Singapore — RSAF Inaugurates the Heron 1 UAV into 119 Squadro

Min­is­ter for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen offi­ci­at­ed at a cer­e­mo­ny to inau­gu­rate the Heron 1 Unmanned Aer­i­al Vehi­cle (UAV) into the Repub­lic of Sin­ga­pore Air Force’s (RSAF’s) 119 Squadron (SQN) at Murai Camp this after­noon, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the devel­op­ment of the 3rd Gen­er­a­tion Sin­ga­pore Armed Forces’ (SAF’s) intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance (ISR) capa­bil­i­ties.

Min­is­ter for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen (2nd from right), accom­pa­nied by SPS for Defence and Nation­al Devel­op­ment Dr Mohamad Mali­ki Bin Osman (4th from right) and Chief of Air Force MG Ng Chee Meng (1st from right), unveil­ing 119 Squadron’s tail flash on the Heron 1 UAV, sig­ni­fy­ing its inau­gu­ra­tion into the squadron. Click to enlarge

The Heron 1 UAV (right) will replace the Searcher-class UAV (left) that has been in ser­vice since 1994. Click to enlarge

Here you can find more infor­ma­tion about:  The Sin­ga­pore Defense Indus­try – Mar­ket Oppor­tu­ni­ties and Entry Strate­gies, Analy­ses and Fore­casts to 2016

Speak­ing at the cer­e­mo­ny, Dr Ng point­ed out that the SAF’s vision for UAVs start­ed as ear­ly as in the 70s, quot­ing Singapore’s first Defence Min­is­ter Dr Goh Keng Swee’s remarks, “For our kind of ter­rain, we must have Remote­ly Pilot­ed Vehi­cles. We must see the ene­my with­out being seen”. In high­light­ing the impor­tance of invest­ing in advanced UAVs such as the Heron 1 UAV to con­tin­u­al­ly improve the ISR capa­bil­i­ty of the 3rd Gen­er­a­tion SAF, he added, “The UAVs have realised the vision of SAF’s found­ing pio­neers but only through con­tin­ued invest­ments to devel­op this capa­bil­i­ty.” Dr Ng also recog­nised the efforts of the per­son­nel from 119 SQN, “The advanced sur­veil­lance and recon­nais­sance capa­bil­i­ties of the Heron 1 UAV are, how­ev­er, only as effec­tive as the peo­ple who oper­ate and main­tain them. I would like there­fore to com­mend all of you, the men and women of 119 Squadron, who have worked tire­less­ly in the last year to ready the Heron 1 UAV sys­tems to sup­port the SAF’s operations.” 

Fea­tur­ing state-of-the-art avion­ics, detec­tion capa­bil­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems, as well as longer flight endurance and a ful­ly auto­mat­ic take-off and land­ing capa­bil­i­ty, the Heron 1 UAV will pro­vide the SAF with bet­ter bat­tle­field sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness and enhance mis­sion effec­tive­ness. The Heron 1 UAV will replace the Searcher-class UAV that has been in ser­vice since 1994. 

Also present at the cer­e­mo­ny were Senior Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary for Defence and Nation­al Devel­op­ment Dr Mohamad Mali­ki Bin Osman, Chief of Air Force Major-Gen­er­al Ng Chee Meng and senior offi­cers from the SAF. 

Source:
Gov­ern­ment of Singapore