WB Group takes Polish drones from Tokyo to SOFEX in Jordan in a single week

A centenary in Tokyo and a turbojet loitering munition

In 1926 two Polish military aviators, pilot Lieutenant Bolesław Orliński and mechanic Sergeant Leonard Kubiak, flew a biplane from Warsaw to Tokyo and back. The round trip, made with the technology of the day by airmen from a state that had regained independence only eight years earlier, remains a symbol of the courage of Polish aviation and a reference point in Poland's relations with Japan. The centenary ceremony took place on 28 October 2026, Japan time, at the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Tokyo, hosted by chargé d'affaires a.i. Konrad Pawlik and defence attaché Colonel Maciej Remkowski.

WB Group used the occasion to show its combat-proven Warmate family, including the newest, low-observable Gladius 2 effector fitted with a turbojet engine, a development of the Gladius system the Polish Armed Forces ordered in May under the country's largest ever unmanned systems contracts. The company describes Japan and the wider Asia-Pacific as one of its most important directions for international cooperation, with potential for joint projects in aerial and maritime unmanned systems. Poland and Japan are developing a strategic partnership that includes security, and WB Group argues that direct contacts between the defence industries of allied and partner states are gaining importance as security challenges grow in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

Royal visit at SOFEX in Aqaba

WB Group returned to the Special Operations Forces Exhibition and Conference (SOFEX), one of the Middle East's leading defence shows, held in Aqaba from 27 to 29 October. On the opening day its stand was visited by Prince Faisal bin Al Hussein and Major General Majdi Al-Harasis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordan Armed Forces, together with Brigadier General Muhammad Al-Yamani, director of the Joint Operations Department, and Brigadier General Shadi Al-Khashashneh, director of the Planning and Organisation Department. Other visitors included Brigadier Muhammad Daradka, director of the Special Communications Division, officers from the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Data Integration Centre, and Muhammad Batran, Director General of the state Jordan Design and Development Bureau.

The company showed its FT-5 reconnaissance UAV in a hybrid-powered variant with an observation payload, also available with a synthetic aperture radar or ELINT sensors, alongside the much smaller hand-launched FlyEye, which WB Group describes as best in class for its low logistical footprint. The Warmate loitering munition family was presented with a range of warheads, from multipurpose fragmentation-blast to anti-armour and thermobaric, combining with reconnaissance platforms into strike-reconnaissance sets such as Flymate and Gladius. According to the company, its unmanned systems have served multiple users for 15 years and have been proven in combat, including in Ukraine, in an environment of intense electronic warfare. Also on display was AMSTA, a border and critical infrastructure protection system built around a network of perimeter seismic sensors that can be combined with other sensors and reconnaissance drones.

Lagos, Tokyo, Aqaba: three markets in one week

The week began in Africa. On 26 October, the first day of the inaugural AFRIDEX exhibition in Lagos, Nigeria's Minister of Defence General (retired) Christopher Gwabin Musa visited the WB Group stand for a briefing on border security and critical infrastructure protection systems. West Africa, the Middle East and East Asia have different requirements, but a common thread: buyers in all three regions are looking for combat-proven unmanned systems and partners willing to localise production, something WB Group has already done with its FlyEye line in Ukraine and its Delta WB joint venture in Georgia.

WB Group is the largest private technology group in Poland's defence sector and one of the largest in Europe, with a portfolio spanning communications, command and fire control systems, software-defined tactical radios and unmanned aerial, land and maritime platforms. A presence on three continents in a single week signals a company that has outgrown its home market and is competing for orders in regions where, until recently, only larger and longer-established suppliers were in the running.