Page 17 - ADT JANUARY 2021 Online Magazine

of systems and Turkish Aerospace Industries, bridge the gap. In November 2019, an official of the Federal Service
which is likely to pitch the Anka series. for Military and Technical Cooperation told Russian news agency
TASS that a few countries in the Middle East, including the United
China’s Growing Might Arab Emirates, had expressed an interest in the Orion-E recon-
In addition to selling armed drones at less than naissance MALE drone developed by Russia’s Kronshtadt Group.
half the price of American-made ones, China In August 2020, Kronshtadt Group unveiled a modernized version
has also been busy investing in the technology. of the Orion UAV at the Army-2020 Expo in Moscow; the aircraft
In January 2020, Sichuan Tengden Technology now has an increased load capacity and is also capable of attack.
Company (Tengden) announced that it had [ UNMANNED SYSTEMS ]
completed initial testing and a successful first Airbus DS Eyes Europe Deal
flight of a three-engined variant of its medium In Europe, the OCCAR program, comprising four partners – France,
altitude long endurance (MALE)-class TW328/ Germany, Italy and Spain – are looking to acquire MALE UAVs.
TB001 ‘Twin-tailed Scorpion’ unmanned aerial Airbus Defence and Space chief executive Dirk Hoke told reporters
vehicle (UAV). In January this year, China in December last year that the company expects to sign a contract
formally unveiled its WJ-700 medium/high-at- with the countries in the first quarter of 2021. The potential order
titude long endurance (MALE/HALE) UAV. The is for 20 UAV systems, each system having three units each. The
drone has been developed by Haiying General budget cap is US$8.6 billion. The other industrial partners involved
Aviation Equipment (Hiwing), a subsidiary of are Dassault Aviation and Leonardo. The first flight of the proposed
state-owned defence prime China Aerospace drone is expected in 2025, with series production and delivery set
Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC). for 2028.

China’s People Liberation Army currently has
three main types of MALE drones in its rap-
idly expanding fleet. The PLA Navy and PLA
Air Force has the BZK-005, a twin boom UAV
that is known as “Sea Eagle” (Navy) and “Giant
Eagle” (Air Force). respectively. The PLA also
operates the GJ-1 and GJ-2 armed MALE UAVs,
the domestic versions of the Wing Loong I and
Wing Loong II systems. GJ-1 and GJ-2 have
EO turrets and can launch small air-to-ground
missiles. Larger compared to GJ-1, GJ-2 can
carry a larger payload.
Russia, which lags behind both China and
the U.S. when it comes to UAVs, is working to

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