First Kazakhstan drones will take off in 2013

Kazakhstan is expected to start manufacturing unmaned aircraft systems in 2013, Tengrinews.kz reports referring to the press service of Kazakhstan Engineering national company. The tactical drones will be produced by a joint Kazakh-French enterprise. Some formalities are currently being settled. According to the press service, the drones are likely to be used by the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Emergency Situations, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Border Police, National Security Committee, Forestry Committee, Kazmunaigas oil company and others. The unmaned aircraft will be used for civil tasks such as monitoring of natural disaster areas, search for missing people, environment protection projects. They will also carry out military missions: border monitoring, intelligence survey, air support, target marking, radio-electric jamming and many more. The aircraft will need no runway. Besides, it can be prescheduled to fly its rounds. It will be controlled from a mobile command post. The drones' wing span is 4.2 meters, body length is 3.5 meters, and the height is half a meter. With a comparatively heavy maximum take-off weight of 330 kilograms it can fly at the altitude of 4.5 kilometers for as long as 6 hours. The drones will be maintained by a technical crew of 17 people. Engineers say that the aircraft's key feature is precise target marking, object location, high EO/IR sensor resolution and data transition at 25 MB per second. The memorandum creating the joint enterprise for production of tactical drones was signed by Kazakhstan Engineering national company and French SagemDefenseSecurity company in November 2010.