New funds to aid Coast Guard in adopting a UAV

http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/coast-guard/2015/04/25/coast-guard-drone-uav-budget-surveillance/26193019/

The service needs something that can fly in terrible weather, at high altitudes and for days on end to aid in drug and migrant interdiction, search and rescue, and other missions, the unmanned aerial system program manager told an audience recently at the annual Sea Air Space Exposition outside Washington, D.C.

Without funds for its own acquisition program, the Coast Guard is hoping to pick up a modified version of an existing platform, or help facilitate a new drone through the Defense Department's Join Tactical UAV program office.

"We're really agnostic with what it is — whether it's fixed-wing, rotary-wing," Lt. Cmdr. Dan Broadhurst said. "But what we need is a tactical, local asset that we can send out for up to 12 hours and probably up to about 5,000 feet."