Milkor 380 UAV rises to new heights three years after first flight

Three years after its first flight, Milkor’s 380 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is continuing to rise to new heights.

Milkor’s Vice President for Africa, Daniel du Plessis, says it is now being used operationally in regions such as Africa and the Middle East, where the company is receiving good feedback on its capabilities and how it can continue to develop it.

He says that, from a basic aircraft that could take off, complete a circuit flight and land, they have upgraded its capabilities, including line-of-sight communication and mission sensor payload capacity, to ensure that it is ready to be deployed for the Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions for which it is intended.

Commenting on the relatively short time it took to move from concept to final product, he says: “We started in 2019 with the original market research phase… That process started in 2020.

Then we had COVID and everything ground to a halt.

In 2021, we resumed with the project and essentially, in that short three-year cycle, went from a very first rough concept and initial design to a flying aircraft and continued development and expansion to refine it even further.” However, the rapid development of technology, particularly the evolution of drones in the ongoing war in Ukraine, has created significant challenges for defence companies seeking to ensure that their products remain marketable.

Du Plessis says there are different categories of equipment: those that are produced at low cost and in high volumes and used in asymmetric warfare scenarios, and then there are strategic, sovereign capabilities.

The 380 is classified as the latter, so it won’t really be out of phase.

“The biggest threat we have as a company is to ensure that the 380 remains viable and operational … to look at any electronic counter-measures that are available in the market to try and jam communication or try and spoof the aircraft away from being used operationally.

Another consideration is to look at anti-air defence systems and future developments Milkor needs to do in terms of platform design,” adds Du Plessis.

Underlining Milkor’s philosophy of constantly investing in research and development, Du Plessis stressed that they are constantly keeping their fingers on the pulse to see which technologies are emerging in different conflicts around the world, to ensure that their system will be adaptable to these threats.

In a clear illustration of putting this philosophy into practice, the company announced in 2024 the start of a project for the Milkor 780 — essentially a High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UAV.

It is larger than the 380 and is envisaged to have a 2,700kg payload capacity, flying for 40 hours at 40-thousand feet.