Iran held a military parade on April 18, the most notable of which was the Kaman/Arrow(Kaman)-22 Chada integrated drone produced by the Iranian Air Force, which was displayed on the trailer in the state of removing the wings, and looked like a scaled-down version of the US MQ-9 Death God drone, a proper copycat version.
According to the Iranians, the Kaman-22 Tsatta integrated UAV was developed from the Kaman 12 UAV, but the aerodynamic layout has been greatly changed, and it is simply a new aircraft that has been redeveloped. His development is actually quite surprising, after all, Iran already has the Witness 129 UAV and the later development of the Witness with Veton - 149/GAZA UAV, its body size is not much different from the Kaman-22, is this not a duplicate construction? In fact, we know from his owner that the Witness series are all products of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the Kaman series is used by the Iranian Air Force, and it is not a day or two to play two systems. There is also a reason why the Kaman-22 is like a grim reaper, and on November 22, 2018, Brigadier General Amir Ali Khaizadeh, commander of the Aerospace Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, announced that the Revolutionary Guards had seized an MQ-9 drone, so it makes sense to copy it directly.
Carman-12
GAZA drone
Predators captured by Iran 1
The Carman-22 Tsatta integrated UAV is about 6.5 meters long (8.2 meters), has a wingspan of 17 meters, a height of 2.5 meters, a total weight of 1,700 kilograms, a ceiling of 8,000 meters, a payload of 300 kilograms, a range of 3,000 kilometers, and an endurance of 24 hours. MQ-9A UAV length 11 meters, wingspan 20 meters, height 3.8 meters, maximum take-off weight 4763 kg, fuel carrying capacity 1769 kg, maximum internal load 386 kg, maximum external load 1361 kg, maximum flight altitude of 15240 meters, maximum flight speed of 444 km / h, endurance time of 27 hours, from the data point of view Carman-22 is one circle smaller than MQ-9A UAV, may be insufficient engine power caused by the fuselage shrinkage, This data is not much different from the performance of the Predator drone, which can be described as the predator's ability to pull a dead skin.
The Kaman-22 Tsatta integrated UAV uses a hemispherical bulge of the head, the interior should be a Satcom antenna, this progress is considerable, since the Iranians do not have their own satellites, so the remote communication remote control may be done by renting a civilian communications satellite channel. Carman-22 slender, with two sides of the folded fuselage semi-hard shell structure, non-bearing structure and part of the skin may use composite material weight reduction, this fuselage polyline may have a certain ability to reduce the reflection of radar waves, the lower part of the fuselage has a non-retractable front three-point landing gear, of course, because the 2021 display is a prototype, the follow-up does not rule out the design can retract the landing gear possibility, can squeeze the tank capacity. The fuselage is equipped with guidance and control equipment, task load, the lower part of the nose is installed with a small photoelectric / infrared pod, should be a 6-axis stability platform, the internal integration of TV CCD, infrared thermal imaging, laser ranging, laser irradiation and other multi-type sensors, can automatically track and indicate the target, target irradiation and weapon guidance, etc., but too small size may hinder its performance improvement.
The middle of the Kaman-22 fuselage may be equipped with electronic equipment, batteries and fuel tanks, etc., the tail of the fuselage is equipped with a propulsion engine with a three-blade propeller, and the back of the aircraft has an intake tract, so it is likely that the installation is a turboprop engine, to know that Iran has ever got a civilian Honeywell TPE331 turboprop engine, it is understandable to use a turboprop to enhance performance, if the piston engine is more convenient, the performance is worse.
The aircraft adopts a large aspect ratio trapezoidal single wing + upper V-tail + belly vertical wing design, this wing is slightly down, using a low Renault number of airfoils, but also equipped with winglets to further reduce induced drag, significantly improve the platform endurance, the wing control surface includes the rear edge of the outer ailerons and inner flaps, the belly vertical wing surface is also equipped with a control rudder, with the help of pins, the wings are easy to load and unload, can be packed in the container for rapid transportation. The whole aircraft is equipped with a total of 6 wing attachment points on both sides and 1 fuselage intermediate line external mounting point, which can be loaded with various UAV ammunition.
Iran has developed a variety of unmanned missiles and missiles, which can basically be mounted on the Kaman-22. Judging from the photos from 2021, the aircraft was loaded with two gliding guided bombs, possibly an improved version of the Balaban guided bomb, whose upper suspension system was simplified, and the Balaban guided bomb bomb weighed around 100 kg, which was programmed according to the target coordinates before the aircraft took off and could be dropped at a distance of 25 kilometers from the target, and then the wings began to glide, possibly with gps/INS guidance systems for heading correction. The aircraft is also loaded with 4 Ghaem-1 air-to-ground missiles, using television guidance, the range may be about 8 kilometers, roughly equivalent to China's AR-1 missiles, it is said that on September 8, 2021, a T-72B tank armed by the Ethiopian Tigre was equipped by the government forces of Iran's Mohajer-6 medium Tchathan integrated UAV carrying Ghaem-1 air-to-ground missiles air strikes bombed into parts, possibly hit the tank and caused ammunition to explode.
The most striking, or the Carman-22 mounted pod, including a pod mounted in the midline of the belly, with radomes on both sides, suspected to be a data link pod, or perhaps an intelligence/radar pod? There is also a laser-guided bomb next to the aircraft, an electronic warfare pod, and a long-range photoelectric detection pod. The 226 kg laser-guided munition is similar in appearance to the Gem Road laser-guided bomb, using two sets of stable wings before and after the low-resistance bomb body, and the front is equipped with a wind-swept seeker and controls the nacelle to greatly increase the strike accuracy, and its performance should be similar to that of the Gem Road 2. The front of the long-range photoelectric detection pod has a large photoelectric window, which may be used for long-distance reconnaissance, much like the American sniper pod. The shape of the electronic warfare pod is very similar to the American AN/ALQ-101 or -119 electronic warfare pod, which the Americans sold to Iran before the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and it is not difficult for the Iranians to directly imitate and improve it.
Sniper pod
AN/ALQ-101 electronic warfare pod
AN/ALQ-119 electronic warfare pod
Sniper pod
From the perspective of the Kaman-22, the Iranians have been able to synthesize a model with a variety of mature subsystems, although its strike capabilities and other aspects are not very strong, but it has solved the problem, and the performance can also suppress the Turkish TB-2 UAV with many foreign subsystems. On the other hand, Iranians have a persistent obsession with American goods, even if it is the things of the 70s, they are copied as a treasure and even the appearance remains unchanged, it seems that Iranian talents are the biggest beauty fans, worthy of the name!