March 30, 2010 in India, Pakistan
Pakistan has already received US Shadow drones, but Pakistan has already been working on its own drones.
* Pakistan’s indigenous UAVs: Uqaab, Jasoos, Mukhbar & Burraq
* The Pakistani UAV Burraq is a Predator equivalent
* Israeli drone technology to Pakistan via Italian, Chinese, Turkish firms
THE LETHAL PAKISTANI BURRAQ IS THE PREDATOR EQUIVALENT: The Burraq is capable of reconnaissance and missile attacks:
“PAC engineers have been working on the first UAV project of the country for two years,” according to a report published on the aviation industry Flightglobal website in August. Pakistan is also reported to be flight-testing the Burraq, named for a winged-horse type creature in Islamic tradition. The Burraq is to be equipped with National Engineering and Scientific Commission (or NESCom) designed laser designator and laser-guided missiles. Unlike the Falco, Burraq will be able to attack and destroy targets.
Pakistan has now virtually become a member of the club of countries manufacturing drones. The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) desperately needs UAVs capable of firing at targeted militants.
The Falco, with an autonomous navigation and control system, has a standard control link range of 200 kilometers and is capable of short take-offs from semi-prepared airstrips. Among its prominent features are automatic take-off and landing, fully redundant and fault-tolerant control systems and near-real-time target image processing.
ISLAMABAD — After years of watching U.S. drones operate along its Afghan border, Pakistan is working on its own Predator-like unmanned aerial vehicle to undertake the same mission, sources here said. The sources said the country’s air force and government-owned defense conglomerate, the National Engineering and Scientific Commission, are flight-testing a new-design aircraft to be equipped with a NESCom-designed laser designator and laser-guided missiles. The Burraq UAV is named for a winged horse creature in Islamic tradition, similar to Pegasus.
According to local news reports, Pakistan is focusing its unmanned aircraft efforts on upgrading various older UAVs with Chinese help. But the sources note that no domestically produced UAVis large enough to heft both a missile and a targeting system. The military’s most capable UAV is the air force’s Selex Galileo Falco, which can laser-designate targets for other platforms but cannot deliver munitions.
Officials with the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Defence Production here refused to confirm or deny the program’s existence. A spokesman for the military’s Inter Services Public Relations said it was “not ready to give a statement on the issue at this time.” One former air force officer said the notion of a Pakistan-developed hunter-killer UAV is credible. “You only have to see our track record,” said Kaiser Tufail, a retired air commodore. “We have some fantastic achievements in the field of defense.”
Tufail said Pakistan needs such a weapon. Anti-terror operations on the frontier require “hours and hours of round-the-clock reconnaissance,” married with the ability to strike quickly when a target is spotted, he said. Help from China? Analysts were more dubious about Pakistan’s ability to produce a laser-guided missile, but they noted that help might be found in China or Turkey. Turkey, with whom Pakistan has an agreement to cooperate on UAV development, is seeking an armed UAV, preferably the Predator or MQ-9 Reaper. This UAVmay someday be armed with the UMTAS infrared guided anti-tank missile being developed by the Turkish firm Roketsan to arm the T-129 attack helicopter.
Pakistan could simply produce China’s new CH-3 unmanned combat air vehicle, “or co-produce any number of Chinese components to assemble a unique UCAV,” said Richard Fisher, China specialist and senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center in Washington. “China has also developed the unique AR-1, a 45-kilogram, laser-guided attack missile, apparently designed specifically for light winged or helicopter UCAVs,” he said. Pakistan reported developing armed UAV By Usman Ansari – Staff writer, Saturday May 9, 2009 8:17:26 EDT
The Burraq is based on the Falco – SELEX GALILEO technology. We produce information on the Selix Galileo so that an adequate comparison can be made with the Burraq.
NEW DELHI: New battlelines are being drawn for a spy drone versus spy drone face-off between India and Pakistan. Even as Islamabad continues to badger Washington to give it armed drones like `Predators’, New Delhi is quietly working towards bolstering its fleet of reconnaissance and `killer’ Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
While Pakistan has been after US to get `strategic’ UAVs like `Predators’, the latter has so far only agreed to supply `tactical’ unarmed `Shadow’ drones for intelligence-gathering missions.
`Predators’ and `Reapers’, controlled from hundreds of miles away through satellites, can unleash havoc with their `Hellfire’ missiles…The Times of India
Unable to produce its own drones, the Bharati (aka Indian) establishment is doing what it does best–tries to buy drones. Most of the time, the exporting nations sell their junk to Delhi. Corrupt Bharati politicians don’t really care about the quality of the equipment–as long as their pockets are filled.
In the latest such contract inked with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) a few days ago, India has ordered a few more `Heron’ MALE (medium-altitude, long endurance) drones, ground control systems and data terminals for around Rs 700 crore, defence ministry sources said on Thursday.
The importance of UAVs in modern-day warfare cannot be overstated, both for their snooping as well as targeting capabilities.
Bharat has been unable to produce any drones on its own–however it does have stripped down versions of Israeli UAVs.
These primarily include Israeli ones like Searcher-II and Heron, as also some Harpy `killer’ drones designed to detect and destroy enemy radars by functioning like cruise missiles.
Under the latest deal, Navy will now get two more Herons to add to its UAV fleet of eight Searcher-II and four Herons, which are being used for maritime surveillance up to 200 nautical miles.
There is also the ongoing Rs 1,163 crore joint IAI-DRDO project for NRUAVs (naval rotary UAVs) or unmanned helicopters operating from warship decks for advanced ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) missions.
As reported by TOI earlier, Army is also going in for two more `troops’ (8 birds each) of advanced Heron UAVs for Rs 1,118 crore after the Defence Acquisitions Council approved it in February 2009.
Apart from using UAVs for spying and directing precision-guided munitions, IAF is now looking to induct Israeli Harop `killer’ UAVs from 2011 onwards. Like the Harpy, Harop drones are capable of loitering over targets before they explode into them. But what makes them more advanced is that they also have electro-optical sensors to make them capable of even hitting important enemy military installations like missile sites.
While Harpy and Harop are kamikaze UAVs which perish with the targets, Predators and Reapers are more like fighters since they return to their bases to get a fresh stock of missiles for new missions.
The next phase will be that of full-fledged UCAVs (combat UAVs) being currently developed to replace manned fighter jets for medium and long-range conventional or nuclear bombing missions. India lines up Israeli drones in race with Pak Rajat Pandit, TNN, Mar 26, 2010, 01.06am IST
The latest Times of India article does acknowledge that the indigenous production has been non-existent.
India, on its part, has also set the indigenous ball rolling. After Nishant and Lakshya drones, DRDO is developing the `Rustom’ MALE drones, with the Army keen to induct seven `troops’ of them.
Moreover, as reported earlier, Army also wants to induct man-portable `mini’ and `micro’ UAVs for short-range surveillance and NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) detection in the battlefield. Army, in fact, wants to induct these miniature spy drones right down to the battalion-level by 2017. India lines up Israeli drones in race with Pak Rajat Pandit, TNN, Mar 26, 2010, 01.06am IST
Delhi plays catchup with Islamabad’s drones Military Strategy
