24 Since the dawn of the century, countless programmes for high-end, long-endurance UAVs have come and gone, with varying degrees of success and contribution to autonomy, aerodynamics and power for uncrewed systems. Few have managed to stay the course quite like Insitu’s ScanEagle has. Since its inaugural flight in 2002, this iconic, fixed-wing aircraft has flown across Arctic, desert and ocean environments worldwide to now serve customers in 35 countries. It performed the first FAA-approved, commercial, beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) flight in US national airspace in 2013. Located in Bingen, Washington, Insitu was founded in 1994 by engineers with a collective ambition to develop robotic aircraft for remote, in-place (or in-situ) atmospheric monitoring, before pivoting into monitoring for the tuna fishing industry with its SeaScan aircraft around the end of the 20th century. With the advent of the US War on Terror, Insitu saw the potential for uncrewed aircraft in military intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), so SeaScan was redesigned and rebranded as the ScanEagle, going on to be used widely as an aerial, full-motion video tool for numerous defence organisations. Since then, a vast ecosystem of tech firms has spawned across the US West Coast to support Insitu and the many aerospace manufacturers (uncrewed or otherwise) that its alumni have spun out. The company has also birthed other aircraft from its amassed pool of r&d, the most successful being the Integrator UAS, first announced in 2007 as a larger, more modular cousin to the ScanEagle, and designed around intermodal transport and expeditionary assembly. Such is the size and symbiosis of Insitu relative to the wider UAS space that the development history of its two aircraft is, in many ways, a microcosm of the industry’s story as a whole, with their capabilities being adapted to meet changing military demands as such Rory Jackson speaks to the company behind this iconic, fixed-wing UAV and its sibling – progenitors of much of the modern industry that now exists around them Eagle-eyed veterans June/July 2024 | Uncrewed Systems Technology
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