The drone is loaded onto a catapult on the flight deck. From a
control room, a technician revs the motor until the go-ahead is given to
press the red button. Then the ScanEagle lifts off with a whoosh and,
true to its lofty name, soars majestically over the wide blue sea.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Stratton is steaming more than 500 miles south of the Guatemala-El Salvador border, along the biggest narcotics smuggling corridor in the world.
Its mission: intercept vessels hauling cocaine bound for America's cities.
It is a monumental task that has grown even larger in the past few years because of a boom in coca production in Colombia. But the Coast Guard is bringing more intelligence and technology to bear.
Deep within the 418-foot Stratton, which is based in Alameda, California, specialists crunch data from radar, infrared video, helicopter sorties and now the Boeing-made ScanEagle, which was deployed aboard the Coast Guard cutter for the first time during this three-month mission.
"In the earlier days, when you wouldn't see or catch anything, we used to pat ourselves on our back and say we must've deterred them," said Adm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the Coast Guard, with more than four decades at sea. "Now rarely 72 hours go by when you don't have an event or we send a ship down there that doesn't come back with multiple interdictions."
The Associated Press spent two weeks in February and March aboard the Stratton, the most advanced ship in the Coast Guard fleet, as 100-plus crew members patrolled the eastern Pacific, through which about 70 percent of the cocaine consumed in the U.S. passes.
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/10/us-brings-in-more-technology-to-fight-drug-smuggling-at-sea.html .
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Stratton is steaming more than 500 miles south of the Guatemala-El Salvador border, along the biggest narcotics smuggling corridor in the world.
Its mission: intercept vessels hauling cocaine bound for America's cities.
It is a monumental task that has grown even larger in the past few years because of a boom in coca production in Colombia. But the Coast Guard is bringing more intelligence and technology to bear.
Deep within the 418-foot Stratton, which is based in Alameda, California, specialists crunch data from radar, infrared video, helicopter sorties and now the Boeing-made ScanEagle, which was deployed aboard the Coast Guard cutter for the first time during this three-month mission.
"In the earlier days, when you wouldn't see or catch anything, we used to pat ourselves on our back and say we must've deterred them," said Adm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the Coast Guard, with more than four decades at sea. "Now rarely 72 hours go by when you don't have an event or we send a ship down there that doesn't come back with multiple interdictions."
The Associated Press spent two weeks in February and March aboard the Stratton, the most advanced ship in the Coast Guard fleet, as 100-plus crew members patrolled the eastern Pacific, through which about 70 percent of the cocaine consumed in the U.S. passes.
Source: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/05/10/us-brings-in-more-technology-to-fight-drug-smuggling-at-sea.html .
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