Unmanned Variant of Berkut 360 Homebuilt Aircraft

Aerovehicles Paraguay SA revealed the Class III Berkut UAV in Asunción on 23 February, in the presence of Paraguay’s Minister of Defense, Soto Estigarribia, the Director of DINAC (the civil aviation authority) Eng Kanazawa, and other officials.

The Berkut UAV is an unmanned variant of the Berkut 360 light aircraft, produced in Paraguay from kits supplied by the aircraft manufacturer, Berkut Engineering of Santa Monica, CA, whose website reveals kits are apparently no longer available for the Berkut 360.

The company already offers the two-seat manned version in Paraguay for ISR missions, and a single-seat ‘pilot optional’ variant (the Berkut OPA), which can also act as a UAV. The new UAV version has been designed to conduct missions in a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) mode. operations. It can house a wide variety of remote sensing equipment in its central cargo bay and on underwing pylons. It is built on the same fuselage as the manned aircraft and with an open-architecture flight management system (FMS), which minimises construction costs and maximises operational flexibility.

Santiago Rivas in Buenos Aires for MON