Police helicopters are to be fitted with airborne surveillance systems from Denel, the state-owned arms company said on Tuesday.
”This virtual ‘eye in the sky’ system will allow the South African Police Service [SAPS] to deploy their helicopters for all-weather and day and night crime prevention, law enforcement and border surveillance operations,” said Sam Basch, Denel’s spokesperson.
Basch said the Goshawk 350 gyro-stabilised system is fitted with a continuous zoom thermal imager, daylight TV camera and auto-tracking.
Variants of the system are already in use by police and security force in twenty other countries in the world Basch said.
He said Denel Optronics won the contract to provide the devices to the SAPS against stiff foreign competition. — Sapa