Panther UAV (Wiki Info - Image: Wiki Commons) |
By Franz-Stefan Gady
The Israeli and South Korean defense industries are partnering up to develop a new Vertical Take-Off and Landing UAV.
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and South Korean composite manufacturer, Hankuk Carbon (HC), have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a joint venture to develop and produce new Vertical Take-Off and Landing Unnamed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) at the beginning of February, according to Israeli media reports.
The companies said that they will start their collaboration with the development of a UAV with a 200-300 kilogram takeoff weight and aim to produce 90 percent of it in South Korea. IAI and HC are also considering jointly developing a shipborne take-off and landing capabilities for the IAI/Hankuk FE-Panther VTOL drone—a tactical UAV specifically developed to operate in Korea’s mountainous regions, and which will be available by the end of 2018.
According to Flight Global, the Panther UAV was first revealed in October 2015 and “is powered by lithium polymer batteries and a gasoline engine, and has an endurance of 8 hours with 6 kilogram payload. It has a 130km range and a maximum speed of 100km/h, and has an automatic VTOL capability.”
Israel and South Korea have first partnered up in the development of UAVs in 2014. Seoul has the ambitious plan of becoming the third technologically most advanced leader in drone technology by 2023. “By 2023, South Korean should only trail behind the United States and Israel in terms of technological prowess while ranking as the fourth largest supplier of drones as measured in sales,” the director of Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Choi Seong-wook, told Yonhap News in 2014.
Read the full story at The Diplomat