Indigenously designed and developed Rustom-1 made 14th successful flight recently at Kolar with attainment of about 11,500 ft AGL (above ground level) and speed of above 140 kmph during 2 hrs 10 minutes of cruise.

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), developed by Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a DRDO lab at Bangalore, had its maiden flight in November 2009. P.S. Krishnan, Director of ADE, stated that the flight was successful. All the parameters were achieved by the UAV which weighs around 690 kg and the total performance was satisfactory.

The UAV has the potential for military missions like reconnaissance and surveillance, target acquisition, target designation, communications relay, battle damage assessment and signal intelligence. The UAV can attain a maximum altitude of 22,000 ft and endurance of 12-15 hours with an operating range of 250 km when fully developed.