SEAS 2021: Serbia's indigenously-developed Pegaz UAV takes-off in China

Serbia’s tactical-class Pegaz (Pegasus) multirole unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has been redesigned with Chinese assistance and has already made its first flights in China, Nenad Miloradović – the assistant minister for material resources in the Serbian Ministry of Defence (MoD) – revealed during the online/hybrid Southeast Europe Aviation Summit (SEAS 2021) in Belgrade on 18 May.

Miloradović provided a video showing several sequences of the UAV taking off, operating at low altitudes, and landing in clean and armed – with dummy underwing rockets – configurations.

”The redesigned Pegaz prototype uses all subsystems of the [Aerospace Long-March International Trade - ALIT] CH-92A [armed UAV] including data link, avionics, and opto-electronics,” said Miloradović.

“But since it is smaller than that Chinese-made UAV it can carry only two 10 kg missiles,” he added, suggesting that the Pegaz would be armed with missiles that are smaller than the Chinese-made FT-8C semi-active laser guided missile carried by the CH-92A.

The Serbian defence industry is already developing a new 10 kg-class weapon designated the LRV-10 with a range of 6 km.

Miloradović explained that the prototype will return to Serbia by the end of this year. The first complete system comprising three UAVs and a ground control station (GCS) will be delivered to the Republic of Serbia Air Force and Air Defense (Ratno Vazduhoplovstvo i Protivvazduhoplovna Odbrana, RV i PVO)

The RV i PVO is expected to be equipped with four systems with a total of 12 UAVs and four GCSs, said Miloradović. He emphasised that the GCS is jointly developed by the Belgrade-based Mihajlo Pupin Institut and the MoD’s Military Technical Institute (Vojnotehnički Institut, VTI).