India to buy attack drone IAI Eitan from Israel

India to buy attack drone IAI Eitan from Israel

    The Indian Air force all set to induct combat drones from Israel within a year, an agreement reached with Indian Ministry and Israeli aircraft industries to supply the attack drone IAI Eitan, ground control station, modification of exiting air base to accommodate much larger drone, weapon packages, and spare parts, the deal valued more than some $400 millions, with the price tag of $40 million per plane, IAF plans to induct nearly 10 Eitan drones in it's attack drone fleet, 

  The Indian air force planned to induct the attack drones by earlier 2012, and sought foreign drones, meantime DRDO proposed Rustom 2 drone with attack capabilities, and promised to deliver within a matter of time, however the progress of Rustom 2 is not going well, as Chinese already developed and  testing a drone similar to US MQ 9 Reaper drone dubbed wing loong, the Pakistani's also performed a battlefield UAV with attack capabilities, and India yet to catch up.

   It's hard to digest that IAF asked to purchase some attack drones from Israel, who is willing to sale only to India, however with some political reasons the UPA government denied to allocate funds to buy attack drones, and the new government already briefed by the IAF several times, and they cleared the deal by now, last week the NSA Chief Ajit Doval due a visit to Israel and met some Israeli officials, within a days some Israeli officials too visited Delhi and sealed the deal.

   Israel is known as a reliable partner to India, who ready to sell it's state of art technology to India with transferring critical technologies, It's believed that IAI might allow the DRDO team to inspect and study the Eitan drone and continue work on the Indigenous Rustom 2 drone,

   IAF may think to establish a new drone base somewhere in western front, by deploying those attack drones to monitor the  international border, IAF already operating array of Israeli drones including the Heron drone similar to Eitan and target drones like Harpy and Haroop. the Eitan is developed based on the Heron UAV, sharing similar airframe and characteristics, the Navy and Airforce operates more than fifty such drones for recon purpose.

   The Eitan is an MALE- Medium Altitude and Long Endurance UAV's ,means they can operate in the medium altitude some 30,000 feet to 50,000 feet, and stay in the air for more than 30 hours, to conduct recon missions continuously, the earlier Heron is lack of range due to it's data link and control methods, Heron can perform mission inside a circle of 350 km, because it is designed to patrol the designated area for more than a days

   The Eitan something like the American MQ 9 Reaper, or more powerful than the Reaper, the Eitan is designed to fly above the commercial air traffic that is 30,000 to 40,000 feet, because of long endurance the Eitan can stay above the commercial air line for more than a day, the Eitan can fly above some 45,000 feet and perform recon missions, the huge wing helps the Eitan to fly very low to perform strike mission and within a matter of time it can reach the higher altitude to continue the surveillance, the Earlier Heron is not designed to fly such high altitude, it's fly below some 10,000 feet, the American MQ 9 is also share same characteristics of flying altitude.

   The drones are powered by turboprop engines, so they were slow speed and subsonic, the Eitan uses the Canadian Pratt and Whitney engines which delivers 1200 horse power way too powerful than the American Reaper, which accelerates the Eitan to reach more than 300 kilometers per hour in normal flight speed, the reaper is much faster than the Eitan, the IAI Eitan is much larger drone, with the length of some 13 meters and a wing span of some 26 meter similar wing size to the Boeing 737 Commercial Air Plane.

   Once the Eitan fully fueled, it can stay in the air for more than 36 hours, with the use of Satellite communication it can perform mission with the range of some 7,000 kilometers, one of the very few drone who works on the beyond line of sight, and it's possible even if the Base is located in Delhi, the drone can perform attack mission deep behind enemy lines, similar capabilities is not available in any other drones, except the US Navy MQ 4 Global Hawk.

   Originally the Israeli's made the Eitan to attack Iranian long rang missiles in it's launch pads, that's the main reason of increased Range and Endurance, and Israel tested the drone by flying more than 20 hours with beyond line of Sight, the Drone can't be jammed by it's signal since it uses secured satellite communication and uses pre- programed flight routes in  communication denied air spaces, the onboard system allows the Drone return to Base if the mission is compromised or successful,

   The Eitan carries upto one ton of payload's in it's center line, with a quad packed Hellfire anti armor missiles, precision and laser guided munitions and Spice missiles, IAF receives such weapons and armaments along with the $400 million deal, Israeli's used the Eitan during the Israel Palestine war The drone dropped precision guided munitions against a moving armed convoy. and some Strike missions against the Terrorists in Sinai peninsula.

