SPOTLIGHT: How Desert Sting and Thunder add to UAE defence armoury

[Philip the Arab]

In the first of our SPOTLIGHT programmes where we turn the beam of discovery onto products and companies to keep abreast of their plans and successes, we head to Abu Dhabi. In November 2019 when the new UAE defence conglomerate, EDGE, was created by bringing the nation’s defence companies under a single umbrella, one company Halcon, a key part of the new Missiles & Weapons cluster was on the verge of producing its indigenous designed family of precision guided weapons known as Desert Sting. At IDEX 2021 in February, Halcon was proudly showing off the extended family and in this programme Khalifa Al Tamimi, the design engineer and project manager explained how Halcon’s new weapons are making a difference for customers – and for arming new light attack aircraft.

The computer animation is actually really good in my opinion.

It seems the Desert Sting entered production, although I don't know what that machine does.

 

[Philip the Arab]

Seems a TV seeker is being developed for the Desert Sting which is very interesting but it should be cheaper than SALH and allow for greater or equal accuracy.


Brochure

https://media-files.edgegroup.ae/s3fs-public/2021-02/TV%20SEEKER%20EN.pdf

 

[Philip the Arab]

Calidus B250, it seems like Hurkus-C kind of

Mirage 2k, I wonder if Greeks could get these integrated on their jets considering defense pact

I doubt they manufacture it A to Z although they do have a lot of capabilities for mechanical production like CNC, laser cutting, etc they must import a lot of electrical systems they can only produce PCBS.

I think they use FPGA COTS electronics for some systems though which isn't too bad.