Analysis: How Pakistan Can Design a Loyal Wingman Drone - Quwa

By Syed Aseem Ul-Islam
Author Profile: Syed Aseem Ul Islam is a Research Scholar at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, specializing in adaptive and model-predictive flight control systems. He received his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad, and his master’s and Ph.D. degrees in flight dynamics and control from the University of Michigan.
A previous article discussed how the goals and projects under Project Azm needed to be reoriented to make them achievable within the constraints of Pakistan’s aerospace ecosystem and the realities of TAI’s existing and substantial investment into its TFX program. That article had argued that Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) should be pursuing a loyal wingman unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) project instead of a fifth-generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) program. This article will propose a possible roadmap for such a program.
The proposed program envisions two UCAV’s (named ‘Vafadar-1’ and ‘Vafadar-2’ for the purpose of this article). Vafadar-1 would serve as the first step in PAC’s quest towards developing a loyal wingman program. It can serve as a testbed for technologies and be a relatively lower-risk and lower-cost UCAV program. Towards the end of the Vafadar-1 program, the Vafadar-2 program could be started, which will build upon the successes of its predecessor. Vafadar-2 would be bigger, more capable, and more expensive than Vafadar-1. Both loyal wingman UCAV’s...

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