At the SecD Day event opening in Helsinki on Wednesday, Finnish company Insta will present the Steel Eagle drone with an extended range, developed for Ukraine in collaboration with Ukrainian specialists.
"If you only work in Finland, you can't understand what the device should be," said Tuure Lehtoranta, Sales and Marketing Director of Insta's defense business, in an interview with Yle.
The drone is equipped with a propeller developed by a Ukrainian partner, a radio signal system for control, and relay capability, meaning it can transmit data, as well as goggles for the pilot. The goggles feature a "first-person" mode, allowing the user to observe the environment from the drone's perspective.
In Finland, a charge has been developed that contains explosives and fires steel and tungsten pellets. Tungsten is a hard metal previously used to make filament for incandescent light bulbs. It has the highest melting and boiling points among chemical elements and is now a key material for the defense industry.
The pellets can penetrate the roof of a standard or lightly armored vehicle from a height of several dozen meters. The drone's charge is specifically designed to destroy infantry. If soldiers were spread across an area the size of a football field, three drones with such charges would be sufficient to kill or injure them.
The new device has a long range and is resistant to interference.
According to Finnish defense and aerospace industry source PIA, Finland is home to more than ten defense companies directly collaborating with Ukrainian firms.
Insta is a high-tech company and a strategic partner of the Finnish Defense Forces.
"The Russians have learned a lot in their war against Ukraine. At some point, Russia may use what it has learned against the West. This is why the West is rushing to cooperate with Ukrainians and learn from them. The Ukrainian experience is being used to understand how the enemy will act and what production methods and raw materials can be used to manufacture weapons during wartime," the publication mentioned.
