It is unlikely that someday robots will completely replace a person in those areas of activity that require the rapid adoption of non-standard decisions both in civilian life and in combat. Nevertheless, the development of drones in the last decade has become a fashionable trend in the military aircraft industry. Many militarily leading countries are mass-producing UAVs. Russia has so far failed not only to take its traditional leadership positions in the field of weapons design, but also to overcome the backlog in this segment of defense technologies. However, work in this direction is underway.
Motivation for UAV development
The first results of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles appeared in the forties, however, the technology of that time was more in line with the concept of "aircraft projectile". The V cruise missile could fly in one direction autonomously, having its own course control system built on the inertial-gyroscopic principle.
In the 50s and 60s, Soviet air defense systems reached a high level of efficiency, and began to pose a serious danger to aircraft likelyenemy in the event of a real confrontation. The wars in Vietnam and the Middle East caused a real panic among the pilots of the United States and Israel. Cases of refusals to perform combat missions in areas covered by Soviet-made anti-aircraft systems have become frequent. Ultimately, the reluctance to put the lives of pilots in mortal risk prompted design companies to look for a way out.
Begin practical application
The first country to use unmanned aircraft was Israel. In 1982, during the conflict with Syria (Bekaa Valley), reconnaissance aircraft appeared in the sky, operating in a robotic mode. With their help, the Israelis managed to detect the enemy's air defense battle formations, which made it possible to launch a missile attack on them.
The first drones were intended exclusively for reconnaissance flights over "hot" territories. At present, attack drones are also used, having weapons and ammunition on board and directly delivering bombing and missile strikes on alleged enemy positions.
The United States has the most of them, where "Traitors" and other types of combat aircraft robots are mass-produced.
The experience of using military aviation in the modern period, in particular the operation to pacify the South Ossetian conflict in 2008, showed that Russia also needs UAVs. Conducting reconnaissance by heavy jet aircraft in the face of opposition from enemy air defenses is risky and leads to unjustified losses. As it turned out, there are certain shortcomings in this area.
Problems
The dominant idea of modern military doctrine today is the opinion that Russia needs strike UAVs to a lesser extent than reconnaissance ones. You can strike the enemy with a variety of means, including high-precision tactical missiles and artillery. Much more important is information about the deployment of his forces and the correct target designation. As American experience has shown, the use of drones directly for shelling and bombing leads to numerous mistakes, the death of civilians and their own soldiers. This does not exclude a complete rejection of impact samples, but only reveals a promising direction in which new Russian UAVs will be developed in the near future. It would seem that the country, which quite recently occupied a leading position in the creation of unmanned aerial vehicles, is doomed to success even today. Back in the first half of the 60s, aircraft were created that flew in automatic mode: La-17R (1963), Tu-123 (1964) and others. Leadership remained in the 70s and 80s. However, in the nineties, the technological gap became clear, and an attempt to eliminate it in the last decade, accompanied by the cost of five billion rubles, did not give the expected result.
Current situation
At the moment, the most promising UAVs in Russia are represented by the following main models:
| Name | Summary |
| "Pacer" | Approximate analoguePredator MQ-1 |
| Altair | Approximate analogue of Reaper MQ-9 |
| "Dozor-600" | Mid-height heavy. Long flight duration and range |
| "Hunter" | Heavy strike UAV |
| Orlan-10 | Short range reconnaissance |
In practice, the only serial UAVs in Russia are now represented by the Tipchak artillery reconnaissance complex, capable of performing a narrowly defined range of combat missions related to target designation. The agreement between Oboronprom and IAI for the SKD assembly of Israeli drones, signed in 2010, can be viewed as a temporary measure that does not ensure the development of Russian technologies, but only covers a gap in the range of domestic defense production.
Some promising models can be reviewed separately in the public domain.
Pacer
Take-off weight is one ton, which is not so little for a drone. Design development is carried out by Transas, and flight tests of prototypes are currently underway. The layout, V-tail, wide wing, method of takeoff and landing (aircraft), and general characteristics roughly correspond to those of the most common American Predator at present. The Russian UAV Inokhodets will be able to carry a variety of equipment that allows reconnaissance at any time of the day, aerial photography and telecommunications support. Supposedthe possibility of producing shock, reconnaissance and civilian modifications.
Patrol
The main model is reconnaissance, it is equipped with a radar station, video and photo cameras, a thermal imager and other registration equipment. On the basis of a heavy airframe, attack UAVs can also be produced. Russia needs Dozor-600 more as a universal platform for testing production technologies for more powerful drones, but it is also impossible to exclude the launch of this particular drone into mass production. The project is currently under development. The date of the first flight is 2009, at the same time the sample was presented at the international exhibition "MAKS". Designed by Transas.
Altair
It can be assumed that at the moment the largest strike UAVs in Russia are the Altair, developed by the Sokol Design Bureau. The project has another name - "Altius-M". The take-off weight of these drones is five tons, it will be built by the Kazan Aviation Plant named after Gorbunov, which is part of the Tupolev Joint Stock Company. The value of the contract concluded with the Ministry of Defense is approximately one billion rubles. It is also known that these new Russian UAVs have dimensions commensurate with the dimensions of an interceptor aircraft:
- length - 11,600 mm;
- wing span - 28,500 mm;
- tail span - 6,000 mm.
The power of two propeller aircraft diesel engines is 1000 hp. with. In the air, these reconnaissance and strike UAVs of Russia will be able tostay up to two days, overcoming a distance of 10 thousand kilometers. Little is known about electronic equipment, one can only guess about its capabilities.
Other types
Other Russian UAVs are also in perspective development, for example, the aforementioned Okhotnik, an unmanned heavy drone capable of also performing various functions, both informative and reconnaissance and strike-assault. In addition, according to the principle of the device, diversity is also observed. Drones are both aircraft and helicopter types. A large number of rotors provides the ability to effectively maneuver and hover over the object of interest, producing high-quality surveys. Information can be quickly transmitted over coded communication channels or accumulated in the built-in memory of the equipment. UAV control can be algorithmic-software, remote or combined, in which the return to the base is carried out automatically in case of loss of control.
Apparently, Russian unmanned vehicles will soon be neither qualitatively nor quantitatively inferior to foreign models.
