L-Ne · Historical Source Library

News Source Record

# News Source Record

**L-Ne / Open-source news extract** — Original media coverage of unmanned aerial systems.

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Collection date | 4 January 2010 |
| Platform | Quiet Systems |
| Data label | Open-source news record // LRRK collection product |
| Handling | Public-source material. Image rights require separate verification before publication. |
| Scale | Local |
| Language | English |
| Terms matched | unmanned aerial; unmanned aerial vehicle; UAV; ScanEagle |

## Bibliographic

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Outlet | The Daily Inter Lake (Kalispell, Montana) |
| Title | Marino flies troops' eagle eye in the sky |
| Dateline | Kalispell / Columbia Falls, Montana |
| First publisher | yes |
| Original URL | https://www.newspapers.com/image/1076124713/?terms=unmanned+aerial |
| Archive URL | — |
| Dedup key | 2010-01-04|daily-inter-lake|marino-scaneagle-columbia-falls |
| Source grade | A1 |

## Pictures

- page: 2010-01-04-daily-inter-lake-marino-uav-pilot-page.jpg — https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Crk8PpEej2RK0L6BJaej8-e0QeL3nM99/view
- photo 1: 2010-01-04-daily-inter-lake-marino-uav-pilot-photo-1.jpg — https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZXb6ifEKSVExGam0IrEQCHVF3oxUEAFb/view
- clips folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1On-WlTNnfFzvc6yhd46XSlX3I6Kuih_-


## Record

**Verified extract — [Fact — A1]** Candace Chase of The Daily Inter Lake reported on page 1 that Jim Marino of Columbia Falls pilots a ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle system — "flies like an eagle without ever leaving the ground" — as eyes in the sky for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Marino's first deployment was embedded in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004, remotely operating ScanEagle cameras and GPS while an intelligence officer relayed insurgent positions to Marines. He said, "We were saving lives every minute." ScanEagle was originally designed to find schools of tuna for fishing boats; the paper said it can stay airborne longer than 19 hours on one and a half gallons of gas, fly in light rain, and has a range of 80 miles expandable to 160 by handoff. The 4-foot-long aircraft with a 10-foot wingspan launches from a pneumatic wedge catapult and lands by skyhook; Marino said that once in the air it is on autopilot. He now works for Boeing; first deployments were with Insitu Group, a Boeing subsidiary that developed ScanEagle and contracted surveillance to the Marines. During the first three days of raids in Fallujah, ScanEagle was the only one of four unmanned aerial vehicle systems transmitting a bird's-eye view. Flying at 1,800 feet, Marino said, "we could see insurgents but they couldn't see us — we could see people on roofs with RPGs." After the first day of the raid, "we earned our wings." Story continues on page A3 (Newspapers.com image 1076124736).

**Kinematic object.** Boeing / Insitu ScanEagle UAV (pneumatic-catapult launch; skyhook recovery).

**Coverage frame.** military / industry

## Source integrity

- Why original: Daily Inter Lake staff byline (Candace Chase) on a Columbia Falls civilian UAV operator; local name, employer path (Insitu then Boeing), and Fallujah quotes.
- Wire reprint status: Not a wire reprint. Adjacent AP motel-arrest and embassy-threat briefs are separate.
- OCR / clip caveats: Verified from Newspapers.com full-page scan OCR. Headline reconstructed from visible "Marino flies troops'" plus "eagle eye in the sky" on the same deck; jump page A3 not fully extracted in this record.
- Printed photograph: "Photo courtesy of James Marino" — Marino of Columbia Falls standing with the Boeing ScanEagle in front of its launcher; caption says he deployed six times as a civilian to the Middle East.

## LRRK relevance

Watch / Passport. A Watch desk would have logged a local civilian contractor operating ScanEagle over Fallujah and the airframe's tuna-boat origin, endurance, and skyhook recovery.

*LRRK — security assurance for systems that sense, move, and act.*

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