Currently, Pakistan is actively developing new medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) across two state-owned entities (SOE), the National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM) and Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC).
The NESCOM design is the Shahpar-II, which Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (SPD) revealed on March 23 during the annually-held Pakistan Day parade. The Shahpar-II is an evolution of the Shahpar, which is the first UAV that was locally designed, developed and manufactured in Pakistan. The Shahpar-II was likely under development since at least 2017, potentially earlier.
The Shahpar-II builds on the same general design template of its predecessor, but it is a larger aircraft and exhibits a number of noticeable changes. The most noticeable of these changes is the addition of an area in the fuselage for a satellite-communications (SATCOM) terminal.
According to Global Industrial Defense Solutions (GIDS), which is marketing the Shahpar-II, the MALE UAV has a flight ceiling of 20,000 ft, endurance of over 14 hours, and data-link range of 300 km. Since GIDS is looking to export the Shahpar-II, these are likely baseline specifications. For example, Pakistan could use SATCOM to achieve a longer, beyond-line-of-sight (BLoS) data-link range.
That said, based on these specifications, the Shahpar-II seems to be similar in size and capability to the Turkish Bayrkatar TB2. Currently, it seems that Pakistan is slating the Shahpar-II as mainly an intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and target acquisition (ISTAR) asset. However, it is certainly large enough to carry small air-to-surface munitions, should Pakistan opt for it.
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