   With the induction of armed drones gives an upper edge to India by conducting strike missions against infiltrators along the international border, earlier the Recon drones gives moving information to the army commands, while they send Soldiers to confront them, and from now they never risk the Soldiers life, if anyone tries to Infiltrate the border, the Eitan comes from the Sky and drop the munition without any warning, and It's a boost to IAF that in future they can conduct strike missions inside Pakistan by targeting terrorists camps. 

The Indian UAV Arsenal

The Indian UAV Arsenal

Indian Army Nishant UAV

     It's unbelievable numbers of unmanned platforms currently on the tri -services.  not only but Armed forces want double the Numbers of UAV's, as of now estimated that the Armed forces using more than two hundred of unmanned platforms.

        The Forces looking for micro UAV's like the Raven to MQ 4 Triton HALE UAV's, as of now Army operating more number of MALE ( medium altitude long endurance ) UAV's most of them used for only Reconnaissance and Target Tracking, which they designed to used,

         But the Air force  uses Killer drones like the Israeli Harpy and Haroop drones. the number of these drones still classified, that nearly hundred of them under operational by the Indian Air force, these drones used for SEAD operations only.

        The Haroop is an advanced UCAV used only by the Indians and Israeli's designed to Kill enemy radars and early warning networks, due to it's highly stabilized aero dynamic and slow speed, it's more maneuverable and fly too low and loiter before attack the target, this is the only good platform to attack high value targets before going to full assault.

          The Indian Airforce and Navy operating more advanced recon platform the IAI Heron MALE UAV's which can capable to fly more than two days continuously at an altitude of 10,000 Meters, they using this platform to track and recon specified area's for Counter Intelligence mission. some good characteristics are if you lost the control of such UAV's the UAV itself come back where you launched. such capabilities gives an upper edge to the  UAV can't fall in enemy hands, like the RQ 170 saga.  the Numbers of Heron is estimated more than sixty.

        But the Army uses dedicated UAV's, Army have more than hundreds of IAI Searcher drones. significantly less performance compared to the Heron. both range and altitude unlike the Heron It's designed to capable of tracking ground threats and recon missions. here also the numbers are unknown but more than 100 drones is in operational under the Army Aviation as of now.

   The home grown ADE Nishat is an another good UAV used by the Army, Nearly 10 of them under operational only by the Indian Army. unlike other drones It's have some other good features, a bit difficult to launch, you need the catapult truck to launch the Nishant, and it can be land with the use of Parachute free fall technique. the Nishant is an Battle UAV, used for many operation, since it's Endurance is capped less than 4 hours.

       But it can do good things such as guidance to target acquisition, Artillery fire support, that means, the Nishant guide the Artillery course to set the co ordinates correct to the enemy positions, to increase the Kill probability of Artillery, SIGNINT- the Nishant's payload capable to intercept enemy communications, if Nishant flies above enemy post any if they using wireless for communication Nishant track it and feed it to Indian command centers.

         There is a wheeled version of Nishant under trails knows as Panchi, which can be fulfill the Army's requirement and improvements in the early Nishant model, if trails successful army plans to add a fleet of hundred such UAV's in it's fleet to increase the Fire and Recon power.

    The Navy and DRDO uses the PTA for testing purpose, which can be used for testing Air defense missile's performance, the Lakshya used as a Target to the SAM and other Missiles to measure the performance of the SAM and missile system, the Astra and Akash already tested with PTA.

        There were couple more micro UAV's under operational by the Forces the good one is the NETRA Quad copter, it's not comes under the UAV category, it's good for search and rescue's Indian Para military such as BSF, ITBP using this. under NDRF it's proven it's performance in tough terrian and weather conditions.

   DRDO also studying the possible UCAV's the armed fighting drone under the code name of Aura, but the program is too classified and the details unknown to the Public.

   DRDO also engaged a project which is a HALE UAV which powered by solar power, used for long endurance recon mission, which is expected to be revealed within two years.  

Indian Air force Heron UAV