Israel’s Elbit Systems has announced a number of important developments in recent weeks, covering a range of the company’s diverse capabilities. A selection of its services and products are showcased on the company’s booth in the Israeli Pavilion.

UAVs are an area of considerable expertise for Elbit, and recently the company achieved its first sale for the Hermes 900 MALE air vehicle, to a Latin American customer. In another UAV development, the company has successfully completed a series of tests with its Skylark I LE man-pack UAV controlled by a new lightweight forward ground control station (FGCS) using the Dominator hardware.

All of the lightweight FGCS’s four-component units (FGCS computer, handheld display, operator stick and active Skylark Rambo transducer) are attached to or carried in a soldier’s combat vest. For covert and on-the-move operations, the handheld display can be replaced by an eyepiece. The new FGCS is 66 pounds lighter than the standard GCS, and is at the heart of a new operational concept in which dispatcher units launch and recover the UAV, but hand over control to dismounted soldiers in the operational area.

Electro-optical systems are an important business area for Elbit, and recently the company announced a large order from an Asian country for the Compass 15-inch multi-sensor turret to equip a fleet of maritime patrol aircraft. Here at the Paris Air Show Elbit is showing its C-Music system for the first time, a multi-spectral fiber laser-based directional infrared countermeasures system. It is being displayed in a pod that also includes the Paws passive IR approach warning system.

To illustrate another capability, Elbit gained a contract last month from the Romanian Ministry of Defense to upgrade the air force’s C-130 Hercules aircraft with various advanced electronic systems from Elisra, an Elbit subsidiary. The work is being performed over the next four years, and is being undertaken in conjunction with local industry.