Belarus To Supply Vietnam With Grif UAV?

Belarus plans to deliver to Vietnam its unmanned aircraft systems following the meeting between the countries’ two Prime Ministers recently. Nevertheless, the type of the UAV was not revealed. Belarus has been producing the Grif-1 TUAV, a similar UAV which has been showcased in Malaysia during the recent LIMA 2013.

The Grif-1, the new Grif-K has been wholly designed and developed by the business. The aircraft features a new, lighter composite body replacing the aluminium structure of the Grif-1.

The Grif-K made its maiden flight on 26 February 2012 and since then it has undergone a number of test flights.It has a range of 100km and an endurance of 6-7 hours. With an average speed of 120km/h, this gives the UAV a significant amount of time on station.

The aircraft can be remotely operated from a GCS, but also has a built in autopilot with a Belarusian designed chip that rather uniquely allows the waypoint navigation to be taken from the GLONASS, GPS or Galileo satellite positioning systems.

The UAV can carry a 25kg payload. The on-board power of up to 1000W allows the Grif-K to accept a wide variety of payloads including EO/IR pods and laser designation systems. It measures 3.5m in length and is 1.15m high. It has a wingspan of 5.7m and a maximum take-off weight of 120kg. Its maximum operational speed is 165km/h with a ceiling of around 3,500m.

Grif-1 UAV

Nevertheless, Vietnam has already embarked on its own UAV program plus several understandings with other countries namely Russia and Sweden for joint development of their respective UAVs.