South African aerospace and defence company Incomar used the Africa Aerospace and Defence (AAD) exhibition at Air Force Base Waterkloof in September to debut a set of unmanned aircraft, avionics and ground control products. The portfolio covers radar-tracking validation, weapons testing, autonomous strike and counter-drone defence. DefenceWeb first reported the line-up.
Every description in this article comes from Incomar. The company named no customers and disclosed no prices, test results or export approvals. For the three aircraft, it also published no speed, range, endurance or warhead figures in the material reviewed by Military Africa. The products should therefore be read as announced capabilities, not proven ones.
Three Unmanned Platforms
The first is the IBIS aerial target drone, a reusable, high-performance aircraft built to mimic modern unmanned and attack aircraft threats. A Jet A1-fuelled micro turbine engine gives it high-speed, high-altitude flight for radar system evaluation, combat readiness testing and weapons system development. Target drones matter more as air defence spending rises, because crews and radars cannot be trained or validated without realistic things to shoot at. Egypt has been offered Russia’s Bizon short-range counter-drone system, and ASELSAN recently staged a live-fire Korkut 35 demonstration for 12 countries. Systems like these have to be tested against targets that behave like the threats they will face.
IBIS also enters a field where South Africa already has domestic work under way. The South African National Defence Force relied for decades on the Denel LOCATS (Low Cost Aerial Target System). Denel Dynamics unveiled the high-speed Loki target demonstrator at AAD 2022, and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research is developing Project Swift, a low-cost electric vertical take-off and landing target drone. A turbine-powered, high-speed aircraft appears to sit nearer the Loki end of that spectrum than the low-cost Swift end, though Incomar has not said how IBIS is launched or recovered, or whether any customer has been named.
The second platform is GANNET, a low-cost, autonomous one-way munition built for beyond-line-of-sight engagements. A one-way munition flies to its target and detonates, destroying itself, unlike a reusable drone that returns to land. GANNET is offered in long-range, medium-speed and high-speed variants and, according to Incomar, provides flexible precision effect against fixed targets and critical infrastructure. That target set is narrower than the moving vehicles Kalashnikov markets its KUB-10ME against, and it differs from the reusable approach Paramount took with its V-Raven ISR and light attack aircraft, which returns to land after each mission. Any export of a strike munition from South Africa would also fall under the country’s conventional arms control regime, a step Incomar did not discuss.
The third is the SAHM/DRAGOFLY counter-UAS interceptor, a compact quadcopter designed to neutralise small, agile unmanned threats. Incomar says it combines rapid deployment, high manoeuvrability and autonomous flight for tactical counter-UAS operations. The material does not explain whether the two names refer to a product and its brand or to two versions, and it does not say how the interceptor defeats a target. Interceptor drones have become one of the fastest-growing counter-drone categories since the war in Ukraine and the 2026 Iran war, with Ukrainian designs drawing Western and Gulf demand and firms such as Airbus testing larger missile-armed interceptors. The gap for African users is the one this outlet has described in Kill the Drone and in its analysis of engaging Shahed-type drones: man-portable jammers cannot handle a coordinated drone attack, and a missile fired at a cheap drone loses the cost exchange.
Avionics and Ground Control
Incomar paired the aircraft with three supporting products. The Portable Ground Control System (PGCS) is a rugged, rifle case-sized control station with dual 21-inch sunlight-readable full high-definition displays, a high-performance computer and an integrated operator interface. It is self-contained and designed for rapid deployment in austere environments.
The Peregrine Avionics Suite is a modular, military-qualified avionics system for small to medium unmanned aircraft and munitions. It is built around the Peregrine Flight Computer, with a family of modular peripherals around it: configurable air data sensing, Ethernet switching and platform-specific interfaces. Air data sensing supports the flight control and navigation loops, Ethernet switching distributes data on board, and the platform-specific interfaces connect to mission payloads, effectors and ground links. The aim, Incomar says, is a scalable architecture that integrators can tailor to different platforms without going back to the drawing board each time.
Incomar positions Peregrine as a locally developed answer to growing local and international demand for military-qualified avionics. It argues that the small-to-medium drone and loitering munition segment is among the most contested in global defence, with operators wanting platforms that are cheaper, faster to field and easier to sustain than manned aviation, and that almost every such programme needs a trusted, qualified avionics stack that drops into different airframes with minimal re-engineering. The company describes the result as “a complete avionics solution ready for integration into any platform,” which reflects its turnkey approach to system integration. It did not say which qualification standards the suite has been tested against.
The third product is IMPACT, a mission planning software suite that unifies unmanned aircraft and precision effectors under one operational interface and supports planning, coordination and execution across different systems. Taken together, IBIS, GANNET and SAHM, with PGCS, Peregrine and IMPACT, make up a single ecosystem covering a target, a strike weapon and an interceptor on one control and avionics stack.
That avionics push fits a theme in this year’s South African unmanned announcements. ShadowfaxUAS said its SF45 redesign was driven by restrictions on Chinese components and by Western buyers’ demands for Chinese-free supply chains. Incomar did not frame Peregrine in those terms in the material reviewed, but a locally developed flight computer and sensor stack speaks to the same concern about reliance on foreign parts.
A Flight-Test Company Moving Into Systems
Incomar was founded in 2000 as a flight test and integration specialist and has grown into a full-spectrum aerospace engineering company, with in-house flight test aircraft, military-trained experimental test pilots and deep systems integration capability. Its quarter-century milestone coincides with what it describes as a renewed focus on autonomous systems, rapid deployment and multi-domain operational readiness. The company says it employs close to 600 people. It operates from two hangars at Wonderboom National Airport, three offices in Gauteng, Jaffie Aviation Training in Robertson and the Incomar Aeronautical Academy.
Its fleet gives context to the new products. A Learjet 35A and a Cessna Grand Caravan serve as systems test beds, an Aermacchi AM-3C is used for weapons testing, and a Van’s RV-7A supports practical training on the company’s in-house professional flight test course. Owning test aircraft lets Incomar fly its own avionics and weapons integrations without hiring platforms, a practical advantage for a company selling qualified flight computers and strike munitions.
Military Africa reported in 2023 that Incomar was part of the privately owned Arya Group and offered structural design, avionics enclosures, thermal management, printed circuit board development and firmware development, alongside mission computers, flight computers, stores management systems and ground control systems. The AAD 2026 portfolio extends those capabilities into complete aircraft.
The Market Behind the Launch
The timing reflects how the African drone market has changed. Military Africa’s Africa Drone Procurement Report 2026 records 234 procurement records across 34 African nations, covering an estimated 1,959 drones from at least 21 supplier countries between 1980 and 2026, and identifies indigenous manufacturing as an emerging strategic priority. South Africa already hosts the continent’s largest indigenous drone fleet, at 94 units. Other South African firms are also moving up the unmanned value chain. Paramount has unveiled V-Raven, and ShadowfaxUAS has launched its larger SF45, while Incomar is concentrating on targets, munitions, interceptors and the avionics that run them.
What Incomar Has Not Said
Several basic details remain open. Incomar has not published performance data for IBIS, GANNET or SAHM, and it has not said which of the aircraft have flown, who might buy them or how they would be launched, recovered or armed. Whether Peregrine has been qualified to a published military standard, and which airframes it already flies on, is also unstated. Until test data or a first customer appears, the AAD 2026 showing establishes what Incomar intends to build, and the strongest evidence for it is the company’s flight-test record and its in-house test fleet.
