Insitu Inc. announced on July 19 that its ScanEagle unmanned aircraft system (UAS) surpassed 5,00,000 combat flight hours and more than 56,000 combat sorties to deliver actionable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) to the warfighter with 99 per cent mission readiness. Consistently providing long sorties and high mission-readiness over half a million hours demonstrates the maturity and reliability of Insitu systems, processes and practices.

“We successfully accomplished this milestone through a collaborative global team,” said Insitu President and CEO Steve Morrow. “We have a dedicated, highly trained, agile team of field service representatives, engineers, programme support personnel and partners who support our customers around the world to make ScanEagle an invaluable ISR asset.”

The small-operational footprint, runwayindependent ScanEagle UAS can stay aloft for more than 24 hours—more than twice the time of the average mission, so it can respond to the unexpected —capturing superior image quality covertly at relatively low altitudes. Currently, there is an average of 22 ScanEagle aircraft in flight globally at any given time. The system has provided uninterrupted service to the warfighter since its first deployment with the US Marine Corps in 2004.

Fielding scores of technology upgrades, Insitu has built on lessons learned in theatre to address the urgent requirements of the warfighter with tangible solutions using the proven ScanEagle platform. Insitu’s newest system, Integrator, uses the same design concepts to ensure reliability.