ADE to start work on Unmanned Air Vehile Rustom

Bangalore, Sep 1 (UNI) Defence aviation research organisation, Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) will soon initiate work on its third Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) Rustom shortly, A top official of ADE said today.

Speaking at a lecture series organised by the Aeronautical Society of India(ASI) here Dr R S Krishnan, Director of ADE said that Rustom would be a long endurance UAV which would have the capability of staying on air for about 24 hours and hovering around a height of 35,000 ft.

ADE had already developed Lakshya, which had already been operationalised by the three forces of Indian defence and licensed to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for serial production.

He said each Lakshya could last 15 flights and some of them had even completed 20 flights. As many as 172 flights of Lakshya launched both from land and ship have been completed.

On Nishant, the unmanned serveillence vehicle, he said the user trials have been completed with as many as 109 flights logged. In the first phase the Indian army would take four Nishants and in the second phase, it had been envisaged to procure eight such aircraft.

UNI