February theme: Aviation securityIAI's Stark subsidiary eyeing U.S. defense, homeland security markets

Published 13 February 2008

IAI establishes a U.S. subsidiary to market its UAVs and payloads in the U.S. defense and homeland security markets; IAI is eyeing the U.S. coast guard and border patrol; first goal: Offer IAI’s Heron 1 as an alternative to General Atomics’ Predator

We wrote yesterday (HSDW 12 February 2008) about UAVs in Israel, the country which pioneered the broad-based used of the system in military missions.Flight reports that Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is establishing a presence in the U.S. market for its UAVs through its Starkville, Mississippi-basedStark Aerospace subsidiary. IAI’s plans for the new company go beyond UAVs and their payloads. Established in 2006, Stark is IAI’s first defense subsidiary in the United States, but the Israeli company has had a presence in the North American commercial aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul market for several decades. Its Commodore Aviation subsidiary — part of IAI’s Bedek MRO division — relocated from Miami, Florida to Rome, New York in 2005 and becoming Empire Aero Center. IAI and its Elta electronics division have sold products in the U.S. defense market for years, but its Israeli rival Elbit Systems was first to establish a U.S. subsidiary when in 1996 it purchased General Dynamics’s electronics manufacturing business in Fort Worth, Texas. EFW is now a major supplier of defense electronics and today Elbit’s U.S. operations, which include cockpit avionics manufacturer Kollsman, account for around 40 percent of the company’s revenues.

Created from scratch, Stark began operations upgrading RQ-5 Hunter UAVs for supply to the U.S. Army through prime contractor Northrop Grumman, says Uzzi Rozzen, president of IAI International, the U.S. arm of IAI which owns 100 percent of Stark. In 2007 the new company set up a second facility in Columbus, Mississippi to service IAI’s Plug-in Optronic Payload (POP) for the U.S. Army’s AAI RQ-7 Shadow tactical UAV. Stark is upgrading the Hunter UAVs with a larger “wet” wing to extend endurance and installing twin heavy-fuel engines based on a diesel first used in the Smart mini-car. This work will give the subsidiary the capability to manufacture UAVs for the U.S. market. Maintaining POP units in the United States shortens the turn-around time, says IAI. Stark has since added the capability to assemble the payloads, and will eventually have the ability to develop new versions of the POP for the U.S. market. IAI has already developed smaller version of the electro-optical sensor for its I-View and Bird-Eye minim- and micro-UAVs. Rozzen says Stark will have the infrastructure to expand its product portfolio to include not only new UAVs and electro-optical payloads, but aerostructures, including composites for commercial and military fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft — an extension of work IAI performs in Israel for airframe manufacturers. “In two or three years time there will be a unique Stark product,” he says.

Which brings us to homeland security. IAI is eyeing the U.S. coast guard and border patrol markets for UAVs and payloads, and having a U.S.-managed subsidiary will allow the company to bid directly for government contracts. “Stark will prime for IAI in the USA,” says Rozzen. “We see opportunities for small and big UAVs.” The first opportunity seen for Stark is to produce a U.S. version of IAI’s equivalent to the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Predator medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV, the Heron 1. It would be offered for coast guard and border patrol missions. Stark has U.S. management and will have a special security agreement allowing it to bid for U.S. Department of Defense contracts. “It will be easier to penetrate the market with a U.S. subsidiary,” says Rozzen. “Stark will take IAI products and from them develop special products for the U.S. market.”