The Tadiran Mastiff is a battlefield
UAV
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Drone ...
built by
Tadiran Electronic Industries of Israel, and regarded by some military historians as the world's first modern military surveillance drone.
[The ''Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History: A Political, Social, and Military History'', ABC-CLIO, 12 May 2008, by Spencer C. Tucker, Priscilla Mary Roberts, page 1054-55 ISBN]
Design and development
The Mastiff first flew in 1973. It featured a data-link system and miniaturized electronics that fed live and high-resolution video coverage of the targeted area to operators. It is thus seen by some as the first modern surveillance UAV.
The combination of its long flight endurance of over seven hours and real-time video streaming gave Israeli forces unprecedented depth of coverage, speed of information delivery and on-station surveillance time.
The Mastiff was powered by a German-made
Limbach Flugmotoren two-cylinder, two-stroke motor with thrust generated by a two blade pusher propeller manufactured by "Propeller Engineering & Duplicating, Inc." of San Clemente, California, USA.
As a result of the
1973 Yom Kippur War the
Israeli Defence Forces
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branches: the Israeli Ground Forces, the Israeli Air Force, and ...
came with an operational requirement to give the field commanders the ability to look "over the hill". The first operational requirements called for a vehicle that would be able to carry a payload to ranges of .
Tadiran started developing the Mastiff Mini RPV (Remote Piloted Vehicle) after being approached by a group of entrepreneurs who were looking for Tadiran to provide the Mastiff radio command.
The programme was also sold to the United States Navy with deployments aboard aircraft carriers and the RPV squadron at Camp Talega (within
Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton
Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton is the major West Coast base of the United States Marine Corps and is one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the United States. It is on the Southern California coast in San Diego County and is bordered by O ...
) in Southern California.
Three generations of the Mastiff developed by Tadiran were in operational use by the IDF performing numerous operational missions, the most well known of them was flown during the first
Lebanon war when
Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat (4 or 24 August 1929 – 11 November 2004), also popularly known by his Kunya (Arabic), kunya Abu Ammar, was a Palestinian political leader. He was chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1969 to 2004, Presid ...
was viewed by the Mastiff video camera.
[https://archive.today/20130218105847/http://www.tutorgig.info/Mastiff+Bat_es.html]
Previous Operators
;
*
Israel Army
;
*
Republic of Singapore Air Force
The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) is the aerial service branch of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) responsible for controlling and defending the airspace of the country, and providing air support to the Army and Navy. It was establis ...
;
*
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
Specifications
See also
References
External links
* {{usurped,
Israeli UAVs: Mastiff, Scout, and Searcher series}
1970s Israeli military reconnaissance aircraft
Unmanned military aircraft of Israel
Single-engined pusher aircraft
Twin-boom aircraft