Schiebel (Hall 4 Stand A24) is poised to announce a civil customer for the Camcopter S-100 unmanned rotorcraft to be used for pipeline surveillance. The company also is looking at developing growth variants.

To be approved to fly here at Paris’09, the Camcopter made six flights in three days at France’s Istres flight-test center. In Austria, the Camcopter routinely flies between its factory and a demonstration area in a designated UAV corridor in civil airspace.

At Schiebel’s Vienna factory, the current production rate of the Camcopter is four per month. Some 80 aircraft have been delivered to customers so far. Six or seven of them fly on a daily basis, such as the 52 operated by the military in the UAE.
Schiebel’s research-and-development engineers are working on improvements, including increasing payload and endurance.

The Camcopter has a six-hour endurance carrying a 55-pound payload. Maximum payload is 110 pounds and the maximum takeoff weight is 440 pounds. Its service ceiling is 18,000 feet, while cruise speed is 55 knots and dash speed is 120 knots.

The S-100 can land on a moving ship, keeping its speed constant to the relative to the position of the ship’s helipad. The Camcopter has proven this capability up to sea state three. Company officials believe it is capable of operating at sea state five.

So far, they have been equipped only with airborne cameras and radar, but the Camcopter could be weaponized.