Mahiyar Rohinton Patel, Pune
The Flying Wedge Defence and Aerospace have recently managed to complete airborne test flights for the inaugural homegrown combat UAV. The FWD 200B is a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV). This new weapon system will incorporate a range of 200 km, and act in the capacity of a bomber aircraft for providing precision air staking on targets. That means, with a fuel-carrying capacity of 100kg, it should be able to provide operational airtime of 12 to 20 hours. It can carry a payload of 30 kg and a maximum speed of 250 km per hour can be achieved. The drone also needs a runway of only 300 meters. This ability proves valuable in times of war since the enemy aircraft normally ‘races’ where the airfields are bombed, so the opposition’s aircraft cannot get off the ground. Such a situation is well handled by a shorter runway requirement.
Talking about Flying Wedge, its founder Suhas Tejaskanda said that his company intends to ship the UAV to many African and Southeast Asian countries. He noted that most countries in the present complex global environment have since been compelled and with limited choice to purchase expensive UAVs like the USA. The FWD-200B can be assembled at a comparatively lower cost as compared to the most widely used combat UAV models available in the market. In the direct government-to-government procurement, the United Arab Emirates offered 161 million dollars for each MQ-9B predator drone while the development of FWD-200 was approximately 25 crores.
Thus while the government has been aggressively pushing for the involvement of private capital in defence production: FWDA has now become the first company in India to proudly get the novelty of achieving the DGCA-type certification. Currently, the company wants to launch an aircraft with a wingspan of 12 metres at some point in the future.
The various outcomes of this development from a geopolitical perspective are numerous. India recently requested to buy the renowned Bayraktar TB2 but Turkey has declined for uncertain and most probably political motives. Turkey has also increased the delivery of the Bayraktar to India’s neighbours; The Maldives has recently received 6 Bayraktar TB2 drones. On the other extreme of the political spectrum, India concluded the purchase of 31 predator drones only by early 2023 but the finalization of this deal has been marked by a string of delays. It seems that the need for combat drones is more Urgent than ever; the FWD-200 is a defiant twinkle of light against the backdrop of the global arms industry.