The BAE Systems SkyEye is a

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

developed in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

in the early 1970s by Developmental Sciences Inc, later called Developmental Sciences Corporation, a division of Lear Astronics Corporation and ultimately part of

BAE Systems BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company based in London, England. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe, and ranked the seventh-largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenue ...

. Developmental Sciences Inc was one of the first US companies to investigate battlefield UAVs, flying the first prototype of the SkyEye series in 1973, leading to the first flight of the improved R4E variant in 1981. The R4E has been continuously refined since then in a sequence of subvariants. The R4E SkyEye is in service with a number of countries, including

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

and

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

, for battlefield surveillance, and has also been used commercially for pesticide spraying. Apparently a few stock R4Es were also purchased by the US Army's South Command in Latin America and used for border patrols. The

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

had also considered a variant of it, the McDonnell Douglas Sky Owl, for the short-range UAV competition. As the Sky Owl,

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own merger with Boeing in 1997, it pro ...

leveraged it into the company's proposal for the Army competition, but apparently it proved generally inferior to the

RQ-5 Hunter The IAI RQ-5 Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was originally intended to serve as the United States Army's Short Range UAV system for division and corps commanders. It took off and landed (using arresting gear) on runways. It used a gimbaled ...

. The SkyEye has the common pusher-propeller twin-tailboom configuration, but it has distinctive slightly swept wings and antennas on top of the tailplanes. It is powered by a

UAV Engines Limited An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human Aircraft pilot, pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an #Terminology, unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes add ...

(UEL) 39 kW (52 hp) rotary engine. The SkyEye can carry two underwing stores along with its other payload. It lands on a retractable centerline skid or can be recovered by parachute.

Specifications (R4E SkyEye)

References

This article contains material that originally came from the web articl
''Unmanned Aerial Vehicles''
by Greg Goebel, which exists in the Public Domain.

External links

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Royal Thai Armed Forces The Royal Thai Armed Forces (RTARF) ( th, กองทัพไทย; ) are the armed forces of the Kingdom of Thailand. The nominal head of the Thai Armed Forces (จอมทัพไทย; ) is the King of Thailand. The armed forces are ...

UAV designations , designation=B.W.1 1970s United States military reconnaissance aircraft Unmanned aerial vehicles of the United States British Aerospace aircraft Single-engined pusher aircraft Twin-boom aircraft