CANSEC is the premiere military, police, and security industries tradeshow in Canada and was held this past week at the EY Center in Ottawa. Keynote speakers included the Vice-CDS LGen Guy Thibeault, Ministers of National Defence (Jason Kenney), Industry (James Moore), State – Western Developement (Michelle Rempel), Public Works and Government Services (Diane Finley). The show is the biggest of its’ kind and the largest that it has ever been, completely filling the EY Center as well as having outside displays.
There were too many pieces of interesting hardware the go over on a short blog but a few that made an impression are the General Dynamics LAV Mk6, the Miggit Mosquito UHV-T, and the most fun piece of technology – the Black Hornet nano helicopter (below). The Black Hornet is a small helo that is capable of streaming HD video and taking HD snapshots from a controllable distance of 1.5 km and programmable distance further than that. It uses an electric motor so is nearly silent and can stay aloft for 25 minutes. The downside is that its’ size and weight (weighs as much as 3 standard pieces of paper) means that it can’t take a lot of wind, about 10-15 knots. However, if it does start to tumble, it generally recovers itself. If it loses contact with it’s controller it can return to base on its’ own accord. Very Cool. I see many uses for it from combat troops using it to look down streets or into buildings before they breach, checking under bridges for bombs, streaming video for crowd control during any sort of event.
There were some protesters in front of the parking lot but not many. I hope they appreciate the fact that these technologies and industries, in the hands of the soldiers who fight on their behalf, allow them the privilege of having and displaying an opinion in opposition to the existence of the machinery of war.
I took a lot of pictures in support of the articles being considered by Esprit de Corps magazine so while not indicative of the whole show, they will give you an idea of who was at the show and what they were trying to sell to the government.
To see all the pictures CLICK HERE
