Iranian UAVs | News and Discussions

[Sineva]

Better quality image of the navy VTOL drone.

Conceptually its similar to the drones produced by the Alti company except that theirs either have the vtol rotors mounted underneath the tail booms,or in the one thats probably closest in size to the iri navy model,mounted in an alternating underneath or on top layout.Why they chose this odd alternating layout I dont know,perhaps it gives them better pitch control fore and aft in the hover or perhaps it can be used to augment maneuverability in normal flight.
https://www.altiuas.com/

Sadly the one limitation with these sorts of VTOL designs is the amount of payload that can be carried even with a larger drone,so probably no weapons sadly.Tho one option could possibly be an assisted normal take-off using a gas catapult or rato system launch followed by a normal VTOL landing after the weapons had been expended,but any weapons would have to be very small and lightweight.

 

[VEVAK]

https://www.tasnimnews.com/fa/news/...یایی-ارتش-با-برد-1500-کیلومتر-رونمایی-شد-فیلم

S-129 Naval variant

 

[Kiarash]

Countermeasure dispenser?

 

[Messerschmitt]

 

[Sineva]

View attachment 593190

Countermeasure dispenser?

Bit of an odd place on the wing tip,my bet would be navigation lights.
Still it is good to see some of the regular military finally getting serious about drones AND adopting proven in service designs rather than wasting time and resources trying to design their own equivalents.
Now if only the air force would do the same.......

 

[mohsen]

Any info about the new engine?



YJC.ir

 

[Kiarash]

View attachment 593190

Countermeasure dispenser?

LED navigation light

 

[Sineva]

Any info about the new engine?



YJC.ir

Probably still an imported rotax engine sadly.Iran has to get serious and make sure that it can produce ALL of the major components like this.
A good option would be to re-engine the shaheds with locally built turbo-props,and as it so happens look whats possibly available.....

Its a turbo-prop engine thats based on the little czech built TJ100 jet engine that iran reverse engineered and uses on the 171 drones and quds cruise missiles.It produces over twice the power and is about 3/4 the weight of the rotax 914.With all the extra power the up engined shahed could carry 8 sadid glide bombs.

https://www.aerocontact.com/en/virtual-aviation-exhibition/product/332-turboprop-engine-tp100

 

[mohsen]

Probably still an imported rotax engine sadly.Iran has to get serious and make sure that it can produce ALL of the major components like this.
A good option would be to re-engine the shaheds with locally built turbo-props,and as it so happens look whats possibly available.....

Its a turbo-prop engine thats based on the little czech built TJ100 jet engine that iran reverse engineered and uses on the 171 drones and quds cruise missiles.It produces over twice the power and is about 3/4 the weight of the rotax 914.With all the extra power the up engined shahed could carry 8 sadid glide bombs.

https://www.aerocontact.com/en/virtual-aviation-exhibition/product/332-turboprop-engine-tp100

No, picture shows it's not Rotax anymore.

 

[yavar]

Iran Army Navy equipped new generation Shahed-129 UCAV ( Simorgh) drone
https://en.isna.ir/news/98091611615/Homegrown-combat-drone-Simorgh-joins-Iran-s-Navy

 

[Sina-1]

In regards to a >24h endurance UAV AWACS.

@PeeD, @AmirPatriot , @SOHEIL

why isn’t Iran manufacturing such a craft? It seems like all technological enablers are readily available in Iran. The strategic importance would be enormous. Or am I missing something here?

 

[Sineva]

In regards to a >24h endurance UAV AWACS.

@PeeD, @AmirPatriot , @SOHEIL

why isn’t Iran manufacturing such a craft? It seems like all technological enablers are readily available in Iran. The strategic importance would be enormous. Or am I missing something here?

The problem with that idea is one of size,even small awacs like the saab 340 aew&c and embraer r99 are huge by drone standards and even allowing for the removal of the operators and associated equipments would still require a massive drone relatively speaking.Ultimately it would be far cheaper and easier for iran to convert any of the ex civilian aircraft in military service to do the job the traditional way ie manned awacs.If its 24 hour surveillance then tethered aerostats would be a cheaper option as would blimps.

I`ve no doubt that iran with its radar design and construction experience could certainly build a very modern and capable awacs,however the question is whether this would be a good use of irans resources at this point in time considering that the airforces role is to back up the sam based air defences not the other way round like it is in many other countries.

 

[Sina-1]

The problem with that idea is one of size,even small awacs like the saab 340 aew&c and embraer r99 are huge by drone standards and even allowing for the removal of the operators and associated equipments would still require a massive drone relatively speaking.Ultimately it would be far cheaper and easier for iran to convert any of the ex civilian aircraft in military service to do the job the traditional way ie manned awacs.If its 24 hour surveillance then tethered aerostats would be a cheaper option as would blimps.

I`ve no doubt that iran with its radar design and construction experience could certainly build a very modern and capable awacs,however the question is whether this would be a good use of irans resources at this point in time considering that the airforces role is to back up the sam based air defences not the other way round like it is in many other countries.

I am in no way an expert in the field. But isn’t the size of the aircraft mainly due to:
1. Illumination is directly proportionate to required power
2. Manpower to go through the raw data

First point has become more efficient in recent years due to more energy effective technologies. I would still agree that physics will still dictate a fairly large aircraft for a decent coverage. In either case this can be trade off analysis. Longer range and bigger craft or vise versa.

second point is the most interesting. Traditionally there has been need of a big crew to make sense of the data gathered. Nowadays that is not needed. Firstly because strides within big data and machine learning which can plow through large amount of data much more effectively.
Second because the datalinks applied today can carry much much much more data and send to other stations. This was not possible when awacs was first commissioned and thus the only data which left the craft was the man-modified and greatly simplified one.

 

[TheImmortal]

In regards to a >24h endurance UAV AWACS.

@PeeD, @AmirPatriot , @SOHEIL

why isn’t Iran manufacturing such a craft? It seems like all technological enablers are readily available in Iran. The strategic importance would be enormous. Or am I missing something here?

Because AWACS are highly vulnerable aircraft. Iran’s defense doctrine is to defend the motherland, with OTH radars/air defense systems/Radar jammers what would an Iranian AWACS do?

It would be a sitting duck in the air and would need a significant number of F-14’s to defend it during war time.

All it would take is 1 F-22 to pick it up on radar and release 4 BVR A2A missiles and that plane is toast along with the crew.

 

[AmirPatriot]

In regards to a >24h endurance UAV AWACS.

@PeeD, @AmirPatriot , @SOHEIL

why isn’t Iran manufacturing such a craft? It seems like all technological enablers are readily available in Iran. The strategic importance would be enormous. Or am I missing something here?

As Sineva said, such a UAV would need to be huge, probably jet powered. Quite expensive and complex to make. Not to mention that manned systems would be superior as they could command aerial forces instead of just give early warning to them.

An example is the huge Chinese "Divine Eagle" drone. It's thought to be for maritime patrol and AEW - but not an "AWACS" in the exact sense because it lacks the "C" (for "Control" i.e controlling/commanding other aircraft).