GAF Turana
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The GAF Turana was a
target drone A target drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle, generally remote controlled, usually used in the training of anti-aircraft crews. One of the earliest drones was the British DH.82 Queen Bee, a variant of the Tiger Moth trainer aircraft operation ...
produced by the
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
n
Government Aircraft Factories Government Aircraft Factories (GAF) was the name of an aircraft manufacturer owned by the Government of Australia. The primary factory was located at Fishermans Bend, a suburb of Melbourne in Victoria. It had its origins in the lead-up to Wor ...
(GAF). The name is believed to be from an
Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...
word meaning ''rainbow''. The Turana target drone was designed and built in Australia as a development of the
Ikara Ikara is a town and local government area (LGA) in Kaduna State, northern Nigeria, located around (85 km) north-east from the city of Zaria Zaria is a List of Nigerian cities by population, metropolitan city in Nigeria, located at ...
anti-submarine weapon system. It was a target drone with remote control that was launched from the Ikara launcher for use in naval anti-aircraft target practice.


Design and development

The Turana had a composite metal/fibre glass structure and was powered by a Microturbo Cougar 022 Turbojet. The Turana was first flown from Woomera in August 1971. The program was cancelled in 1979 as water ingress during recovery of the drone was causing failure of the electronics.


See also

* List of unmanned aerial vehicles


Notes


References


Further reading

* *


External links


Turana target drone
Historical Aircraft Restoration Society The Historical Aircraft Restoration Society, often referred to by its acronym, HARS, is an Australian based aircraft restoration group. The group has two museums, at Shellharbour Airport in New South Wales, Australia, and Parkes, New South Wale ...
(HARS) * GAF aircraft Target drones Unmanned aerial vehicles of Australia Aircraft first flown in 1971 Single-engined jet aircraft Mid-wing aircraft {{UAV-stub