Industry
Polish Border Guard to be Operating UAV’s soon
Wizualizacja dokowania Tianzhou-1 (po prawej) do Tiangong-2. Ilustracja: CMSE
Polish Border Guard has ordered 4 sets of FlyEye UAV’s from the WB Electronics company, with each set consisting of at least 3 UAV’s. Value of the contract is as much as PLN 7 million, and control system, observation modules and observer’s training programme have been acquired together with the drones.
Purchase of the FlyEye unmanned aerial vehicles, which are already being utilized by the Polish Army, by the Border Guard is a result of a tender, which has been concluded on 23rd December 2014. The procedure had involved 3 bidders. Besides the WB Electronics company, Asseco Poland, and consortium consisting of WZL-2, Yagal Sp.z o.o. and RC-Lipol companies placed their offers.
Offer placed by the WB Electronics company has achieved the highest rating, with the lowest price – gross amount of PLN 6.768 million. The company is to deliver 4 UAV bundles this year, each one consisting of control station, at least 3 UAV’s and the same number of observation modules. What is more, 12 officers of the Polish Border Guard from the Bug Unit stationed in Chełm, which is going to use the FlyEye drones, are going to be trained at the only facility dedicated to training of the UAV operators in Poland. The facility is owned by WB Electronics.
What is interesting, is the fact that the Border Guard, this year, is going to receive much bigger aircraft that may act as a UAV. Here we mean specialized observation gliders, which are capable of conducting 20-hour long sorties at high altitudes. Back in October 2014 the Border Guard has signed an agreement, which is to make it possible to acquire two Stemme ES15 motor gliders, which would be equipped with specialized observation system. Currently no legal conditions which would make it possible to use these aircraft as unmanned vehicles exist, however, Stemme ES15 gliders offer such capabilities, and once the legal issues are regulated, they could be used as the first Polish long range UAV’s.