IAI Harpy
Country: 
IsraelManufacturer: IAI (MBT Missiles Division)
First-generation anti-radar loitering munition: a kamikaze drone that patrols an area for hours, locating enemy radars and destroying them in a terminal dive.
First-generation anti-radar loitering munition: a kamikaze drone that patrols an area for hours, locating enemy radars and destroying them in a terminal dive.
Community
Data trust
- Reliability
- Unverified
- Sources
- Sources pending review
Identity
- Designation
- IAI Harpy
- Alias
- Harpy NG / Harop predecessor
- Manufacturer
- IAI (MBT Missiles Division)
- Country
- Israel
- Year
- 1989
- Category
- Loitering munition
- Class
- Tactical (< 600 kg)
- Status
- In service
Performance
- Range
- 500 km
- Endurance
- 9 h
- Top speed
- 185 km/h
- Service ceiling
- 4,600 m
- Propulsion
- Pistone Wankel UEL AR731, elica spintore
Physical characteristics
- MTOW
- 135 kg
- Payload
- 32 kg
- Hardpoints
- 0
- Weapons
- Testata HE da 32 kg, autodistruzione
Onboard systems
- Sensors
- Seeker passivo anti-radar a banda larga
- Datalink / control
- Autonomo (fire-and-forget) dopo lancio
- Launch
- Canister da TEL terrestre o navale
- Recovery
- Nessuno (munizione monouso)
Combat use
- ▸Exported to China, India, Turkey
- ▸Conceptual basis for Harop used in Nagorno-Karabakh 2020 and Ukraine 2022
Tags
Main operators
History
Developed in the late 1980s as an autonomous SEAD/DEAD weapon, the Harpy blends UAV and missile traits: released from a canister, it cruises to the target area and waits for hostile radars to switch on before diving on them.
It spawned the Harop family (2005), adding an EO/IR seeker and man-in-the-loop capability, widely used in Nagorno-Karabakh (2020) and Ukraine (2022).
The IAI Harpy was the first series-produced operational loitering munition in the world: its hybrid missile-drone philosophy shaped entire later generations of kamikaze weapons, from the US AeroVironment Switchblade to the Iranian Shaheds.
Harpy exports also triggered serious diplomatic frictions: in 2004 the United States temporarily blocked Israeli sales to China and Turkey over the transfer of sensitive technology, an episode that reshaped the US-Israel technology transfer rules.
In the 2010s IAI unveiled the Harpy NG (Next Generation) with doubled endurance and a multi-spectrum seeker, retaining its role as an autonomous SEAD/DEAD weapon to saturate enemy air defences.