Our Defense Industry is Being Rebuilt “From Scratch”

In the context of the debut of the Hungarian-developed ProTAR unmanned aerial vehicle system earlier this week, Brigadier General Imre Porkoláb, Ministerial Commissioner for Defence Innovation, spoke about the importance of airspace protection and the current stage of force development on the M1 channel. According to the Brigadier General, the new technology will significantly reduce the cost of training.

We need to be able to support operations on the ground by controlling the airspace. That is why it is extremely important to be able to protect our country’s airspace, so the development of this capability is a priority in the current military vision,”

explained Brigadier General Imre Porkoláb.

According to the military chief, the ProTAR unmanned aerial vehicle, a 65-kilogram, jet-powered intelligent unmanned aircraft, has numerous advantages: the company that developed it, Rotors & Cams Zrt. is a Hungarian-owned company that creates jobs and will pay taxes in Hungary, and they hope to be able to export. The drone could be of great professional-market interest on the international scene, and is likely to be used in demonstrations and exercises abroad, and even in other national armies.

Brigadier General Imre Porkoláb, who is also the Vice-Chairman of the Board of the NATO DIANA (North Atlantic Defense Innovation Accelerator) innovation network, recalled that the fixed-wing automatic aircraft, which is launched from an electric catapult, also developed by Hungary and considered innovative from an international point of view, is also capable of flying in formation, and can even simulate the operation of a fighter squadron. Originally designed as an air defense target vehicle, the Hungarian Defense Forces plan to use it for air defense training. The drone can simulate the signals of an attacking aircraft, so it can support education with high professional qualities, but more cost-effectively than before, he pointed out.

The development of the ProTAR unmanned aerial system was commissioned by the Modernization Institute of the Hungarian Defense Forces and is the result of several years of complex defense cooperation.

We had to rebuild the Hungarian defense industry almost from scratch, but it is extremely encouraging that the largest defense companies are interested in the possibilities of setting up in Hungary”.

“We have already seen some examples of this – in the case of Airbus or Rheinmetall – these factories are now starting production, meaning that the first equipment is now rolling off the assembly lines,” the Brigadier stated. He underlined that, as far as possible, major foreign defense companies should be supplied by domestic suppliers.

Via Honvédelem.hu; Featured Image: honvédelem.hu