IRGC documentary shows jet-powered Shahed-136 UAV variant

A still from the trailer for the documentary shows a jet-powered version of the Shahed-136 being launched. (Islamic Republic News Agency)

A previously unseen jet-powered variant of Iran's Shahed-136 unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was shown in a trailer for a television documentary that premiered on 26 September.

The underside of the one-way attack UAV was shown as it was launched probably from a rack mounted on a vehicle. While it had the same vertical stabilisers as the Shahed-136, it did not have a piston engine or a propeller and had only one pitot tube, instead of two. A UAV that was presumably the same type was then shown hitting a target. This clearly had an air-intake for a small jet engine on top.

The UAV was not identified in the trailer and the full documentary was not available online at the time of publication. The part that was made available began with clips from foreign news broadcasts referring to the Shahed-136 being used against Ukraine, even though the Iranian government officially denies supplying them to Russia.

It continued with an overview of Iran's development of UAVs since the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s using interviews with senior officials that included General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force.