IAI Scout

The IAI Scout, known in Israel under a Hebrew name meaning oriole, is a reconnaissance unmanned air vehicle developed in Israel in the 1970s by Israel Aircraft Industries as a competitor to the Tadiran Mastiff. As the Israeli military grew interested in battlefield unmanned aircraft, IAI management decided to take up the concept, and the Scout had a similar configuration to the Mastiff, with a pusher propeller and twin-boom tail. Both have fixed landing gear, are generally operated from runways using an arresting-wire hook, though they can be launched by hydraulic catapult off the back of a truck and recovered by net, and carry imaging sensors in a turret under the fuselage. The South African Defence Force used the Scout in combat in 1981, and Scout and Mastiff reconnaissance helped locate Syrian missile sites in the 1982 Lebanon War. The Mastiff and Scout served the Israeli Army and the Republic of Singapore Air Force until the early 1990s, when the IAI Searcher replaced them.