IAI Heron

Heron
IAI Heron 1 UAV in flight
Role	Unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aerial vehicle Type of aircraft
National origin	Israel
Manufacturer	Israel Aerospace Industries
First flight	1994
Introduction	2005
Status	Active, in production
Primary users	Israeli Defence Force Indian Air Force Brazilian Federal Police Turkish Air Force
Variants	EADS Harfang IAI Eitan Avionics Services Caçador

The IAI Heron (Machatz-1) is a medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by the Malat (UAV) division of Israel Aerospace Industries. It is capable of Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) operations of up to 52 hours' duration at up to 10.5 km (35,000 ft). It has demonstrated 52 hours of continuous flight, but the effective operational maximal flight duration is less, according to payload and flight profile. An advanced version, the Heron TP, is also known as the IAI Eitan.

On 11 September 2005, it was announced that the Israel Defense Forces purchased US$50 million worth of Heron systems.^[1]