South African private-sector defence group Milkor has kept South Africa in the global top ten of larger uncrewed aerial vehicle- (UAV-) producing countries through its development of the Milkor 380 medium altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAV. Milkor entirely financed the development of the Milkor 380 itself, and is currently producing the first batch of these aircraft, which are the largest UAVs (popularly called drones) ever developed in South Africa. “We realised that there is a huge market for UAVs,” explains Milkor marketing and communications director Daniel du Plessis. “We had to create a UAV design and production team from scratch. We needed a team that could produce every component needed to build a UAV, except for the power plant. So, we created such a team, but it took a lot of effort, both to retain established skills in South Africa and to recruit new graduates. We started this process in 2019, with one person. Now our UAV unit has 350 employees, 80% of whom are engineers.”
