The American military drone that Iran claims it captured is the kind of unmanned spy aircraft manufactured in the Columbia River Gorge.
Officials in Tehran say they’ve captured a ScanEagle drone, a five-foot long craft built by Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary in Bingen, Wash., across the Columbia from Hood River, Oregon.
U.S. military leaders say none of their drones is missing.
The ScanEagle drone is unarmed, flies at 20,000 feet and can track subjects for up to 24 hours.
It was invented in 2002 by Insitu’s founders, Hood River-based aeronautic engineers Tad McGeer and Andy von Flotow, who first designed unmanned aircraft to track schools of tuna for fishing companies.
Insitu began producing ScanEagles for the Defense Department in 2004, and Boeing bought the company in 2008.
WW examined the companyโand the boon of military drones to the Gorge economyโin a cover story written by James Pitkin in 2010, “…It Came From the Gorge.”
The story noted that one of the inventors had regrets about selling ScanEagles to the military:
The company McGeer foundedโ Insitu Inc.โis rapidly eclipsing tourism as a source of jobs in the Gorge. But itโs also drawing fire from peace activists for war profiteering and what they see as a disturbing trendย toward remote-controlled, robotic killing.
At odds with theย military direction his company was taking, McGeer left Insitu in 2005.ย Three years later, when Boeing bought the company for $400 million,ย McGeer made millionsโexactly how much he wonโt say.
โI made aย Faustian bargain,โ says McGeer, a lanky 52-year-old Canadian who livesย with his wife and daughter in Hood River. โAnd when you make a Faustianย bargain, you canโt complain when the devil shows up at the door.โ
Many of his neighbors in the Gorge have no such qualms.
The residents of Hood River and surrounding towns on both banks of theย Gorge have built an industry that, according to public statements madeย by Insitu executives, now generates more than $200 million a year amidย this recession. The drones theyโve built have logged hundreds ofย thousands of flight hours over Iraq and Afghanistan, above disasterย zones like earthquake-ravaged Haiti, or patrolling pirate-infested seasย off the coast of Somalia.
