| BTT3 Banshee
|
|
| A team of Royal Brunei Armed Forces military and civilian contractors prepare "Banshee" unmanned drones for launch from the U.S. Navy's dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43).
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| Role
|
Target Drone Type of aircraft
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| National origin
|
United Kingdom
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| Manufacturer
|
Meggitt Defence Systems
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| First flight
|
1983
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| Introduction
|
1984
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| Status
|
In service
|
| Primary user
|
Worldwide
|
| Number built
|
Over 8000[1]
|
| Developed into
|
SAGEM Crecerelle
|
The BTT3 Banshee, formerly the Target Technology Banshee & Meggitt Banshee, is a British target drone developed in the 1980s for air defence systems training.
Design and development
The Banshee was developed by Target Technology Ltd.[2] The company had been specialising in lightweight engines for drones and had developed its own design in 1983.[3]
Banshee is a built mostly out of composite material (Kevlar and glass-reinforced plastic) with a tailless delta wing planform. The first models used a 26 hp 342 cc Normalair-Garrett two-cylinder two-stroke driving a pusher propeller. Performance was 35 to 185 knots (65 to 343 km/h; 40 to 213 mph) with an endurance from one to three hours. Flight control is by two elevons.
Later models used Norton P73 wankel engines[4][5]
Operational history
Banshee entered service with the British Army in the mid-1980s as an aerial target for the Short Blowpipe and Javelin shoulder-launched missiles.[6]
Banshee has been deployed in over 40 Countries.[7] It has been tested against Blowpipe, Chaparral, Crotale, Javelin, Phalanx, Rapier, Hisar (including Hisar O+ and Siper), Sea Sparrow, QRSAM, Akash SAM (including Akash-NG) and Barak 8 SAM systems.[8]
