IAI has delivered a dozen UAS, including the short-range Bird-Eye 400 and I-View Mk 150 aircraft, and the longer-range Searcher II, in recent weeks as part of an Israeli effort to encourage the Russians not to provide Iran and Syria with advanced weapons systems, according to The Jerusalem Post.
The delivery is the result of a contract worth $53 million signed in April 2009 , marking Russia’s first purchase of a foreign weapons system. This led to the $400 million deal between IAI and Russia’s Oboronprom OPK Group in October 2010 under which the Russians will independently manufacture the Heron 1. As part of the deal, IAI trained some 50 Russian pilots at its main facility near Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.
“Israel is the world’s leading exporter of drones, with more than 1,000 sold in 42 countries,” Jacques Chemia, chief engineer of IAI’s UAS division, said recently.
Russia has failed to develop its own advanced UAVs, a failing that caused some embarrassment during the brief 2008 war with the former Soviet republic of Georgia. The fact that Georgia however was able to use Elbit’s long-endurance Hermes 450 for battlefield reconnaissance apparently caught the Kremlin’s attention.