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The Ukrainian Parliament passed a bill approving a military agreement signed between Ukraine and Turkey. Some 303 out of 450 lawmakers voted in favor of the law. The agreement was signed during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Turkey on Oct. 16, 2020. It includes the legal framework for mutual defense cooperation issues. The agreement reflects a guarantee for security and peace in the Black Sea region. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry also signed a series of agreements on Dec. 14 with the Turkish side on the production and technology transfer of naval corvettes and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV), which...

The Air Force's flight test center at the Nevada Test and Training Range continues to grow...the facility has grown dramatically since 2000, including the addition of a massive and mysterious hangar built at the base's southern end...an even larger extension to an existing hangar facility that is quite peculiar in nature points to the possibility that the age of large swarms of unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) has finally arrived. For a year, construction has been underway in a section of the southern ramp area at the base, near where the original A-12 Oxcart hangars still stand. Four more modern...

Just a week after Boeing unveiled their export-centric 'loyal wingman' combat drone concept, the Air Force Research Lab has announced that their own similar endeavor, dubbed the XQ-58A Valkyrie, has made its first flight. It also posted the very first image of the aircraft that has been developed under a veil of secrecy over the last two and half years. Beyond finally breaking cover as the USAF's 'attritable' unmanned combat air vehicle concept, the XQ-58A is really the first Air Force UCAV concept we have seen since all the momentum towards fielding any sort of this type of hugely promising...

We have talked in-depth about how China is barreling forward with advanced unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) development—and this is just based on what the Chinese government wants us to see. Now a new photo has surfaced that appears to show a full-sized 'Dark Sword' UCAV. The concept has been talked about and shown in renderings and models for over a decade and a subscale remote controlled demonstrator was supposedly flown as well. But this is the first time evidence of a far more mature and substantive iteration of Dark Sword has been seen. Dark Sword, which originates from Shenyang...

Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has developed a Maritime version of its Harop Loitering Munitions (LM) family. The company is displaying the weapon at the DSEI 2017 defense expo in London this week. The new marine capabilities of the HAROP extends the operational capability of surface ships, from offshore patrol vessels to naval frigates. The technological adjustments of the marine Harop include a launcher with new marine configuration and adjustments of the communication channel of the loitering munition. In the past year, IAI unveiled several new types of LMs, including the New Generation Harpy autonomous anti-radiation weapon designed for air defense...

TOULON, France --- France has decided to arm its surveillance drones in West Africa as part of counter-terrorism operations against Islamist militants, Defense Minister Florence Parly said on Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron has made fighting Islamist militants his primary foreign policy objective and the move to armed drones fits into a more aggressive policy at a time when it looks increasingly unlikely Paris will be able to withdraw from the region in the medium to long-term. France has six Reapers France currently has five unarmed Reaper reconnaissance drones positioned in Niger's capital Niamey to support its 4,000-strong Barkhane counter-terrorism...

The U.S. Air Force’s latest unmanned aerial vehicle is small, stealthy and cheap enough to be essentially disposable. The Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft, or LCAA, could radically change the way the world’s leading air arm wages war. The U.S. Defense Department revealed the first LCAA prototype as part of the annual DoD Lab Day, an official even highlighting the work of various military research institutions. A photo accompanying a Lab Day handout depicts an angular, jet-powered drone with a silvery paint job that could have radar-absorbing qualities. The Air Force wants the LCAA to have a Mach .9 top speed and...

The Wing Loong II first flew in late February (main photo, Chinese Internet). The armed CH-4 was unveiled at the Xhuhai airshow in 2012 (inset, Vladimir Karnozov) Saudi Arabia has now been confirmed as the customer that has ordered from China a large quantity of the Wing Loong II UCAV that made its first flight on February 27. Chinese state news agency Xinhua said that this is the country’s largest-ever arms export. Media in Saudi Arabia reported that the Kingdom will acquire 300 Chinese UAVs (eg. Wing Loong IIs) worth approximately $10 billion. The Wing Loong (Pterodactyl) series is produced...

The Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded target drone builder Kratos a contract to execute what it calls a Low-Cost Attritable Strike Unmanned Aerial System Demonstration (LCASD). This proof-of-concept initiative is centered on creating a (relatively) cheap unmanned combat aircraft that the USAF can afford to lose in combat, even opting to do so willingly by sending it on a one-way mission if need be. Alternatively, if the vehicle had the range to return to friendly territory, it could be repeatedly recovered and launched again on other missions, even from small bases without runways. The contract’s total value is $40.8...

The state-owned China Central Television (CCTV) news channel has released a previously unseen video of Beijing’s AVIC Wing Loong unmanned air vehicle carrying out weapons testing. Conducted in the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia in northern China in July, the testing saw the UAV fire eight weapon types at targets to show the flexibility of the system, AVIC says. “[UAVs] that can both reconnoitre and attack have to function like this. It is unknown what kinds of targets are on the ground,” Li Yidong, deputy chief engineer of Wing Loong at AVIC’s Chengdu Engines, told CCTV. “You cannot use just...

