cool make one for copwatch and other groups. put a gps unit it it. put a camera in it Original Article Remote aircraft is eye in sky Tucson firms selling camera-toting crafts Teya Vitua Tucson Citizen Jun. 30, 2005 12:00 AM TUCSON - Small unmanned aircraft with onboard cameras could be flying over railroad tracks in Mexico or oil pipelines in the Persian Gulf in a few months. Tucson-based Unmanned Vehicle Technologies plans to start production of hundreds of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in the next month or so, after spending two years developing the aircraft, camera and guidance system. The company hopes revenue can top $25 million within two years, said Sally Fernandez, a managing partner. Unmanned Vehicle Technologies is a partnership of three Tucson companies: Catalina Tool & Mold, Cybernetic Research Laboratories and the Technology Development & Research Institute at the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park. The aircraft, called the CyberEye, weighs 4.5 pounds and has a 62-inch wingspan. The partnership demonstrated it recently for an American firm that buys American products for Persian Gulf oil companies. "There's interest (in the UAV)," said David W. Prince, chief operating officer at IPB Center in Athens, Ohio. "From our research, this is the best we have seen. It's smaller, and it produces product." The product is a clear, live-video image transmitted from the UAV to a display screen on the ground. The other attraction is the global-positioning guidance system that allows the plane to fly on its own. The CyberEye is primarily for the commercial market, particularly to monitor pipelines, railroads or utility lines. Southern Arizona has emerged as a hot location for UAV work, primarily for military and law-enforcement uses. Sierra Vista, where the most advanced UAVs are tested, last month opened an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Test, Training and Development Center, where the military, Northrop Grumman and other companies develop unmanned aerial aircraft. Advanced Ceramics Research in Tucson makes UAVs that have been flown in Iraq and Afghanistan. The CyberEye plane can be programmed to 1,000 GPS coordinates, and once the plane is in flight, the flight path can be reprogrammed, said Wayne Lundeberg, a managing partner and chief executive at Catalina Tool & Mold. CyberEye can fly for about one hour at 60 mph, and the video broadcast has a range of 20 miles. The base cost is about $15,000; prices vary with camera sophistication. An infrared camera adds $12,000, Lundeberg said. Unmanned Vehicle Technologies has a $3.5 million contract to supply 100 UAVs to a railroad in Mexico, Fernandez said. The Persian Gulf oil company could put in a similar order.