Photos and videos of the Indian unobtrusive drone SWiFT performing high-speed runs appeared on the net. It is a scaled-down version of the Ghatak strike drone.
Attack drones are in service with only a few countries in the world, although several dozen states are developing them. India, with varying success, has been trying to create such a vehicle since the beginning of the 2000s.
The first Indian attack drone, the Rustom-II, took off for the first time in 2016, and a year later went into mass production. But the military still has not adopted it, although it was planned to do so last year.
The program to create an unobtrusive drone Ghatak became known in 2010. It is suitable for recon missions, but is primarily designed as an unmanned bomber.
SWiFT is a Ghatak demonstrator, about eight times its size. It is made according to the flying wing scheme and weighs 1050 kilograms. The SWiFT is 4 meters long and has a 5 meter wingspan. The vehicle is equipped with a turbojet engine and can fly up to 200 kilometers.
At the end of October, photos and videos of SWiFT high-speed runs appeared on the net. It looks the same as its early models and concept images: a flying wing with an air intake over the front fuselage and a large landing gear. The SWiFT's engine exhaust is unobtrusive.