I dont feel any excitement as you guys are feeling!!
Here are the reasons:
1) Falco UAV is old news, a light weight UAV without weapons capability! The most important thing for a modern UAV is to be able to carry atleast a small payload. Falco cannot do this.
2) There were many other options that the PAF could have spent its money on rather than this UAV. There are many Pakistani companies producing indigenous UAVs, if PAF had spent only one million or less they could have gotten a UAV far better than Falco, an in less money.
3) The tech level of the company is not worthy either, an investment in one of our own companies would have been more wise.
4) The wingspan of Falco is painfully small, a good UAV is actually a glider capable bird. just look at a Predator and you'll know what I mean. The lift ratio, the hours of flight get extremely large with a good wingspan.
5) It seem like an urgent action, looking for something to acquire without thinking of its relevance by today's requirements. We do not require a small weaponless UAV that has no radar evading capability nor can carry weapons. We need, both a surveillance and offensive capable system and radar evasion would be a plus.
Sir, your concerns are valid, but PAF is not going to use just one UAV. Falco has just entered the operational status and it has a long way to go to become a mature platform. When predator came initially, it was unarmed.
Falco has many advantages if we look at our requirements for a tactical surveillance UAV. Check out its function in the above official document of Falco.
And for the time being it can handle a decent load as per requirements, a PicoSAR AESA radar & the EOST-46 electro-optical surveillance & tracking system.
UAV has many categories, MALE, HALE , Tactical UAV, hand held ones etc etc, all have specific requirements & functions to perform.
Armed UAVs are mostly MALE UAV versions.
So Falco will provide a decent capability for our tactical needs.
And it can easily be made into an armed version.
It is the start of the journey, let future come then we see what it really evolves into.
Plus i do have a hunch that PAF has already armed UAVs in operation but does not wishes to be known.
Falco is a tactical UAV, don't confuse it with MALE or HALE versions.
US is using around or more then 10 kind of UAVs in Iraq & Afghanistan.
And local UAV manufacturer versions may need time to reach the western level of UAVs, PAF & other government agencies should & most probably are helping out the private sector but not in the proper way as they should. As per the comments of one leading private UAV manufacturer executive, they if provided with resources of some million dollars will take about 7 to 8 years to make a UAV like predator, so that is why we are looking for western platforms as they are readily available & the most important reason i see for PAF going with Falco UAV is, the italian company has been a long trusted friend of PAF, providing radars & giving license for local production assembly & other things also to PAF.
This italian company has been good to us so far & may even compete for the JF-17 radar & avionics package, plus this companies parent company has many other subsidiaries heavily involved in other defence equipment programs.
Finmeccanica S.p.A is the parent company, holding shares & joint ventures eg MBDA, Agustawestland, ATR (turboprops with PIA), SELEX related 3 companies etc etc, nearly all having defense relations with us.
