Israel's use of UAVs expands

designed for autonomous take-off and landing, a feature of most UAVs developed in Israel. Sources estimate the Eitan has an endurance of more than over seventy hours and a ceiling of 45,000 ft. Its composite fuselage is designed to carry large-volume payloads, and the new UAV will perform some long-range missions now accomplished by manned IAF aircraft.

Egozi points out that Israel has been operating UAVs for more than thirty years and it has become a major supplier to many countries. The IAF will not disclose the scope of its UAV operations, but sources say it is “massive,” running all year long, twenty-four hours a day. In the first Lebanon war, in 1982, only a few basic Scout UAVs helped suppress Syrian surface-air missiles. By the second Lebanon war, in 2006, the variety and number of UAVs used by the Israelis weere very large. A few years ago the air force became the sole operator of UAVs within the Israel military. This followed years of operating them in parallel with the Israeli intelligence corps. Now the Israeli defense force is in the process of selecting small UAVs which will provide fighting units an “over the hill” capability. The ability to develop advanced unmanned platforms has led to the use of a growing number of loitering systems or “hunters.” IAI recently partially unveiled its Harop loitering attack UAV, which is being evaluated by India and Turkey (See February 2007 HSDW story). The Harop is equipped with an electro-optical sensor which enables the operator to select targets during the loiter over the target area.

IAI and Elbit are the leading UAV companies in Israel, but others contribute to the wide variety of systems in service and under development. The realization that UAVs are going to perform many missions in future combat has brought other companies to the market. Israel Military Industries (IMI), mostly an ammunition manufacturer, has developed a type of UAV which serves as munitions dispenser, but is looking for a U.S. partner for the Modular Stand-Off Vehicle (MSOV). “We are still hoping to find a partner to complete the system,” says IMI president Avi Felder. IMI began development of the MSOV as a direct competitor to the Raytheon AGM-154A Joint Stand-Off weapon.

IAF’s three-tier UAV force

Egozi writes that the wide variety of existing vehicles, and industry’s proven capability to develop others on a “needed for combat”