New Mirach-40 can be recovered from land or sea and reused several times after reconditioning.

Defence may be a multi-billion pound industry, but Leonardo’s family of aerial target drones, Mirach-40, will appeal to increasingly budget-conscious buyers seeking reliability and flexibility.

Alessandro Voli, from Leonardo told FINN the company has developed the new family of drones from its successful Mirach 110/5 family. “Very importantly, its performance is able to simulate many different threats, many different missiles and it can be used to simulate missile launch against ships from aircraft or from land systems. It originates from the important heritage we have in the drones market for more than 40 years.”

Test and reuse

He added: “With a cheaper solution, you can destroy [the drone] so you can complete a real test of a weapons system, but there is the possibility also to use the system more times. You can it recover from the sea or land and with just some reconditioning work you can reuse it several times.”

Leonardo has completed a test flight, launched with a ground launcher, with the Italian armed forces against the Italian Navy from their base in Sardinia. Voli. said Leonardo’s initial focus would be supporting the Italian armed forces first, before taking the UAV technology to other customers in the near future.

Leonardo also develops tactical UAVs and is set to enter the mail delivery logistics market.

“We deliver systems all around the world and support all kinds of organisations with our unmanned systems,” explained Voli.

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