Wed, Jan 25, 2023
Again
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) grounded its fleet of armed IAI Heron-1 drones after a specimen of the medium-altitude long-endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) was damaged during takeoff on Saturday, 21 January 2023.
The incident occasioned the third fleetwide grounding of the Heron-1—known within Israeli military circles as the Shoval (Hebrew “Path”)—in the last four months.
In a statement, the IAF set forth: “A Shoval drone was damaged during takeoff earlier this morning. There were no injuries and the incident will be investigated. The commander of the Air Force, Major General Tomer Bar, ordered that the Shoval fleet be grounded until the end of the investigation of the incident.”
The IAF further disclosed that the damaged drone was to be repaired.
In November 2022, a Heron-1 went down near the southern Israeli city of Arad. The accident’s vexing nature compelled IAF brass to ground the service’s entire Heron-I fleet for one-month pending repair of an ostensibly faulty flight control component to which the mishap was ultimately ascribed.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have lost numerous Heron-1 drones in accidents attributed to varying malfunctions. In September 2022, a fleetwide grounding of the vehicle was enacted after a Heron-1 plunged into the Mediterranean Sea along Israel’s northerly maritime border with Lebanon. The contraption was salvaged by the Israeli Navy.
The causes of the November 2022 and January 2023 Heron-1 accidents appear to differ.
While the Israeli government has not disclosed the number of drones in its arsenal, the IDF has conceded that drone flights account for approximately eighty-percent of the Israeli Air Force’s total yearly operational flight hours.
More News
Improvements Stack as Brand Readies for Mass Production Samson Sky updated followers on its flying car progress, describing some of the travails of the wind tunnel as they get clos>[...]
LAHSO An acronym for “Land and Hold Short Operation.” These operations include landing and holding short of an intersecting runway, a taxiway, a predetermined point, or>[...]
Dave Juwel's Aviation Marketing Stories ITBOA BNITBOB ... what does that mean? It's not gibberish, it's a lengthy acronym for "In The Business Of Aviation ... But Not In The Busine>[...]
Aero Linx: Space Medicine Association (SMA) The Space Medicine Branch was founded in 1951 as the first constituent organization of the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA). In 2006>[...]
Back-Taxi A term used by air traffic controllers to taxi an aircraft on the runway opposite to the traffic flow. The aircraft may be instructed to back-taxi to the beginning of the>[...]
Samson Sky Hits the Wind Tunnel
See All