Farnborough 2010: Thales on track to deliver Watchkeeper to British Army

Thales is on track to deliver Watchkeeper to the British Army by May next year with a progressive roll-out in to the Afghanistan theatre next year coinciding with a draw down of the Project Lydian Hermes 450s, according to Thales UK's business director ISTAR, Nick Miller.

The army expects to get Watchkeeper in-theatre by late 2011. Currently Thales has a contract for H450 that runs in to 2012.

To date the H450s have flown some 35,000 hours during more than 2,000 operational sorties. 'Make no mistake, that is an extensive amount of operational hours,' Miller told reporters at the Farnborough International Air Show.

That operational experience is being fed through in to the development of the Watchkeeper system.

A snippet of that operational experience was provided by Major Matt Moore, Watchkeeper Implementation Team, Headquarter Director Royal Artillery UK Ministry of Defence. Moore showed imagery from two counter-IED operations in Iraq.

In the first scenario 32 Regiment, Royal Artillery provided overwatch for a combat logistics patrol. The crew spotted suspicious activity at a particular choke point that proved to be an IED-initiated ambush. The H450 was then able to cue air support for the patrol.

'In our case all motion video product is not just video but exploited imagery looked at by a trained analyst,' Moore stated. In a second scenario a H450 crew spotted and were able to neutralise the fleeting target of an IED emplacement team with the assistance of an F-16 strafing run.

Moore believes that the increased capability that Watchkeeper will provide with its synthetic aperture radar will be a step-change for the UK. He added that the increased product output could be accommodated by the available analysts. The 'imagery on demand' built in to the Watchkeeper system will also assist in easing operator workload.

By Darren Lake, Farnborough

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