Defence officials claim Pakistan has acquired remote-control pilotlessaircraft of Chinese origin. These have piston engines. These craft have a maximum speed of 205 km per hour and can flyup to a maximum altitude of 3,200 metres. A handful of countries have so far acquired from Israel, US andFrance the know-how to build such planes. Australia, China and Russia are other countries which build suchplanes of eight-metre length.
China is understood to have an active programme to develop theremote-control espionage craft.
The Chinese planes are up to ninemetres in length. The planes can carry out surveillance because of the cameras,night-vision devices and other sophisticated sensors on board. The airborne craft are highly manoeuvrable and use the capabilityto spot targets. The information they receive is then relayedlive through a data link to an airborne post or ground station. Battlefield surveillance is the prime objective of such planesalso called UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles.