Camcopter S-100 UAS demonstrates maritime capabilities on French Frigate

27th October 2008 - 00:00 GMT | by The Shephard News Team

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After the successful trials on the German K130 class corvettes during the summer, the CAMCOPTER S-100 Unmanned Air System (UAS) continued its maritime progress, by again demonstrating its suitability for the maritime environment including its proven automatic decking capabilities, on a French Naval Frigate.

Already tested and proven in the demanding maritime environment on a number of different sized platforms around the world, the Schiebel CAMCOPTER S-100 was recently chosen by DCNS for trials. The two weeks of planned trials commenced on a steel barge, just 22 m long by 14 m wide and towed 60 m behind a 41 m ocean going tug in the Atlantic Ocean off Brest for 4 days, in northern France in seas exceeding sea state 3 at times.

Following this very successful proving phase, both companies then moved to Toulon in Southern France and conducted 3 days of continuous testing on board the French Navy frigate “Montcalm” in the Mediterranean. It gave the Schiebel team the opportunity to again demonstrate its own proven automatic launch and recovery capability of this unique and unrivalled VTOL UAS to the French Navy. In addition, DCNS had the opportunity to use the S-100 as the platform to test their newly developed automatic decking device.

Over the 2 weeks, the CAMCOPTER S-100 system successfully flew almost 8 hours in total, conducted 49 deck landings in conditions up to sea state 3 with up to 8 degrees of pitch and roll at times. The company is very pleased with the progress of the CAMCOPTER S-100 UAS from seagoing vessels and anticipates that the eventual inclusion of the DCNS decking system will enhance its already impressive capability.