Dockside: Bray’s Blog

Oddities and observations

September 9 - The tale of the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates in April 2009 is well known. Less well known is the role played by the ScanEagle, a small UAV that has served the Canadian Forces well in Afghanistan. Launched from the USS Bainbridge, the Insitu-built aircraft provided some of the live data feeds used by US navy Seal teams to calculate the sniper shots that killed a trio of pirates holding the captain in a life raft. The control of the ScanEagle was even passed between ground stations on the three USN ships that responded to the pirate attack, explained Peter Bale, director of strategy and new business development for Insitu, which was acquired by Boeing in 2008. The UAV has surpassed 350,000 flight hours between US, Australian and Canadian forces.

September 9 - Every company pitching a vehicle for the TAPV program will tell you their truck is the one to beat. But confidence is clearly running high at Thales/DEW Engineering. The Bushmaster team held one-on-one meetings with Atlantic Canada companies throughout the show to identify potential contributors to the Canadian-built vehicle (except for the hull, which is Australian). One Thales executive did note, however, that the company would accept help translating Australian into Canadian.


September 8 - Twenty yards from the little patch of Halifax harbour where the Second World War corvette HMCS Sackville is tied up, waiting for visitors from DEFSEC, Meggitt Training Systems has set up an exhibit featuring some of its aerial target drones. To at least one observer, the aircraft seemed a little incongruous in the maritime atmosphere. However, the company’s president and general manager, Spencer Fraser was on hand to point out what is already obvious to the modern sailor, if not to a roving reporter: “The number one threats facing ships today are aerial.” Point taken.

Outer space is the conference theme at this year's conference, with a Thursday morning feature presentation by Colonel André Dupuis, the Canadian Forces' Director of Space Development, and an afternoon presentation by the Canadian Space Agency's Director General of Space Utilization, Savi Sachdev. Thales Canada with DEW Engineering, The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Canada will be doing industry presentations on Thursday.