OVERVIEW

With 120,000 h of flight time on its UAVs as of 2002, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have one of the thicker logbooks of any nation with operational UAV experience, averaging over 4000 h each year. Israeli UAVs are also among the most widely exported drones in the world, having been sold to over 20 countries. The Israeli aircraft industry began in 1953 as Bedek Aviation, which later evolved into Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI). Two small Israeli companies dedicated to unmanned aviation, Tadiran and Tamnar, arose in the early 1970s. Tadiran built the Mastiff reconnaissance UAV and Tamnar built target drones and subscale training versions of IAI's UAVs. In 1984, IAI and Tadiran combined to form Mazlat, which is known today as Malat, the UAV division of IAI. Malat is the largest of five UAV manufacturers (the others being Aeronautics Unmanned Systems, Elbit Systems/Silver Arrow, EMIT Aviation Consultants, and BTA Automatic Piloting International) operating in Israel today and holds interests in several of the other companies.

The IDF began considering employing UAVs in 1965 following the deployment of highly capable, Russian-built SA-2 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) in Egypt and Syria. Three candidates for the reconnaissance mission were examined in light of the new air defense capability, the low and fast Mirage IV, the high and slow U-2, or the unmanned R.20, built by Nord Aviation of France. In March 1967, Israeli officers visited the U.S. to discuss acquiring Ryan Firebee target drones for training purposes, but knowing a variant of...