At Dubai Air Show, PAL Aerospace announced the first public appearance of its on-demand, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) special mission platform, the Force Multiplier.

Force Multiplier is a missionised Dash-8 Q300 available on contract. The aircraft is equipped with two full mission system suites, AMASCOS from Thales and AIMS-ISR from CarteNav. Both mission systems will integrate to the Thales Searchmaster radar.

We interviewed Michael Sangster, Chief Commercial Office, PAL Aerospace and Olivier Ageorges, Operational Adviser, Thales to find out more.

Multiple uses

Sangster told us how the aircraft came about: “From talking to our customers,” he said. “They told us they needed an interim solution…something they could rent at times when they needed a search capacity. Hence the name, Force Multiplier.”

He added: “The markets could be anywhere around the globe, whether a small operation or large, an interim solution for an Olympic Games, or a customer than needs a capacity for a year, or a training capacity.”

The Force Mutiplier has many use cases, Sangtser said, including immigration control, border control, search and rescue, and environmental impact assessments.

Ageorges said the Force Multiplier is unique because: “You may find many aircraft doing search operations … but Force Multiplier has the capacity to deploy life rafts.”