It kept tabs on the Navy's Fire Scout, another helicopter drone, but didn't have any funds to pursue its own program.

The service over the years became the only one that wasn't taking advantage of the unmanned aerial vehicles revolution, and all the benefits they had to offer.

Since then, in a joint program with Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard has deployed a land-based maritime Predator UAV that flies from Corpus Christi, Texas, and patrols the Caribbean. However, a ship-based drone is still not officially part of any cutter program.

The service has completed mission needs statements and developed concepts of operations, according to a service...