Page 13 - September 2019

It was to be used to provide UAV surveillance of convoys, in
Bill March tells the story of a briefing into the crash of a
certain Canadian Forces aircraft.
The PowerPoint presentation flashed onto the screen
was a blank.
The recovery team that went to the scene of the crash
near Kabul found nothing there: every single scrap of
material had been removed by the frugal Afghanis
among whom it had crashed — and there was no pilot or normal operating altitude of about 1,000 CHECK feet betrayed
crew members to give testimony for there was no crew.
The aircraft was a CU-161 Sperwer unmanned aerial
vehicle (UAV).
“This one remains on the books because they cannot
find the airplane,” said March, a long-time CAHS
members who “pinch-hit” for another speaker. “Possibly
it’s a black-market toaster. We just don’t know where it
is.”
That strange incident was only one of the Sperwer’s
historical distinctions: it was an aircraft bought by the
army (not the air force) and was intended to be
operated, maintained and flown by artillerymen –
though it was, technically speaking, owned by the air
force. And on an hour-by-hour basis, March said it
appears to have been the most expensive aircraft to
have been in Canadian military service.
The Sperwer is, in March’s words, “an interesting piece
of technology”. Taking its name from the Latin phrase
for “little owl”, it entered the Canadian Forces inventory
right after the federal government announced it would
commit troops to Afghanistan back in late 2001.
particular. The Sperwer (which is now leaving Canadian
military service) is a French product with a fuselage roughly
the size of a Cessna 150. It is capable of operating as high as
20,000 feet – which caught the attention of the air force,
which belatedly assigned some pilots, navigators (whoops …
air combat system operators) and maintenance personnel to
the project, producing what March figures to have been one of
the most truly integrated units in the Canadian Forces.
It is of composite construction and powered by what he calls a
modified “lawnmower engine”— which is inexpensive, but has
a different cost. That’s because its distinctive sound and
its presence to “the bad guys”. As well, “it doesn’t take off so
much as it is thrown into the air by a hydraulic launcher — a
catapult — the same technology that you use to break down
medieval walls … that’s the technology involved.”
The problem with this is that the rapid acceleration of the
launch could damage the sensitive surveillance electronics
aboard the UAV. That was taken in stride: because enemy
forces had come to associate the presence of the Sperwer
with artillery shells raining down on them, they would
generally flee when there came the sound of one that —
without their knowledge — had no surveillance capability
because of damaged electronics. “So it basically did its job and
the bad guys went away,” March said.
Canada initially acquired 14 CU-161s; flying in what March
called “the edge of its operating envelope” in the heat, high
altitude and dust of Afghanistan, seven were lost within only
one month. Because of the Sperwer’s technical shortcomings,
many other NATO partners decided to end their use of this
type, putting their remaining aircraft up for sale. The Canadian
government took the opportunity to buy some of these used
UAVs. This purchase “didn’t really really replace the losses; all
it did was sorta give us more fodder for the catapult,” said
th
March, adding it can be thought of as “19 Century
th
technology dragged kicking and screaming into the 20
st
Century — and trying to operate it in a 21 Century combat
environment. All things considered, "it did a pretty good job.”
That allowed March to make several observations about the
human factors involved in the Sperwer’s operation.