Defence
The Indian ministry of defence and Israel Aerospace Industries are close to signing a contract to convert Indian-made Chetak helicopters to unmanned platforms for use on India's navy ships.
Prime contractor will be Hindustan Aeronautics, which will also invest in the full-scale development of the conversion kit. IAI has recently demonstrated its capability to convert a helicopter into a naval rotary unmanned air vehicle (NRUAV) system for combat ships.
IAI will remove the helicopters' integral avionics suites and replace them with a flight-control system as used on its Heron UAV. This system allows fully autonomous flight, including take-off and landing. The conversion kit has been tested on a Bell 206 and on an Aerospatiale Alouette 3.
IAI claims that the lightweight flight-control system allows the NRUAV to carry extra fuel, giving the helicopter in its unmanned configuration an endurance of 5.5h and operational radius of 120km (65nm) from the mother ship.
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