PGZ Interested in Israeli Loitering Munitions

The Memorandum of Understanding concluded last week in Warsaw assumes that joint initiatives would be pursued together in the areas where the tactical UAVs could be applied. Same applies to electronic warfare suites and aerial refuelling platforms. It was signalled too that there is a will to cooperate within the scope of promotion, marketing and sales, as well as license manufacturing and joint development of prospective projects for a variety of modernization initiatives implemented in Poland. PGZ S.A., IAI and ELTA Systems have altogether decided to undertake joint actions targeted at initiating export sales of the jointly developed products.

Harop and Harpy loitering munition systems are one of the elements of the memorandum which has been concluded between the Polish and the Israeli companies. According to the information announced by PGZ, the memorandum also includes a provision on an option of expanding of collaboration with extra elements which does not exclude potential cooperation in the domain of UAVs that would be more advanced that loitering munitions. 

Harop system manufactured by the IAI company is a new variant of the Harpy single use UCAV that was being used to find and destroy radar posts. Harop, with its length of 2.7 m, and wingspan of 2.1 m, is capable of carrying a 37 kg warhead at distances of up to 500 kilometres.

Harpy drone is 2.5 m long and has wingspan of 3.0 meters. It carries a smaller combat payload of 23 kilograms, at distances of 1000 kilometres. The drone may stay in the air for up to 6 hours, looking for its target. The targets are found thanks to a bottom-mounted optronic sensor. The drone itself is radio-controlled.