2024-07-15 23:44:56
In three months, two Yak-52 pilots — a pilot in the front and a gunner in the back — have shot down at least 12 Russian drones — if you’re to believe the markings the crew have painted on the side of their vintage 1970s plane.
“Isn’t it time to shoot him down?” wrote one Russian blogger.
The problem for the Russians, however, is that the Yak-52 is difficult to shoot down for the same reason that makes it such an effective platform for a rifle-armed crewman firing at nearby drones. The Yak-52 is robust and inconspicuous.
The Yak-52, powered by propeller engines, does not leave a clear trace on the radar screens of Russian long-range air defense batteries. And even if the Yak-52 were, say, rammed by the drone the plane is hunting, the crew would still probably be able to land it.
Earlier this month, another Russian blogger complained that a Yak-52 crew was “firing at our drones like a tire” over the city of Odesa in southern Ukraine.
And this is not a new problem for the Russians. Apparently looking for an effective way to destroy $100,000 Russian drones without firing $4 million Patriot missiles (or other expensive air defense munitions) at them in April, the Ukrainians began taking to the air with Yak-52s, maneuvering within firing distance of intruding drones – and destroying them in the air.
It worked so well that earlier this month, Ukraine’s intelligence directorate began training shooters to hunt down Russian drones from home-built Aeroprakt A-22 sport planes. The Jak crew’s successful hunts have inspired a whole new anti-drone tactic.
The Russians are losing patience as their losses continue to mount. The Yak-52 has been flying over Odesa and has been very effective in shooting down our reconnaissance drones for a week, causing laughter in some circles, the blogger writes. “It’s long past funny for drone operators and us.”
However, it is not clear what the Russian military can do about it. The Yak-52’s patrol zone is at least 80 kilometers from the nearest Russian position. However, the nearest Russian air defense batteries are likely to be much further away, as Ukrainian drone and missile strikes continue to reduce their numbers and push them away from the front lines.
In any way. The Yak-52 can be difficult to detect. In one of 1976 in the study conducted the Cessna 172, a propeller plane similar in size and shape to the Yak-52, was found to have a radar cross-section of less than a square meter at a certain angle. This is a quarter of the radar cross section of a typical fighter jet.
Russian operators operating the same drones hunted by the Yak-52 crew may be attempting to ram the Ukrainian plane. And this would not be an unprecedented case – during Russia’s 28-month full-scale war with Ukraine, Russian and Ukrainian crews repeatedly shot down the opposing warring parties’ drones by engaging them with their own drones.
But there’s one thing about two drones, each weighing just a few kilograms: one can destroy the other. However, if the ZALA surveillance drone weighing 20 kilograms were to hit a Yak-52 weighing 1.5 tons, the damage would not be catastrophic, writes Forbes.
2024-07-15 23:44:56