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India carries out successful flight of indigenous RUSTOM-1 drone
May 11, 2012

The indigenously designed and developed RUSTOM-1 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) made 14th successful flight on Tuesday morning in Kolar, India, attaining about 11,500 ft AGL (above ground level) and a speed of above 140 Kmph during 2 hrs 10 minutes of cruise.

It may be noted that this UAV, developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a DRDO lab in Bangalore, had its maiden flight in Nov 2009. Mr. PS Krishnan, Director ADE stated that the flight was successful. All parameters were achieved by the UAV, which weighs around 690 Kg and the total performance was satisfactory.

The highlights of the flight are:

a) Use of lean mixture control system in the engine for flights at high altitudes.
b) Takeoff weight being heaviest so far.
c) Achieved max altitude of 3.5 kms, about 11500 ft.
d) Extended range of about 50 kms tried out for the first time. The waypoint track was perfect and so were takeoff and landing etc.

This UAV has the potential military missions like Reconnaissance & Surveillance, Target Acquisition, Target Designation, Communications Relay, Battle Damage Assessment and Signal Intelligence.

This UAV can attain a maximum altitude of 22,000 ft and endurance of 12-15 Hours with an operating range of 250 Kms when fully developed.

Source: Press Information Bureau