Sunday, January 23 2005 15:49 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Israel has put on hold its plan to buy India's Pilotless Target Aircraft (PTA) 'Lakshya' and favoured an American system, which officials say has been offered for free by Washington.

Tel Aviv had expressed interest two years ago to buy nearly 20 Lakshya's developed indigenously by the Bangalore-based Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE), a DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) unit focused for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV).

"Israel has been silent since they expressed interest to buy Lakshya's two years ago. We have raised this issue with them but have evoked no response," ADE sources told reporters.

Lakshya is a sub-sonic re-usable aerial target system remotely piloted from the ground, designed to impart training for airborne and air-defence pilots from weapon engagements.

Israel, one of the world leaders in UAVs, had paid India for conducting extensive trials of the Lakshya system in Israel, but remained silent after it expressed interest to buy or lease the home grown reusable PTA system.

ADE sources said that Israel's reluctance to place a firm order is due to the offer by US to provide its Chakor PTA system and the KD-2R5 PTAs for free.

Indian Armed Forces were testing the American Chakor system before it inducted Lakshya's, used for training of land or ship-based gun missile crew and can be refurbished and re-launched for about 10 to 15 times.

The Armed Forces have already inducted Lakshya's with state-run-aircraft maker Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) producing 25 PTAs that are expected to be delivered later this year.