Israel’s Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) fleet has been the stuff that made owners swell with pride while neighbours’ envied it. It was the Elbit Hermes 450—made by Elbit Systems—that became legendary because of its intelligence gathering, surveillance, reconnaissance and combat prowess in operations against Hamas and Hezbollah.
But it is a more powerful version of the Hermes 450—the Hermes 900—that India is buying from Israel to step up with the ISR (intelligence gathering, surveillance, reconnaissance) work. They will be deployed in a few months from now.
What helps matters is the fact that India has a big hand in the manufacturing of the Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drone.
Said a top official in India’s military establishment: “The Hermes 900 ‘Starliner’ will be inducted in the Army Aviation Corps (AAC) in the beginning of next year.” “The airframes of the Hermes 900 that we need have already been made. But then of course, some of the equipment have to come from Israel,” the official added.
While the version that India is buying from Elbit Systems is the unarmed one that is primarily meant for intelligence-gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance, Tel Aviv has used armed versions of these extremely accurate drones to eliminate Palestinian militant leaders and attack other targets.
Deployed with the Israeli military since 2012, the Hermes 900 was extensively used in 2014 in Operation Protective Edge undertaken against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The Hermes 900 has a payload carrying capacity of 450 kg and includes devices like the SkEye WAPS that mounts surveillance, observation, and conducts intelligence gathering while the in-built imaging sensors scan, take photographs and video on a real-time mode over big swathe of area round-the-clock.
Very sensitive to ground terrain, with the capability to take off and land in low visibility, the Hermes 900 has an endurance of up to 30 hours in a single sortie, and maximum ceiling of 30,000 feet.
While the official declined to dole out the exact numbers of Hermes 900 ‘Starliner’ India is buying, it is believed that half a dozen are to be distributed among the Army, Navy and Air Force.
So it can be assumed that the AAC—the Indian Army arm that is entrusted with the RPAS—may be allotted two of these high-end assets.
With the ongoing conflicts in Israel and Ukraine having reaffirmed the battle operations philosophy that military aviation will have to step out of supportive roles and get more involved with combat forces, the AAC is also working to a plan.
“We have already got the Heron Mk 2s which are SATCOM enabled. The Hermes ‘Starliner’ is also SATCOM-enabled. In addition, the Heron Mk 1s that we already have been using for some time now will also be upgraded to the SATCOM versions,” the official explained.
Meanwhile, the year 2024 will be an important year for the AAC as, besides inducting the Hermes 900—it plans to also induct the US-made ‘Apache’ attack helicopters, the indigenous Light Utility Helicopter (LUH), integrate HELINA missiles with the weaponised indigenous Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) and acquire additional numbers of ALH Mk 3.
Already operating the largest number of rotary aircraft—even more than the Indian Air Force (IAF)—in Indian military, the AAC has begun operating the local-made light combat helicopter ‘Prachand’ from this year.