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DRDO's "Swift" AKA "Ghatak" hyped up (mostly by Indian nationalists) "UCAV" we knew was a small model toy sized "demonstrator".

Apparently India photoshopped most of the images of the Ghatak to remove the vertical stabiliser the "flight demonstrator model" still had.

Essentially India has still been unable to fly a dining table sized RC toy model of that "UCAV" without using vertical stabilisers. It isn't even a flying wing when in RC model form! There are RC model enthusiasts who can engineer, make, and fly actual flying wings! Yet DRDO has somehow not been able to at least for the Ghatak demonstrator.




What India's photoshopped promotion catalogues show:






Actual test:

8+ billion USD for 100 Tejas Mark-1A. That's 80+ million USD per fighter - A light-weight fighter at that.

That's something they have to swallow anyway. As long as they can keep the majority of the work within the country, it's actually good. Subsequent batches can be cheaper due to learning curve effect.

ougoah said:

DRDO's "Swift" AKA "Ghatak" hyped up (mostly by Indian nationalists) "UCAV" we knew was a small model toy sized "demonstrator".

Apparently India photoshopped most of the images of the Ghatak to remove the vertical stabiliser the "flight demonstrator model" still had.

Essentially India has still been unable to fly a dining table sized RC toy model of that "UCAV" without using vertical stabilisers. It isn't even a flying wing when in RC model form! There are RC model enthusiasts who can engineer, make, and fly actual flying wings! Yet DRDO has somehow not been able to at least for the Ghatak demonstrator.

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What India's photoshopped promotion catalogues show:

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Actual test:

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Click to expand...

>Dining table sized
>Smol RC toy
>model
>Endian nationalist psy-op propoganda
>PS'ed promo catalogues hiding Vstabs

Sorry to rain down on your parade my big iron brother comrade, but do humour me where exactly could one find a "dining table sized smol RC toy model of great endian psy-op propoganda" elsewhere with:

✓Max AUW of upto 1.1 Tonnes.
✓Length and Wingspan of 4m×5m
✓Powered by a 5.5Kn turbofan engine.
✓Serptine inlet
✓LO optimised nozzle
✓Max cruising speed of 0.6 Mach
✓Slant CLOS-cued bracket of upto 250 kilometres.
✓ACLS & ATOL autonomous landing and take-off capabilities capped at 70 m/s.
✓housing for 2×50kg stores of A2G ordnance and several other test payloads

All things considering along with your profound belief that writing ACLs for military flying wings is just as easy as flying toy RC drones, this is a scaled down TD and the third AF-3 prototype indeed does away with the vertical stabilizer

Fulcrum007 said:

>Dining table sized
>Smol RC toy
>model
>Endian nationalist psy-op propoganda
>PS'ed promo catalogues hiding Vstabs

Sorry to rain down on your parade my big iron brother comrade, but do humour me where exactly could one find a "dining table sized smol RC toy model of great endian psy-op propoganda" elsewhere with:

✓Max AUW of upto 1.1 Tonnes.
✓Length and Wingspan of 4m×5m
✓Powered by a 5.5Kn turbofan engine.
✓Serptine inlet
✓LO optimised nozzle
✓Max cruising speed of 0.6 Mach
✓Slant CLOS-cued bracket of upto 250 kilometres.
✓ACLS & ATOL autonomous landing and take-off capabilities capped at 70 m/s.
✓housing for 2×50kg stores of A2G ordnance and several other test payloads

All things considering along with your profound belief that writing ACLs for military flying wings is just as easy as flying toy RC drones, this is a scaled down TD and the third AF-3 prototype indeed does away with the vertical stabilizerView attachment 117629View attachment 117630

Click to expand...

Picture at top is not the RC sized model that flew.

Model that flew is the dining table sized model.

