At the Dubai Airshow, Thales and Canada-based PAL Aerospace are unveiling the Force Multiplier, an aircraft with an endurance of more than 10 flight hours which is specifically designed to provide a turnkey operational service that meets the immediate needs of both government and private customers in terms of maritime and ground surveillance.

Missions could include search and rescue at sea, life raft deployment, immigration control, surveillance of sporting events and forest fires, as well as border surveillance.

Users will be able to reserve flight hours starting in 2018, taking advantage of an on-demand operational platform (a specially modified Bombardier Dash-8 Q300), without acquisition or maintenance support costs. Thales, as system supplier, will provide the Searchmaster multirole surveillance radar and the Amascos multi-mission system, as well as the ground station.

As a result, it will be possible to prepare mission data and share the tactical situation in real time. In addition, operators will have the opportunity to replay and analyse their missions. All of these features, which constitute input factors for real-time decision-making, will help ensure operators act efficiently and at exactly the right time. PAL will operate and maintain the service aircraft.

The aircraft will also be available for training of future flight crews, as customers participate in platform acquisition programmes.

The aircraft is being presented in PAL's static display area, in demo configuration and fully system-equipped.