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Wide Maritime Area Airborne Surveillance (WiMAAS) is a capability project addressing the European Commission FP7 Security Research Call 1 topic "Surveillance in wide maritime areas through active and passive means. " WiMAAS is providing a key airborne building block (including U A V s) of a civil maritime surveillance System of Systems to be defined in Europe. Initial thoughts about the SoS are presented. WiMAAS addresses the urgent need for civil surveillance for situation awareness on flow of people and goods, i.e., illegal immigration, human trafficking, illegal trade, drug traffic, smuggling, organized crime, and terrorism by sea, in the context of the Integrated Border Management. In line with the EU Maritime Policy, it also contributes to other public service missions by focusing on maritime security and traffic, threats, and risks identification of small and fast targets, search and rescue,· monitoring of difficult or dangerous sites, and protection of the marine environment.