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Expodefensa 2025: ScanEagle Drone strengthens Colombia’s maritime surveillance and intel posture.
Colombia is showcasing the ScanEagle unmanned aircraft at Expodefensa 2025 as a core element of its maritime intelligence and surveillance network. The move underscores how tactical drones are becoming essential for monitoring crime, hostile groups and major events across the country’s coastlines.
During Expodefensa 2025, the Armada de Colombia is highlighting the ScanEagle as one of the cornerstones of its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance posture at sea and along the coasts. This small unmanned aircraft, developed by Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary, has been in Colombian service since the mid-2000s and has progressively migrated from an experimental asset to a routine tool of naval and joint operations. In a context marked by the persistence of organized crime, renewed activity of illegal armed groups and the need to secure major international events such as COP16 in Cali, the platform offers continuous coverage where manned aircraft and surface units are constrained. By putting the system at the forefront in Bogotá, Colombia is sending a clear signal about the central place of tactical drones in its future security architecture.
Colombia is spotlighting the ScanEagle drone at Expodefensa 2025, presenting it as a steady maritime surveillance tool that helps the Navy track criminal networks and secure its coastlines (Picture Source: Army Recognition Group)
The ScanEagle used by the Colombian Navy is a compact, high-endurance fixed-wing UAV capable of remaining on station for about 18 hours, cruising between 50 and 60 knots at altitudes up to 19,500 feet. Its line-of-sight control range of roughly 60 nautical miles allows the aircraft to orbit well beyond the horizon of surface vessels while still feeding real-time imagery to mission operators. Powered by heavy fuel compatible with standard JET A1, the system is fully integrated into naval logistics chains. The primary sensor package consists of a dual-video MWIR turret with both day-time and infrared cameras, offering up to 36-times zoom in the visible spectrum and 12.5-times in IR, coupled to an encrypted command-and-control and video datalink. This combination gives operators the ability to detect, identify and track small fast craft, clandestine landing attempts or suspicious movements in coastal communities, by day and by night, in conditions where traditional surface radars or patrols might miss small targets.
Operationally, the Colombian ScanEagle detachments are structured around a hub-and-spoke model designed for persistent, expeditionary deployment. The central “hub” cell brings together a mission control officer, a dedicated ScanEagle pilot, an imagery analyst and two technicians responsible for launch and recovery using the catapult and Skyhook arresting system. Forward “spoke” teams, made up of a pilot and an imagery analyst, can be embarked on patrol vessels or deployed to austere coastal sites, receiving support from the hub through secure communications. This organization allows the Armada de Colombia to project drone capability rapidly along both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts, in rivers or estuaries, and to synchronize air pictures with the combat information centres of ships and joint command posts. The motto “Protegemos el azul de la bandera” takes on a very concrete meaning here: the UAV extends the Navy’s eyes across the blue of Colombia’s maritime spaces, beyond the line of sight of conventional sensors.
Strategically, ScanEagle has become one of the discreet enablers of Colombia’s fight against narcotrafficking and organized crime. The system is used to monitor corridors used by the Clan del Golfo and other groups for maritime trafficking, to document suspicious rendezvous at sea and to cue intercept operations by surface units or joint task forces. Its endurance enables pattern-of-life analysis over remote coastal areas where state presence is limited, supporting both interagency operations and judicial investigations. During the COP16 summit in Cali, the Colombian Air Force and Navy deployed ScanEagle to reinforce aerial surveillance over access routes and critical zones around the host city, underlining its role not only in counter-narcotics but also in the protection of major international events and critical infrastructure. In the longer term, the integration of these ISR feeds into national command networks contributes to a more reactive, intelligence-driven security posture on land and at sea.
At the regional level, the presence of ScanEagle on the Colombian stand at Expodefensa 2025 illustrates a broader evolution in Latin American defence policies. Faced with hybrid threats at sea, from illegal fishing to drug trafficking and the movements of irregular armed groups, coastal states are investing in relatively light, modular unmanned systems instead of exclusively relying on high-end combat aviation. For Colombia, which shares maritime boundaries and transnational security challenges with several neighbours, the ability to maintain a persistent picture of its exclusive economic zone is also a diplomatic tool: data collected by drones can support cooperation with partner navies, joint patrols and information-sharing arrangements sponsored by the United States and European allies. At the same time, the choice of a platform widely used by NATO navies and other partners facilitates interoperability during combined exercises or multinational maritime security operations.
The Colombian ScanEagle fleet is part of a long-term national effort to structure remotely-piloted aviation within the armed forces. Since the first systems were delivered with foreign support around 2006, Colombia has progressively organized its remotely piloted aircraft around dedicated structures, doctrine and training pipelines, moving from ad hoc deployments to a fully institutionalized capability. The experience accumulated in maritime ISR, border surveillance and event security with ScanEagle is likely to influence future acquisitions, whether Colombia opts for larger MALE drones, vertical-take-off UAVs or complementary sensor suites. By choosing to give the platform prominence at Expodefensa 2025, the Armada de Colombia is emphasizing continuity: a proven drone, adapted to the country’s geography and security challenges, that will continue to underpin the protection of national waters and the “blue” of the flag in the years ahead.