Additional Sale of Major Reconnaissance UASs to the Philippines  

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More unmanned aircraft systems will be delivered to the Philipines. The US government is expected to deliver ScanEagle Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to the Philippines before the year ends, the country’s National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana disclosed.

According to update.ph, the revelation was made by the defense chief along with the confirmation that a Philippine C-130 picked up aircraft munitions from Arizona, United States.

“Eventually, they told us that they are now ready to deliver. So they might deliver to us the ScanEagle-type sometime September or October,” Secretary Lorenzana said as quoted by Philippine Star.

ScanEagle is being built by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing. It is a small, long-endurance, low-altitude reconnaissance UAS.

Boeing said the UAS is launched autonomously by a catapult launcher and flies pre-programmed and operator-initiated missions. “The patented SkyHook recovery system is used for retrieval,” Boeing noted.

Expeditionary and versatile ScanEagle delivers persistent imagery on land or at sea. It features upgraded avionics, increased payload capability and a new heavy fuel purpose-built propulsion system.

Last June, Naval Air Systems Command of the US Navy released a solicitation document for the procurement of an undisclosed number of ScanEagle from Insitu for the Philippine government with estimated value of $13.5M.

The contract involves ScanEagle UASs, spares, support equipment, tools, training, and support services. The document also revealed that Philippines has previously procured ScanEagle UAS.

Meanwhile, IHS Jane’s estimated that with the mentioned estimated value, the Philippines will be getting 15 UASs. “Based on the procurements of other nations – in 2014 Yemen signed for a system of 12 ScanEagle vehicles for USD11 million – the Philippines’ follow-on system is likely to be made up of about 15 vehicles,” said IHS Jane’s.