Zala Aero unveils Zala 421-20

26th July 2010 - 15:39 GMT | by The Shephard News Team

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Today Zala Aero is unveiling its latest development Zala 421-20. The fixed wing UAV has been in development for the last two years and is the upgrade to Zala 421-09 with much greater capabilities. Although developed primarily for long endurance surveillance and reconnaissance Zala 421-20 is also suitable for maritime patrol, law enforcement, border patrol and monitoring of forest fires or other hazardous situations.

Zala 421-20 payload capacity of 50kg allows the customer to combine and operate the latest technology including AIS, SAR, LRF and latest thermal imaging camera utilizing a continuous zoom lens. With 400km range Zala AEO sees Zala 421-20 as a first important step towards the bright future of Russian made medium range UAS. Zala 421-20 is also designed to complement the current available Zala Aero UAVs by being fully compatible with all other Zala systems which allow the platform to be integrated with all Zala GCS users the latest part of the ZANET system being specifically developed for Winter Olympic Game in Sochi 2014.

A modification of the Zala 421-20 also includes two gliding payloads with built in autopilots that are capable of gliding up to 25km when released at 3000 meters and together carry over 30kg of supplies. Zala 421-20 has been launched with recently modified wing design with inbuilt fuel tanks to increase the endurance of the system to 6-8 hours. With future developments focused on increasing payload/fuel capacity and modifying the engine to increase endurance. Zala 421-20 design ensured that the system is transportable by making 6 meter wings constructible and is the latest UAV to be used with container based GCS modification.

Source: Zala Aero

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