UAS Selected by Two Middle East Customers

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Unmanned air systems (UAS) seem to raise interest in the Middle East. Two customers in the Middle East and Gulf region have selected the Leonardo -Finmeccanica’s Falco EVO UAS, which functions as a surveillance and intelligence-gathering platform.

According to AIN Online, the manufacturer did not identify those first two customers, saying only that they were existing military customers of the Falco platform based in the Middle East region. The company has reported total of five current Falco customers.

The Falco Evo has greater endurance of 20 hours carrying a payload of up to 100 kg, and can be configured for three sensors, among them the PicoSAR active electronically scanned array (AESA) ground mapping radar, the Gabbiano 20 multi-mode surveillance radar, the new Osprey multi-mode AESA radar and the Sage electronic warfare system, gaining the ability to geo-locate potentially hostile ground-based radars with just a single unmanned aircraft. Customers can also select third-party sensor fits if required.

One of the Falco’s customer is the UN. According to DefenseWorld.net, Leonardo provides the UN with Falco services in support of its humanitarian MONUSCO mission in Congo. Some customers have bought the Falco platforms and operate them independently, while others like the UN have purchased a managed service where Leonardo flies the vehicles and delivers intelligence directly to the customer.

Existing Falco vehicles can be converted to Falco EVO models via a retrofit package which adds the longer wings and tailbooms, allowing the unmanned aircraft to fly at an altitude of 6,000 meters while providing an operating range of more than 200 km in line of sight.