India is making great progress in the development of its own stealth combat drone: The two-stage Swift program has reached “medium maturity” with the seventh and successful test flight of a demonstrator and is now being further developed towards an armament-capable large-scale system with a take-off weight of 13 tons.
On December 15, the state-run Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) successfully conducted a flight test with the sub-scale Autonomous Flying Wing Technology Demonstrator Swift (Stealth Wing Flying Testbed), a high-speed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), at the Aeronautical Test Range Chitradurga in Karnataka. The successful flight demonstration is considered proof of the technological maturity of the autonomous stealth drone. According to local media, India has thus joined the elite club of countries that have mastered the control system for the finless flying wing technology. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmSW4sh0Cyw
First Swift …
The UAV was designed and developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) of the DRDO. The first flight took place in a small circle in July 2022, followed by six flight tests of two prototypes and demonstrators in various development configurations. These flight tests led to progress in the development of a robust aerodynamic and control system, integrated real-time and hardware-in-loop simulation and a modern ground control station. The team had optimized the avionics systems, integration and flight operations for that now successful seventh flight in the final configuration. The successful autonomous landing of this high-speed UAV without the intervention of ground radars, infrastructure or pilot, according to official statements, shows “a unique capability demonstration that enables take-off and landing from any runway with measured coordinates”. This was made possible by fusing onboard sensor data with indigenous satellite augmentation using GAGAN (GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation) receivers to improve the accuracy and integrity of GPS navigation.
The prototype, which weighs around one tonne, is made of lightweight carbon prepreg composite material developed in the country, with fiber interrogators incorporated into its structure for condition monitoring, which is described as exemplary of the independence of domestic aerospace technology. The system is powered by the Russian NPO Saturn MT36 cruise missile engine. The Secretary, Ministry of Defense, Research and Development (and Chairman of DRDO) Samir V. Kamat, congratulated the DRDO and the research and development teams of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and IIT Kanpur for the successful flight tests and the preliminary stage achieved. https://militaeraktuell.at/bundesheer-neues-stellungshaus-ueber übergeben/ … then Ghatak
preliminary stage because the Swift demonstrator will now be further developed in terms of its capabilities, towards a platform with armament capability as an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) for the air force and even ship-based for the navy. This Autonomous Unmanned Research Aircraft (AURA) will be called Ghatak and will be significantly larger with a take-off weight of 13 tons. It will be able to fly at altitudes of up to 9,000 meters and deploy precision weapons over a radius of more than 1,000 kilometers at supercruise speeds of up to Mach 1.2.
Ghatak is a classified project in India, so little information is available about it. However, those responsible for its development certainly have the Chinese UCAV project Shenyang/Hongdu GJ-11 “Sharp Sword” (see also video below), which has been further advanced since 2013, in mind. A full-size Ghatak model is already being tested at a facility in southern India to develop radar cross-section reduction (RCS) technologies for deflecting and detecting radar waves, including the development of radar-absorbing paints. The production model will have capabilities such as network-centric data links, command and control, internal weapon transport and AI-unassisted release of the same, as well as fully autonomous unmanned flight at longer ranges, satellite links, navigation systems and electro-optical target acquisition, and likely Electronic Warfare (EW) suites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV5B1dBX9g0 A thrust vector control system behind the GTX-35VS Kaveri engine with 48 kN – which apparently “returned” after delaying the LCA-Tejas fighter aircraft for a long time – is another mechanism that, according to the latest information, will be developed for Ghatak by a flight test program planned for 2025/2026.
As always, it should be noted here that the timing of the “Byzantine development sequences” (British colleagues with regard to the sequence of the various Indian Defense Procurement Procedures) of Indian programs and processes should always be treated with caution.
