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.
Source: Flight International
