Ababil-3 UAV at a glance

Saturday, 19 March 2022 15:51 [ Last Update: Saturday, 19 March 2022 19:12 ]

Tehran (IP) – Ababil-3 UAV was showcased for the first time in 2010 during the IRGC "Great Prophet-5" drill, and images of the UAV flying to identify trans-regional vessels in the Persian Gulf were published. The drone was officially unveiled in 2014 and handed over to the Iranian Armed Forces.

Iran Press/ Iran news: Ababil-3 has an 8-hour flight duration and a range of 250 km; it can send images simultaneously to ground control stations or any other platform.

The drone uses a four-cylinder piston engine with a propeller blade, which, like other drones with the same configuration, is mounted at the end of the fuselage and between the tail retaining booms. The engine place creates a suitable space for installing equipment in the nose and reduces the engine's vibration effect on the performance of detection systems.

Made by the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industries Corporation, Ababil-3 has a fully composite fuselage and can fly at 15,000 feet. The drone has a front-facing camera and a 360-degree rotating camera under the fuselage with thermal imaging and night imaging.

In 2019, during the unveiling of the Qaem bombs, images of Ababil-3 being armed with these bombs were also published, which showed the addition of combat capability besides reconnaissance to Ababil-3. One of the famous reconnaissance operations of this drone, which also went viral on the media in May 2019, was flying over the USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf and filming it.

The Ababil-3 drone has also had an influential presence in the battles of the Resistance Front, including in Syria.

Features

Ababil-3 bears no resemblance to other models of the Ababil UAV family. This drone has a cylindrical fuselage, a wing-mounted at the top and the end of the fuselage, and an H-shaped Twin Boom tail.

Unlike other types of "Mohajer" family drones, Ababil-3 has wheeled landing gear and uses the runway to land and take off.

Its primary communication antenna is installed on the fuselage and close to the nose. Due to the long flight range, the user can steer it from the ground control station in two ways: semi-automatic or fully automatic. In semi-automatic mode, the user sees the aircraft flight information displayed on the station screen and controls the aircraft according to the mission.

Atlas UAV, combat model of Ababil-3

The Atlas UAV, an optimized version of the Ababil-3, was delivered to the Army Air Force in May 2020. The main structure of this drone is similar to Ababil-3, but some changes have been applied.

The first change that can be seen is the different design of the UAV landing gear compared to Ababil-3. The front landing gear of this UAV uses hydraulic technology, and the rear landing gear has also been modified to improve the UAV taxiing on the runway and its landing and take-off.

Atlas is equipped with bomb-mounted pylons under the wings to carry vertical series bombs in the fuselage. Therefore, the structure of the Atlas fuselage has been strengthened.

The most critical change in Atlas is equipping it with an automatic take-off and landing system; the system allows the drone to perform take-off and landing operations automatically without the intervention of the co-pilot. Adding this system to the drones enables the drone pilot to consider a new location for landing if the landing conditions are not favorable at the initial site.

Atlas is also equipped with a laser sensor under the fuselage to use the automatic take-off and landing system, which helps the drone detect the exact location of the runway.