Romania has selected the Aeronautics Defense Systems Orbiter 4 unmanned air vehicle to meet its army's requirements.
The Orbiter 4 had been in a competition with two other Israeli designs: the BlueBird ThunderB and Israel Aerospace Industries' BirdEye 650D. Both defeated bidders are trying to overturn the selection, claiming that their systems are better suited to the requirements presented in Romania's official tender.
However, Aeronautics deputy chief executive Dany Eshchar says the Orbiter 4 meets all the operational requirements of the Romanian army. "It is a top of the line system, and any attempt to reverse the selection is out of any context," he says, adding: "the same system has been selected by two other foreign clients."
The company says the Orbiter 4 has an endurance of more than 24h, and can be equipped with two different payloads that can be operated simultaneously. The UAV has a maximum take-off weight of 50kg (110b) and an operating ceiling of 18,000ft, with line-of-sight operations possible up to a range of 135nm (250km).
Source: FlightGlobal.com