Drones that could eventually replace the current generation of jet fighters have moved a step closer after BAE Systems and Dassault Aviation won a £120m contract. Britain’s BAE and France’s Dassault have signed a two-year joint contract with the UK and French governments to look at what would be needed to build such an aircraft. The deal confirms the Anglo-French agreement announced at the Farnborough Air Show in July, and is the next step towards unmanned jets that could replace the current fourth-generation fighters - the Typhoon in Britain and the Rafale in France. The contract will focus on developing...

PARIS: Saab could take pilot out of Gripen, says CEO Saab's investment in technologies linked to Europe's Neuron unmanned combat air system demonstration programme could in the future enable it to take the pilot out of its Gripen E/F fighter, believes chief executive Håkan Buskhe. Revealing his thoughts on the prospect of adapting the in-development type for optionally piloted operations, Buskhe says: "Maybe an air force could fly with a mixed formation of Gripens - one or two manned, and the others without pilots." "We are working with the Neuron programme, and will have flight tests at the Vidsel test...

Report: SA to give Saudi Arabia killer drones A Paris-based journal has said Denel intends to sell Saudi Arabia drone aircraft capable of firing missiles. This has been a capability the United States has denied the Middle Eastern nation and would thrust South Africa into a politically-fraught market. In 2010, Denel started dropping hints that the new version of its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the Seeker, could potentially offer more than just reconnaissance. Now it seems the weapons manufacturer has found its first customer for drone aircraft capable of blowing up a house or vehicle with few unintended casualties. According...

China investing in destabilising UAV capabilities: report A report by the Project 2049 Institute contends that Beijing has made considerable strides in its development of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). "The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) appears to be fielding operational UAV capabilities that could have significant future regional security implications," says the 15-page report. "In order to support China's efforts to become a world-class leader in unmanned technology, the PLA has developed an extensive and organisationally complex UAV infrastructure over the past decade." It estimates that China fields 280 UAVs, with this number to "increase significantly" in the coming years....

Report: France, Britain to build unmanned fighter jet Paris - French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron are to unveil plans to develop an unmanned European fighter jet at a summit in Paris on Friday, Les Echos financial newspaper reported. The paper on Thursday quoted unnamed sources as saying the two governments aimed to build a 'prototype of an unmanned stealth aircraft by 2020.' 'This is clearly bilateral cooperation for the post-Rafale and post-Eurofighter (era),' the paper quoted a source as saying. The Rafale fighter jet is produced by France's Dassault Aviation. Eurofighter - a consortium of...

First Russian strike UAV to be showcased at Moscow air show Lutch, Russia's first unmanned air vehicle (UAV) designed to carry out air strikes, will be shown at the Moscow air show next week, according to its producer, Vega. "Vega will show a full-scale mock-up of the Lutch medium-range UAV at MAKS 2011," a Vega representative said. "Lutch is designed for optical reconnaissance, radar, radio-relay and electronic reconnaissance missions," he added. Lutch can also carry guided weapons on fuselage pylons or in a fuselage weapons bay. "Up to 150-170 kilograms of ammunition and weapons control systems can be carried," Vega...

The next generation of Top Guns may be gamer geeks. That's because the X-47B just took its very first flight, heralding a whole new era of military flying--automatic or remote-piloted, stealthy, deadly combat aircraft. Technically the X-47B is an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV), but what it really is is an evolution of those Global Hawk and Predator drone aircraft that made the Iraq War look like a computer game when viewed at the military's tech hubs, mixed in with the same kind of stealth technology that makes the B-2 Spirit bomber such a powerful, frightening tool of force projection....

China's Armed Predator Posted by Robert Wall at 11/17/2010 3:10 AM CST China has developed a Predator-like armed unmanned aircraft: the Pterodactyl I medium-extended long-endurance system. Avic says it unveiled the air vehicle for the first time two years ago at the Airshow China, but a colleague who was here at the time says that was not the case -- it may have been on of the programs that was made to disappear last minute, as is often the case here. But one of the key developments for the UAV since then is that authorities in China have given the...

Few people remember the movie Stealth with and that’s probably because it was a bit of a disaster at the box office. But those who watched it probably do remember the Artificial Intelligence-driven Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) named Extreme Deep Invader (EDI). You know, the one that crashes in the end. As far as the public knows, the world’s leading aerospace companies are far from developing an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with the kind of intelligence that EDI had and just as well, considering how smart machines usually end up turning on their human masters in Hollywood flicks. They...

LONDON (AFP) – An unmanned jet capable of striking long-range targets has been dubbed the "combat aircraft of the future" by the Ministry of Defence. The Taranis -- named after the Celtic god of thunder -- was unveiled at a ceremony at BAE Systems in Warton, Lancashire, on Monday. The £142.5 million prototype is the size of a light aircraft and has been equipped with stealth technology to make it virtually undetectable. In a press release, the MoD described the Taranis as "a prototype unmanned combat aircraft of the future." It is built to carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance...