What if there was an “on-demand” platform available that you could reserve flight hours for to carry out maritime or ground surveillance, rather than having to acquire and maintain your own aircraft?

That is what Thales and Canadian aerospace and defence company, PAL Aerospace, have in mind with their Force Multiplier, which will be on display at the Dubai Air Show this week.

The Force Multiplier, a turnkey on-demand contract aircraft, has an endurance of more than 10 flight hours, which makes it ideal for maritime and ground surveillance missions including, search and rescue at sea, life-raft deployment, immigration control, surveillance of sporting events and forest fires, as well as border surveillance. It is designed to meet the needs of both government and private customers.

Users will be able to reserve flight hours as early as 2018, offering them an on-demand platform without the acquisition or maintenance support costs. Thales will act as the system supplier, providing its Searchmaster multi-role surveillance radar and a multi-mission system for extended, scalable surveillance capabilities, as well as a 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. PAL Aerospace will own, operate and provide maintenance for Force Multiplier.

The aircraft will also be available for training of future flight crews, as customers participate in platform acquisition programmes. Thales and PAL Aerospace have co-operated in the past to deliver maritime patrol aircraft with a comprehensive suite of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance solutions.

The Force Multiplier will be presented in PAL's static display area, in demo configuration and fully system-equipped, at the Dubai Air Show on Sunday 12 November in PAL's static display area.