ISRAEL GETS KILLER DRONE?

America’s armed forces have used armed Predator drones in recent years to take out Al Qaeda oper­a­tives and Iraqi artillery. Now, evi­dence is mount­ing that Israel may have pilot­less, killer planes of its own, Reuters reports. And they may be using ‘em to take out Palestinian mil­i­tants.
“I saw a small plane and then a flash of light, then I heard a huge explo­sion and a car went up in flames,” said Abdel Karim Abdel of Jenin, recount­ing how three mil­i­tants were slain by Israel while dri­ving through the West Bank city on Monday…
“The Israelis almost cer­tainly have armed UAV pro­grams on the go right now,” said Robert Hewson, edi­tor of Jane’s Air-​​Launched Weapons.
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“The UAVs offer an ideal ‘closed loop’: spot­ting the tar­get and then hit­ting it from the same plat­form,” Hewson said…
The Web site of Northrop Grumman, a U.S. avion­ics firm, says the com­pany has rigged its Israeli-​​designed Hunter drone with mis­siles that are com­pletely silent, coast­ing out of the sky onto their tar­gets by using glider fins rather than a propul­sion system.

September 15th, 2004 | Drones | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.