In its latest budget request for the 2019 fiscal year, the U.S. Army is asking for more than $80 million to keep working on converting a number of de Havilland Dash-8-315 planes into RO-6A intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance aircraft. Thanks to a separate contracting announcement, we know they will each have a powerful combination of electro-optical, infrared, and hyperspectral cameras, wide-area surveillance systems, imaging radars, and signals intelligence gear when they start to enter service in 2020.
On Feb. 5, 2018, the Army released a request for information regarding a potential contract to support the service’s existing fleet of de Havilland Dash-7-based EO-5C aircraft, as well as perform maintenance and other functions on the future RO-6As. As such, the documentation includes a breakdown of the specific systems on both types of aircraft to help prospective vendors gauge whether they have the requisite knowledge base to keep them airworthy and fully mission capable.
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