Israel chooses American UAV over Indian 'Lakshya'

It also paid India for conducting extensive trials but has ever since remained silent on the issue choosing to ignore every time a visiting Indian defence delegation raised the matter.

Israel is backtracking on its commitment made to India over "reciprocal procurement" of defence-related items, wavering over the purchase of Pilotless Target Aircraft (PTA), 'Lakshya'.

"The Indian UAV (Lakshya) was one of the many options that were examined some months ago. The final evaluation of the various aspects of each proposal included technical and cost parameters. In that examination, budget constraints dictated a choice of the American UAV", Rachek Niedek Ashkenazi, spokesperson of the Israeli defence ministry, said.

The Jewish state had shown interest in buying some 20 Lakshyas from India two years ago when it was trying to cement its growing defence ties with New Delhi.

It also paid India for conducting extensive trials but has ever since remained silent on the issue choosing to ignore every time a visiting Indian defence delegation raised the matter.

Jerusalem is now leaning towards inducting American Chakor PTA system and the KD-2R5 PTAs.

"However, it should be noted that there are other areas of cooperation. One such project is the Dhruv, advanced light helicopter (ALH), which is a project of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, India ", Ashkenazi said.

source

Here is a pic of Lakshya, displayed at Aero India 2003

The reason they didn't go for it is beacuse America offered the KD-2R5 Shelduck drones for free.

Considering their weapons are paid for by the American tax payers, I would think they would spend it in America. That would only be logical.

What was the "American UAV" called?

Another article :

Bangalore: Israel has put on hold its plan to buy India's Pilotless Target Aircraft (PTA) 'Lakshya' and favoured an American system, which officials say has been offered for free by Washington.

Tel Aviv had expressed interest two years ago to buy nearly 20 Lakshya's developed indigenously by the Bangalore-based Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) unit focused for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).

"Israel has been silent since they expressed interest to buy Lakshya's two years ago. We have raised this issue with them but have evoked no response," ADE sources told reporters.

Lakshya is a sub-sonic re-usable aerial target system remotely piloted from the ground, designed to impart training for airborne and air-defence pilots from weapon engagements.

Israel, one of the world leaders in UAVs, had paid India for conducting extensive trials of the Lakshya system in Israel, but remained silent after it expressed interest to buy or lease the home grown reusable PTA system.

ADE sources said that Israel's reluctance to place a firm order is due to the offer by US to provide its Chakor PTA system and the KD-2R5 PTAs for free.

Indian Armed Forces were testing the American Chakor system before it inducted Lakshya's, used for training of land or ship-based gun missile crew and can be refurbished and re-launched for about 10 to 15 times.

The Armed Forces have already inducted Lakshya's with state-run-aircraft maker Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) producing 25 PTAs that are expected to be delivered later this year.



PTI

source : news.indiainfo.com...

Justanotherperson, I wasn't rolling my eyes at that... that's just business. But instead at how the idiot Indian media tried to spin the story as being a failure. That particular article omitted arguably the most important point -- the reason. Other articles were worse. The Israelis were quite taken by the Lakshya after last years AeroIndia