On 06 September, Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT) invited local media to tour a newly completed Unmanned Aerial Systems Factory (UASF), a purpose-built production site intended to manufacture one-way attack (OWA) loitering munitions and small-factor drones.
HIT’s UASF: from concept to production-ready hardware
HIT — Pakistan’s primary supplier of armoured combat vehicles — told reporters the UASF focuses on four drone families: surveillance drones, drone interceptors, loitering munitions, and training drones. Models shown during the tour and at the 2026 Indus Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) Expo suggest the firm has moved beyond concepts and proposals to systems that "have entered production at its facilities," meaning they should be available, at minimum, for testing.
R-020 and R-040: two VTOL approaches
HIT presented two vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) designs. The R-020 is positioned as an ISR system and is described as smaller — and likely lower in cost — than the Ranger V30 marketed by Global Industrial & Defence Solutions (GIDS) and produced by NESCOM, suggesting it may occupy a different operational niche. The R-040 is larger and offered as a dual ISR-and-strike platform: in strike mode it can carry four 60 mm mortars or a total payload of up to 5 kg. Despite being marketed alongside each other, the R-020 and R-040 appear to use different airframe and stabilizer approaches, which led HIT observers to suggest the two are not members of a single shared family and that one or both may have been licensed from another OEM.
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End the scrambleLoitering munitions: long-range models and smaller delta designs
HIT displayed multiple loitering-munition concepts. Models of the D-248 and S-369 — described in the tour materials as 2,000–3,000 km-range OWAs — were shown. HIT also showcased a smaller tailless delta loitering munition that, while conceptually similar to the D-248 revealed at the Indus RAS Expo, was noticeably smaller than a Shahed-136-analogous OWA would require. The smaller design, which HIT did not name or spec, was compared in size to Sysverve’s Mudamir-LR — which the source links to as suggestive of similar range and payload characteristics (i.e., 600+ km) — and may be intended to meet a shorter-range Army requirement.
HIT also showed an unnamed strike loitering munition visually similar to the YIHA-3 produced jointly by the Pakistan Air Force’s National Aerospace Science and Technology Park (NASTP) and Baykar. HIT’s design pairs a missile-style fuselage with wings and a piston-powered propulsion system; while HIT did not say it uses the same warhead core as YIHA-3, the approach is visually comparable and consistent with the Army’s parallel interest in both tailless-delta (Shahed-style) and YIHA-style platforms.
P-905 interceptor: sensor-to-effector integration and 3D printing
The P-905 integrated interceptor system combines the I-402 interceptor drone with an OR-503 electro-optical and radar sensor package. An industry source who spoke to Quwa said a private Pakistani startup is assisting HIT with sensor-to-effector integration so that the I-402s automatically launch and pursue targets detected by OR-503. The P-905 is described as functioning similarly to an integrated surface-to-air missile (SAM) system except that its kinetic effector is an interceptor drone rather than a rocket. HIT confirmed these interceptor drones are being produced using additive manufacturing (3D printing) in a net-new facility at the UASF, and Quwa framed the system as aligning with a broader move toward integrated C-UAS solutions where sensors, soft-kill, and hard-kill effectors are networked instead of deployed as standalone point solutions.
What this means for the Pakistan Army, private companies, and state-owned enterprises
- Pakistan Army: The tour and product mix indicate the Army is steering HIT toward a deliberate mix of long-range tailless-delta designs, shorter-range tailless-delta drones, VTOL ISR and recoverable strike platforms, small-factor interceptors, and YIHA-style strike systems — a portfolio aimed at building mass and replenishment capacity for sustained salvos.
- Private companies (e.g., Fire Point, other startups): Private firms already participate in the market — Fire Point is cited as engaging a private Pakistani company on FP-1 and FP-2 designs — but Quwa warned that SOE expansion could crowd out private investment unless the Army commits to large-scale orders and avoids displacing private-sector capacity.
- State-owned enterprises and NESCOM: Multiple SOEs are active on OWAs, with the Army backing HIT, the Navy working with Sysverve, and the PAF working through NASTP; NESCOM appears to support both the Army and Navy. Sysverve is already manufacturing the Mudamir-series at scale, while other SOEs or licensed Chinese systems are being developed to drive larger output.
HIT’s UASF is a tangible step from blueprint to production for Pakistan’s mix of drones and loitering munitions. The opening underlines two concurrent goals: diversify launch platforms (VTOL, tailless-delta, YIHA-style) and scale output. It also raises a policy and industrial question — whether the state’s SOEs should focus on producing finished systems or on upstream industrial inputs (polymers, composites, resins) that could sustain a broader private-sector manufacturing base. For now, the immediate next milestones are testing and ramping production; the choices made about who builds at scale and where public funds are invested will shape how large and how fast this capacity grows.
