In Russia, since the days of the USSR, they have not learned to make combat aircraft: what are the reasons?

Russian engineers presented 170 developments in the field of unmanned technologies at the Aeronet-35 exhibition in Moscow, but almost all of them are doomed to failure. Alexander Shirokokrad, an analyst on the Independent Military Review website, explained why Russia will never fail to become a leading power in this industry.

According to him, only 4-5 out of 170 products are in production, the rest are experimental models at best. History shows that the Russians have been experimenting with UAVs since Soviet times, but only a few left the factory conveyors and were actually used.

The promising S-70 Okhotnik UAV, which has been in development since 2012 and whose prototype passed factory tests, but is planned to be put into mass production in 2023, was not even featured at the fair.

“We don’t need 170 projects, we only need a dozen projects. But we need projects that can be put into production within a few months,” said the analyst.

The development of drones was carried out in Soviet times: the BM-1 and TB-3 bombers were originally designed as radio-controlled, and the RD-1 (“Range Record”) aircraft was predicted to be the fate of a kamikaze. Flying eye. Hundreds of torpedo boats were unmanned in 1941, but the idea was abandoned due to flawed control systems. Later, after the Second World War, the Soviet Union made improvements on par with the United States, but flying drones were not widely used.

In 1986, the USSR developed two analogues of the American RQ-4 Global Hawk UAV, which since 2014 played an important role in the war on Ukrainian soil. Soviet engineers from the Myasishchev Design Bureau designed the M-62 Eagle, and the Sukhoi Design Bureau prepared the S-62 Rhombus model, but in the 1990s the projects were closed due to lack of funding. At MAKS exhibitions since 1993, Russian enterprises have exhibited dozens of different UAVs, but almost all of them remained stand models.

The only more or less successful Soviet project can be considered a divisional-level UAV named “Bee”, the design of which began in 1982. Until 1991, 50 units were produced, and in May 1995, UAVs were used in combat operations in the North Caucasus. The weight of the “bee” is 138 kg, cruising speed – 180 km / h.

In 2016, information appeared in the media about equipping T-14 Armata tanks with Pterodactyl quadrocopters. It is assumed that it is able to climb to an altitude of 90 km and transmit information to a combat vehicle through a power cable protected from interference. The “Pterodactyl” was promised to be delivered to the RF Armed Forces for testing in 2017, but so far nothing has been heard about it.

On May 9, 2018, the Katran unmanned helicopter was introduced at the parade in Russia. Apparently, this is an analogue of the Austrian S-100 UAV. “It seems that the Katran was tested on a Russian ship, but that too was lost somewhere,” the analyst said.

The situation with drones in Russia is well illustrated by the story of the Dobrynya drone from the Almaz-Antey concern. The developers recently introduced a quadrocopter with a magnificent name, which allegedly is not afraid of rain and frost, and also promises to produce thousands of such devices per month for the needs of the Russian army. Later it turned out that the employees of the concern bought Chinese quadcopters, put their case with the name on it, and decided to sell the RF Armed Forces for four times more.