A Hermes 900 UAV, made by Israel’s Elbit Systems, flies during a maritime mission. (Elbit)
PARIS AIRSHOW — In a sign of how important unmanned systems have become to the Israeli defense industry, the Israeli Ministry of Defense made a point to UAVs at the inauguration of the Israeli pavilion at the Paris Air Show this week.
It’s there that Israel’s Elbit Systems, one of the country’s largest defense contractors, showcased it’s Hermes 900, a large medium-range long endurance (MALE) class of drone that now has a civilian-agency variant called the Hermes 900 Starliner. The company says the UAV has the “first ever dual military and civilian certifications for a UAS, can also perform ground support and maritime patrol missions for both naval customers and civilian government agencies.”
Amir Bettesh, vice-president of marketing and business development at Elbit’s UAS business unit in the Aerospace division, told Breaking Defense the Hermes 900 represents the larger end of the category of UAVs that Elbit has made over the years. Elbit produces the smaller, battalion level Skylark 1 and the brigade level Skylark 3, as well as the Hermes 450, a drone he described as the “backbone of the Israeli air force.” (Elbit claims the Israeli military’s drone fleet is 85 percent systems from the company, and said the use of drones recently surpassed the number of manned hours of flight time, meaning Israel is doing more with unmanned systems than manned systems.)
FULL COVERAGE: Paris Air Show 2023
Elbit says it has sold more than 120 Hermes 900s abroad, and it has become what Bettesh called “the standard and the most efficient UAV of the MALE category,” though he acknowledged it can be “difficult and challenging” to compete with another high-profile drone in the MALE category: the much larger General Atomic’s MQ-9 Reaper. “But we have success with our unique features and the cost–efficient characteristics,” Bettesh said.
The Starliner variation is meant to fly over civilian airspace and is billed as an option for anything from homeland defense, law enforcement to aiding in fighting fires.
“We invested more than six years in receiving this certification from the Israeli civil airspace authority,” Bettesh said. This included flight tests and passing safety boards. Bettesh pointed out that to meet NATO’s Stanag-4671 airworthiness requirements, UAVs need to be designed from the start for these parameters.
“Switzerland was the first to buy Hermes 900 Starliner; after that they also issue a military type certificate, so we have double certification for military arms forces,” he noted. Integrating UAVs into non-segregated airspace has been an issue of discussion for years. Canada also uses Starliner drones for “environmental protection,” Elbit says.
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The Starliner can fly over populated areas, for instance, which military planes generally avoid, and military drones also do not usually fly in. The flexibility means that Elbit’s large drone has “double application for military and civilian, like firefighting, natural disaster, nuclear disasters, refugees and a lot [of other possibilities] in the maritime arena,” says Bettesh.
The kinds of missions, especially flying over swaths of maritime areas for more than a day’s worth of flying time, is typical to the ”dull, dirty and dangerous” missions that drones have historically been tailored for. However, when the drone detects something or is needed for a tailored mission, the Starliner can be equipped with life rafts to help rescue pilots and sonobuoys to spot underwater threats, Elbit says. “We did not deploy the sonar buoys but we are taking advantage of the recent sonar buoy category from THALES that they are much smaller; we can equip [the UAVs] with more buoys for better operational effect with one platform,” says Bettesh.
Along with the newer civilian missions for its large UAVs, Elbit also showcased it’s fleet of loitering munitions at Paris. “One of the lessons learned of the recent conflict in Ukraine [with] unmanned UAVs is that you can see they are using them on both sides. They are using drones and also loitering munitions…and we see a lot of demand,” says Bettesh.
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One system, the Sky Striker, comes in two versions: one canister-based and the other used with a towed launcher. The system can carry a 10 kilogram warhead with two hours of flight time and around 100 kilometer range, Elbit says. It can also carry a 5 kilogram warhead for anti-armor or other types of missions and the operator on the field can decide between the type of warhead for the mission.
Even though most loitering munitions are sent on one-way missions to slam into a target, the Elbit system is recoverable if it’s not used on a target. “It can open a parachute, it can land if you didn’t find the target and you can replace the battery and launch it again; and it has a multi-use parachute,” says Bettesh. The company learned from previous experience recovering Skylark 3s. Elbit says its sells the system to “six strategic customers that are using it operationally,” but can’t specify the customers.
The Sky Striker can operate in GPS-denial environments or in areas where there is GPS spoofing, Bettesh says.
“Our UAVs they have self-protection means, I cannot relate to it because it’s not unclassified, but like the GPS denial, a big drone that doesn’t have that capability will not have success in future battlefield, and when you do have success it is the difference between stand-off and stand-in.” What that means is UAV operations are more effective when they’re able to be over target, or stand-in, versus trying to work from a safe distance, or stand-off.
Underlining the company’s drone sales, Elbit today announced a new deal for $180 million in Watchkeeper X tactical drones with the Romanian Ministry of National Defense. The Watchkeeper X is a variant of the Hermes family of drones but made in UK by an Elbit subsidiary along with Paris-based Thales.
Elsewhere at the air show, Elbit a variety of systems, from digital Radar Warning Receivers to an expendable RF decoy designed to lure away incoming missiles.
Overall, 17 Israeli companies took part in the Paris Air show, including Aeronautics, Ashot Ashkelon Industries, Bet Shemesh Engines, Bird Aerosystems, Bluebird Aero Systems, Copterpix, Creomagic, CTI-INTL Solutions, Elbit Systems, Enercon Technologies, Israel Aerospace Industries, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, SpearUAV, Steadicopter, Thermal Beacon, Tomer and UVISION Air.