Dubai Airshow 2025 – First international appearance for KBP Kh-BPLA air-launched missile
Rosoboronexport’s static display hosted the Kh-BPLA air-launched missile with its launch container, the system being showcased for the first time outside Russia
This missile was developed by the KBP Instrument Design Bureau, part of the High-Precision Systems holding company, to be used on board unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). EDR On-Line previously reported on this missile from the Army-2024 exhibition;, but at that time the missile was called Kh-UAV and was presented without its launch container, which is suspended at the pylon of a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAV.
As Rosoboronexport explained to EDR On-Line, the Kh-BPLA missile is currently used in the Ukrainian theatre of operations to engage lightly armoured slow-moving vehicles and stationary ground targets, as well as small-tonnage naval surface targets in coastal zones, day and night, in favourable and moderately adverse weather conditions. The Kh-BPLA is launched from Orion-type UAVs.
The latest version of this missile is equipped with a 6 kg high-explosive fragmentation warhead. The munition weighs 32 kg, 42 kg with its container-launcher. The Kh-BPLA missile has a range of 2 to 8 km and can be launcher from maximum altitude of 4,000 metres.
Photo by N. Novichkov
