India's Hand-launched SLYBIRD Drone Flies

February 27, 2011 by Shiv Aroor

The drone was revealed at Aero India earlier this month (and first here on Livefist). The National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), developer of the drone, says, "The 2-kg class mini-UAV is currently under development. The requirement is to fly with an endurance of 1 hour, a range of 10-km for both telemetry data/video imagery, and an altitude of 300 m above ground level (service ceiling of 15,000 ft). Initial flights of the mini-UAV are complete. The integration of an indigenous autopilot and daylight camera/IR camera is under progress."