Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has transformed the Harop UAS into a suicide drone capable of carrying out targeted attacks. The Harop, which is capable of flying for hours, has been transformed into a potential missile, as up to 10kg of explosives can be carried in the nose of the aircraft.
It has been modified in such a way that it explodes as soon as it hits the target. It can receive instructions from a distance of up to 1,000km.
The modification is done at IAI’s facility in central Israel and takes two weeks.
A report on Israel’s Ynet News reads: “The IAI factory recently began production of an even more accurate version of Harop along with an accompanying launch vehicle which increases the operational flexibility of the missile masked as an airplane.”
The drone has already undergone a trial run by hitting a mock target similar to that of an operational headquarters of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant group.
Hundreds of units of the unmanned aircraft, which could be launched from any platform, are already believed to have been sold by IAI to several clients.
Source: International Business Times
Errr, Harop (and Harpy before it) has always been a “suicide” system, even a milliseconds worth of research using something as random (and unreliable) as Wikipedia will reveal that fact. The quality of reporting on UAS matters, in fact defence and aerospace matters across the board by this “International Business Times” is amongst the worst seen in the global market for the better part of a decade. If they keep up this standard we can surely expect they will next report that heavier than air flight might be theoretically achievable….
10kg of nerve agent or biological weapon would be quite effective too. Nobody ever mentions that aspect of UAV’s.