AeroVironment's Puma Drone

Here's some video of AeroVironment's Pume "All Environment" small unmanned aircraft system.  Versions of the Puma are in use with US SOF and some conventional forces.



I was in Afghanistan in 2009 when conventional forces in our sector got some Pumas for experimentation, courtesy of the Rapid Equipping Force.  They were an immediate hit.  We were deploying them into the Konar and Korengal river valleys.  Those areas lacked sufficient space to launch and recover the Army's standard medium UAS, the Shadow, which had to be launched from some distance away and spent a great deal of time just getting on station above the units they supported, which meant they had greatly reduced station time.  The standard small UAS, the Raven, could be launched from remote FOBs, but lacked the range and station time to support the missions required, plus it had a hard time handling the high winds and altitude in that sector.  Puma hit the sweet spot: big enough for decent station time with an ability to fly at higher altitude and under higher wind conditions, but small enough to easily launch from and recover to austere FOBs and COPs.


I haven't heard if more Puma systems were deployed in support of conventional Army forces --  we were experimenting with a number of other UAS systems at the same time -- but it would be a shame if the success of that experiment were not followed up.


Hat tip to Gizmodo.com for the video.

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Published on October 16, 2012 14:52
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