SMALL DRONES MAKE BIG IMPACT ON HMS TAMAR
29 January 2021
Drones could play a key role in tracking drug runners and smugglers after successful trials with the Navy’s newest class of ships in the Channel.
HMS Tamar made extensive use of small Puma aircraft during trials with the Royal Marines and the Met Police as the ship practices for ‘constabulary duties’ when she deploys for the first time this summer.
Although Tamar has a flight deck, she doesn’t carry a helicopter on a regular basis – there’s no hangar, so Merlin and Wildcat helicopters only use the ship for refuelling, collecting supplies or making a short stop.
The Puma could fulfil some of the helicopter’s intelligence-gathering role – with its 50-times zoom camera it feeds live footage back to a mother ship at ranges up to a dozen miles.
Building on their experiences aboard HMS Albion in the Mediterranean last year, a team from 700X Naval Air Squadron – the Fleet Air Arm’s only pilotless squadron – brought their drone to Tamar.
Just over 4½ft long, with a wingspan of 9ft and weighing as much as six bags of sugar, Puma can survey an area of up to 270 square miles of ocean – that’s larger than Greater Manchester – looking for suspicious activity during sorties lasting up to 2½ hours.
“We were under pressure to perform,” said Lieutenant Ash Loftus, Puma flight commander. “There are many additional challenges in preparing and launching safety from a ship. While it’s a relatively small aircraft, it has a large wing and requires some skill from the operator launching it from the ship.
“We completed 100 per cent of the tasks required of us by the ship. We were often flying out of line of sight to approach vessels, using the system’s cameras for identification purposes.
“We’d be in close communications with the officer of the watch and we were able to report back successfully on the identification of vessels.”
Continues, with photos, at:
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-l ... mar-drones