In fact, SkyGuardian's endurance represents a dramatic advantage for police departments as a replacement for human-piloted helicopters, which are limited by how long the pilot can stay in the air. Larger drones may appeal to police departments over smaller, more common quadcopters, as they can stay in the air for days - in SkyGuardian's case, up to 40 hours. The head of the branch within San Diego's Economic Development Corporation supporting General Atomics's upcoming test flight has assured the public that the effort is not intended to create an atmosphere of mistrust, and that it is not the defense contractor's intention to sell military-grade drones to law enforcement agencies.īut an article by Defense One points out that General Atomics officials want the SkyGuardian to freely fly in American skies by 2025, and one of the drone's biggest selling points is its FAA stamp of approval coupled with its intelligence-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance abilities - including signals intelligence. According to the Union-Tribune, no city official is overseeing the test flight, and the FAA's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office (UASIO) told Truthout last year that while, "The UASIO is engaged in internal FAA discussions to approve the proposed concept of operations for the SkyGuardian over portions of San Diego, … this demonstration is not part of any UASIO project." General Atomics's initiative is being planned without any real involvement from the city or the FAA. The company did not respond to Truthout's request for comment. The test flight "could open the skies to a multitude of missions that could be carried out using large (drones), including broader support for first responders contending with natural disasters such as floods and forest fires," a General Atomics spokesperson told the Union-Tribune. The version the company intends to test-fly will not be weaponized, although the company advertises a weaponized version on its website. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted the drone experimental certification in October 2018, according to a spokesperson for the agency's drone integration office.Īccording to the San Diego Union-Tribune, General Atomics did not disclose a date or flight paths for the drone but said it will be used for "mapping of critical infrastructure" in the region and displaying the drone's civilian capabilities. The SkyGuardian, also known as the MQ-9B or Predator B, is an advanced version of the Predator military drone used overseas in the war on terror but designed to be compliant with regulations for U.S. The Poway-based defense contractor General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc., will test-fly its SkyGuardian drone, outfitted with a 79-foot wingspan and advanced surveillance capabilities of more than 2,000 feet, over San Diego, California, sometime this year. That's right, those robotic killing machines used for counterterrorism strikes in the Middle East are coming home - and could eventually be used to surveil large protests and communities of color throughout the U.S. military and defense contractors eye a potential drone war with Iran as tensions with the country remain elevated, the defense industry is also preparing to test-fly domestic versions of its combat drones over major American cities in an effort to fully integrate military-grade drones into civil airspace alongside commercial air traffic in the coming years. This article originally appeared on Truthout.Īs the U.S.
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