company specialized in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). Egypt and China had signed an agreement to build twelve ASN-209 UAVs including technology transfer in order to enhance Egypt's domestic drone industry. In addition, China uses fewer proprietary technologies in their designs in order to reduces licensing and manufacturing costs as the ASN-209 system costs 30 percent less than comparable US design while providing many of the same performance and most of the same tasks. In May 2012 six Egyptian drones of ASN-209 was built in collaboration with a foreign defence manufacturer during the first phase and are fully operational under the Egyptian armed forces according to Hamdy Weheba, the Chairman of the Arab Organization for Industrialization which he claimed that Egypt has started the production of the ASN-209 Multi-purpose UAV System and about 99.5% of the components are locally manufactured. He also claimed that with the latest manufacturing venture, Egypt is entering into the second phase of mass ASN-209 production. Operators People's Liberation Army Egyptian armed forces Specifications Silver Eagle Silver Eagle (Yin-Ying or Yinying, 银鹰) is a derivative of ASN-209 deployed by Chinese military. The most obvious visual difference between Silver Eagle and its predecessor ASN-209 is the addition of four vertically installed antenna, two of which are arranged in sequential order atop the fuselage, and one each on the wing, near the wingtip. Estimated range is around 150 km and the estimated endurance is several hours. Maiden flight of Silver Eagle took place in the coastal region of northeastern China on June 1, 2011 and lasted three and half hours. The UAV has since entered service with Chinese navy. Silver Eagle is launched from a 6 x 6 truck, which is both the launching platform and transportation vehicle, and the UAV utilizes rocket assisted take-off. Presumably, there would be at least another vehicle housing the ground control station. Very little information has been publicized by the official Chinese government sources, which only reveal (as of 2014) that Silver Eagle is a shore-based naval UAV. There are postulates that Silver Eagle can either act as a communication relay or electronic intelligence gathering platform, or as an aerial jamming platform, but such claims have yet to be confirmed. See also ScanEagle List of unmanned aerial vehicles of the People's Republic of China References Unmanned aerial vehicles of China