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ADEX 2017
Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition
17 - 22 October 2017
Seoul Airbase - Republic of Korea
 
 
ADEX 2017: KAT extending FE Panther family of UAVs
 
Barely formed, the new Joint Venture between IAI and Hankuk Carbon, Korea Aviation Technologies (KAT) is already working on extending the FE Panther family of UAV, the company said at ADEX 2017 exhibition in Seoul.
     
ADEX 2017 KAT extending FE Panther family of UAVs 640 001KAT's FE Panther/KAT-100 UAV concept
     
At ADEX 2017, KAT is highlighting two further developments of the FE Panther originally designed by IAI. All retain a similar wingspan but the new concepts adopt different engine designs in order to increase endurance or payload capabilities.

Compared to the legacy FE Panther, the KAT-100 variant is powered by four vertical electrical engines and one more powerful cruising fuel engine. Thanks to this configuration, the KAT-100 could reach a maximum ceiling of 4.5 km (+1.5 km), an endurance of more than 10 hours (+ 4hours) and a payload capability of 10 kg (+ 4kg).

But the young JV development activities have not stopped there and KAT engineers are already working on another upgraded variant of the FE Panther, dubbed Panther-300/KAT-400.

According KAT, fitting the drone with two tiltrotor instead of a sole horizontal engine in the KAT-100 variant would increases payload capacity to up to 60 kg. But increasing the payload also means reducing the endurance to 8 hours, while conserving a maximum flight attitude of 4.5 km.
     
ADEX 2017 KAT extending FE Panther family of UAVs 640 002KAT's bigger KAT-400 UAV concept at ADEX 2017