News For Immediate Release December 1, 2006 St. John’s based company achieves Canadian aviation milestone St. John's On November 23rd, 2006, Provincial Aerospace Limited (PAL) and Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) successfully completed the first commercial uninhabited aerial vehicle (UAV) flight in Canadian airspace. PAL, a St. John’s based provider of fixed wing aircraft based maritime surveillance and Memorial University’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science are partners in a UAV research and development program. The Remote Aerial Vehicle for Environmental Monitoring (RAVEN) project aims to develop UAV payloads to address the specific operating needs of harsh ocean and arctic environments. UAV technology represents the new frontier of surveillance operations and this partnership between PAL and MUN provides the mechanism to demonstrate the capabilities of UAV’s for a number of applications including pollution and illegal fishing surveillance. “The benefit of operating unmanned aircraft in harsh ocean environments such as the North Atlantic and the Arctic is obvious,” said Mr. Brian Chafe, Provincial Aerospace’s Chief Operating Officer. “This technology represents the future of air surveillance and with the deployment of these UAV’s, PAL has become the first Canadian aviation company to receive a Transport Canada permit to operate UAV’s in Canadian airspace”. Memorial’s Dean of Engineering, Dr. Ray Gosine, agrees that the application of UAV’s for offshore surveillance is an exciting frontier for Newfoundland and Labrador. “Memorial University has invested considerably research efforts into the development of autonomous vehicles, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV’s) and telerobotic mining vehicles. Our partnership with PAL in developing competency in this technology is essential to the future growth of the NL private sector that has a commercial interest in providing marine and arctic surveillance capabilities.” “The partnership between Provincial Aerospace and Memorial University brings together two highly respected organizations and demonstrates that there is a remarkable range of innovation taking place in our province’s private sector,” noted Keith Stoodley, Senior Vice President – Marketing with PAL. The UAV’s maiden flight occurred at the Clarenville airstrip on November 23. The UAV, an Aerosonde Mk-4, flew for approximately two hours before landing safely. Three additional flights were conducted over the following three days using two aircraft culminating in a four (4) hour maritime surveillance flight in Random Sound. PAL is a St. John’s, NL based aerospace and defence contracting company with over 34 years fixed wing operations experience and 27 years of offshore aerial surveillance operations for the Government of Canada. Domestic experience was instrumental to PAL successfully securing a 12 year US$100M contract to provide maritime surveillance to the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba in July, 2006. - 30 - For further information contact: Keith Stoodley Senior Vice President - Marketing Email: kstoodley@provair.com Tel: (709) 693-2972 Fax: (709) 576-1802 Photo: The RAVEN’s maiden flight at the Clarenville airstrip. Background: PAL has approximately 600 employees. As well as its headquarters in St. John’s, it has bases in Goose Bay, Halifax, N.S., Comox, B.C., and stations at 14 airports across the country. It has international bases in Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and beginning in 2007, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. The RAVEN project is funded in part by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Atlantic Innovation Fund. The Aerosonde Mk-4 UAV is a small computer controlled aircraft that is capable of continuous flight of over 38 hours or 3,000 km. The aircraft can reach heights of 20,000 feet and carries a wide array of sensors such as radar, video, infrared cameras, etc. Data gathered from these sensors is transmitted to the ground control station for viewing by Provincial Aerospace’s operations people.