Model that flew does not have:

✓Max AUW of upto 1.1 Tonnes.
✓Length and Wingspan of 4m×5m
✓Powered by a 5.5Kn turbofan engine.
✓Max cruising speed of 0.6 Mach
✓Slant CLOS-cued bracket of upto 250 kilometres.
✓housing for 2×50kg stores of A2G ordnance and several other test payloads

Model that flew is this:

Photoshopped version:




Actual model:





You can clearly see that the model India flew is tiny and smaller than the model being assembled in the photo you shared. It does NOT have a 5.5KN engine in it, that's absolutely a laughable claim. You can judge from the size of the runway and tires that it isn't 4mx5m even the model assembled (which appears larger than the model that flew) is not 4m x 5m unless the person in the photo is 3.5m tall**.

Not to mention, it flew with a vertical stabiliser and is not a flying wing.

Flying wings are very easy to make. RC model enthusiasts make them.

Notice with the flying model (the one that is roughly dining table sized), no photograph has been shown where its size can be determined by scale. Except for the tires and runway. They could have just shown a photo with scale objects.

As for the photo you shared of a model being assembled without a flying wing, well when that flies and the footage is shown, then it would indeed be done with the vertical stabiliser.


** This model looks like it's around 2.5m x 3m. Certainly larger than the model with the vertical stabilisers.

Since we only have the wheels as relative scale (indicative of aircraft actual mass mostly as determined for landing stresses).

Consider other UCAVs body ratio to wheels and compare to the Swift/Ghatak flying "prototype".


Chinese Sharp Sword (GJ-11 flying test bed prototype from 2012) wheel sizes compared to body:








US X-47B and RQ-170:






Russian Hunter (prototype):

Iranian Shahed 171:






French Neuron drone:



Boeing Loyal Wingman:



Turkish Kizilema:

India's Swift/Ghatak flying demonstrator:












Actual model that flew had a vertical stabiliser. As shown in the video here.

Look carefully at the no vertical stabiliser model and really what scale it is.



Is a human size A or B? Look at the marking on runway. Look at the size of the bolts and the visible panel gaps... if this model is 4mx5m those panel gaps are over 30mm wide. If this no stabiliser model is indeed around 4m x 5m then human size should be B. But human size is clearly closer to A just from comparing wheel diameter without even paying attention to the rest. This particular model is nowhere near 5m long or wide.

This one is the dining table sized model. Look at the camera module and antenna. If it were 4mx5m those antennas are nearly the length of a human head.

Look at the intake S-duct. Really there's room for a 5.5KN engine??????? And 100kg total A2G payload in internal bays??????

So DRDO basically built a taxi only model that is a flying wing, without vertical stabilisers and built a model that flies with vertical stabiliser i.e. NOT a flying wing.

Evidence and photos above.

Don't know about the assemble model that was shared... That one is a flying wing but we haven't seen it fly and so far the only Indian flying wing model UCAV has the vertical stabiliser.

Then we move onto the size of the model and it's abundantly clear it's around a dining table or roughly 2.5m to 3m tops... similar to the assembly model with the person in the photograph.

Scale can be tricky though especially when there's nothing in the background to use to compare.

Case in point this Chinese local thought this CH-x UCAV was the H-20... he keeps saying H-20 in the video.


In reality this is a CH-7 UCAV most likely.

ougoah said:

India's Swift/Ghatak flying demonstrator:

View attachment 117675

View attachment 117676


View attachment 117677

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Actual model that flew had a vertical stabiliser. As shown in the video here.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Look carefully at the no vertical stabiliser model and really what scale it is.

View attachment 117678

Is a human size A or B? Look at the marking on runway. Look at the size of the bolts and the visible panel gaps... if this model is 4mx5m those panel gaps are over 30mm wide. If this no stabiliser model is indeed around 4m x 5m then human size should be B. But human size is clearly closer to A just from comparing wheel diameter without even paying attention to the rest. This particular model is nowhere near 5m long or wide.

This one is the dining table sized model. Look at the camera module and antenna. If it were 4mx5m those antennas are nearly the length of a human head.

Look at the intake S-duct. Really there's room for a 5.5KN engine??????? And 100kg total A2G payload in internal bays??????

Click to expand...

Big giant wheels.