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| Photo / DRDO |
DRDO Statement: The indigenously designed and developed RUSTOM-1 made its 14th successful flight this morning at Kolar flying at about 11,500 ft AGL and speed of above 140-km/h during 2 hrs 10 minutes of cruise. The highlights of the flight include: a) Use of lean mixture control system in the engine for flights at high altitudes, b) Take-off weight heaviest so far, c) Achieved max altitude of 3.5 kms, about 11500 ft and d) Extended range of about 50 kms tried out for the first time. The waypoint track was perfect and so were takeoff and landing. The Rustom-1 is built for a maximum altitude of 22,000 ft and endurance of 12-15 Hours with an operating range of 250 Kms when fully developed.
Great News.lets hope this will get inducted soon..
flight pe flight,flight pe flight,flight pe flight…….mili to sirf flight.Koi dhang ka UAV ya UCAV nahi mila.mili to sirf flight.
Give this project to some private firm, and they will do this in 1/10 of time.Our babus can only produce flights.Even after 3.4*10^7 years we will hear, Rustom completes 11971713 flights.
Sometimes the indigenous developments move with the snail's pace, so that they can be replaced with the suitable imports.
However wish them all the best.
I guess it is because the UAV projects currently are low priority ones, because better and best products in the category are available in the market at much cheaper price than developing new ones. Hence these R&D projects basically end up as skill development projects than user specific product development.
@moronic 516
yes….and there is a goddam reason..one mistake..they loose this drone and they will not get resources to move on for next 5 years!!..thats how we have tied them down…where else do you see such ridiculously low amounts of money spent on R&D…
Hi Shiv,
Do you believe the Indian Intelligence had any role in the Maldives coup?
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/international/a-coup-made-in-india
Mr. Ra is it a pointer ??? who is going to replace this pathetic project ???
well said anon 5:16pm
Testing fuel mixture after so many flights??? Can't they do this on the ground. Any decent hobby airplane will let you do this. A Burt Rutan plane bought fully assembled, and they can't even deploy that????
Looks ghay people. Real ghay. Can build better planes from a kit.
This is good news. Hope we can replacde the Israeli drones with this or its derivatives. Its a beautiful bird. Looked great at AeroIndia. Is it also testing technologies for UCAV?
Rhetorical comments which denigrate anything without a specific reason are not in good taste. Response to a few points:
This is not a plane built from kit.
The airframe is built based on the design of Burt Rutan which is available to anyone who wants it. Leaning the mixture always comes at a later stage of flight testing when you fly to an appropriate altitude. There are many things to be done in the flight tests prior to reaching this stage. Though the aircraft may be already flying, when it is converted into an UAV, the control and communication system system replaces a part of the pilot's functions in a manned aircraft. Though this has been stated here in just one line, the work involved is tremendous. Do we critisize our child even if it is not so good as the neighbour's child. Any achievement by anyone must be appreciated as long as the failure is not due to malicious intent. There is definitely no malicious intent here. If someone thinks he / she can do it better, what stopped him / her from taking up a career with this elite design and development community. The people who are working there have reached their stations through a competitive entry. If there has to be criticism, let it be on specific technical issues.
Why do some Indians want to bring down efforts made by a dedicated and very committed team of scientists working for defense of the nation?