Drones Anger and Fascinate Pakistanis
By Riaz Haq
CA
Drone is now a household word in Pakistan. It outrages many Pakistanis when used by Americans to hunt militants and launch missiles in FATA. At the same time, it inspires a young generation of students to study artificial intelligence at 60 engineering colleges and universities in Pakistan . It has given rise to robotics competitions at engineering universities like National University of Science and Technology (NUST) and my alma mater NED Engineering University . Continuing reports of new civilian uses of drone technology are adding to the growing interest of Pakistanis in robotics.
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Pakistani UAV Shahpar at IDS 2012 Show |
Last week, two indigenously built drones, named Burraq and Shahpar , were inducted into Pakistan Army and Air Force to deal with both internal and external threats. A press release by the military's Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) announced that Pakistan had inducted its first fleet of “indigenously developed Strategic Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), namely Burraq and Shahpar UAV Systems” for the Army and the Air Force. While the press release provided no other information, an photograph released by ISPR showed a model of a canard pusher UAV that appeared to be armed with two under-wing missiles.
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Gen Kayani is presented a model of the locally developed drone |
Shahpar is a tactical UAV capable of carrying 50 Kg payload and stay aloft for 8 hours. Burraq has the capacity for 100 Kg payload with 12 hours endurance, according to Defense News . Initially, both will serve as reconnaissance platforms to gather and transmit real-time operational intelligence. In future, Burraq will likely be deployed as an armed UAV to carry and launch laser-guided missiles.
Here's an excerpt from Defense News report on Pakistani UAVs:
Burraq, based on CH-3 specs, would carry around a 100-kilogram payload and 12 hours endurance,” he (analyst Usman Shabbir of the Pakistan Military Consortium think tank) said. The given payload of the (Chinese) CH-3 is a pair of AR-1 (laser-guided) missiles, or a pair of FT-5 small diameter bombs. The ability of Pakistan to field an armed UAV has great benefits when faced with time-sensitive targets, he said. “It is important in a sense that it greatly cuts the gap from detection to shoot,” he said. Adding, “Earlier, once you detected something and wanted it taken out you had to pass on the imagery to higher ups, who had to approve and allocate resources like aircraft and by the time the aircraft got there the bad guys were long gone. Now detect, make decision, shoot and go home — all in same loop.” He does not believe there is any real significance in the systems being named for use with both the Army and the Air Force, however, as “both have been operating their own UAV squadrons for a while now.” “The Army has been using German EMT Luna X-2000 and the British [Meggitt] Banshee UAVs, while PAF as we know has a lot of faith in the Italian [Selex] Falco ,” he added. The Luna was also ordered by the Pakistan Navy in June 2012.
The new drones represent a significant advance in Pakistani military's counter-insurgency capacity and battle-readiness for any major conflict in the region .
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