ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE
Originally appeared at Izvestia; Translated by Monalita exclusively for SouthFront
Russian Aerospace Forces will receive a “flock” of unmanned fighters. Izvestia newspaper were told by sources of the military-industrial complex and the military department that three more heavy UAVs S-70 “Okhotnik” will be built in the next two years. They will join the test program for the only prototype currently available. The Ministry of Defense has decided on the format for the application of the latest drone.
The vehicle will have serious striking capabilities, making it truly versatile, experts say. For example, as a fighter, the device will be capable of hitting targets from a long distance, the sources added.
Drone Fighter
The plan and the work schedule on the new S-70 drone have already been approved, the military-industrial complex sources told Izvestia.
According to the addendum, which the publication managed to get acquainted with, the assembly plant should receive a set of parts made of polymer composite materials for the drone’s airframe in the last quarter of the year. In the first half of 2021, two more sets will arrive. The cost of one is 286 million rubles.
Three new vehicles will be built under a new government contract. The Ministry of Defense signed it with the company Sukhoi at the end of last year after the successful completion of research work on “Okhotnik”, sources in the military-industrial complex told Izvestia. It is also expected that these three UAVs will differ from the prototype in appearance. They have been modified to reduce radar visibility, sources added. One of the vehicles will remain on the ground. It is used for resource testing. The other two will become flight models.
Initially, the plan was to complete the development work by the end of 2025, and strike testing with various weapons was supposed to take place in 2023-2024. But in early August, while at a meeting with Vladimir Putin, the head of the United Aircraft Building Corporation UAC, Yuri Slyusar, said that the military department had asked to speed up the process as much as possible in order to start delivering the latest technology to the troops as soon as 2024.
As previously reported by Izvestia newspaper , in the summer, Sukhoi insured the prototype of the S-70 in the amount of 1.3 billion rubles. Separately, the ground control post was estimated at 145 million rubles. It is estimated that after the drone’s serial production the amount will be reduced to about 1 billion. “The S-70 prototype has already worked intensively while testing in tandem with the Su-57”, said military expert Vladislav Shurygin. Its dimensions, as well as the engine power, allow you to install a full-fledged radar and an optical location station on it. But a heavy drone is unlikely to become a “clean” fighter. All modern aircraft of this class have long turned into multipurpose vehicles that can destroy targets in air, sea and land.
The carrying capacity of the “Okhotnik” allows it to carry not only many long-range air-to-air weapons, but also heavy bombs and cruise missiles designed for attacking ground targets. By its design, the vehicle was originally created for high-intensity conflict operations, for breaking through powerful air defense and strikes against strategic targets, the expert recalled.
The Road to Sky
The S-70 “Okhotnik” is the largest unmanned aerial vehicle developed in Russia. The 20-ton aircraft is designed according to the “flying wing” scheme with extensive use of polymer composite materials to facilitate the design and reduce the visibility of radars. The carrying capacity of the S-70 reaches 6 tons, and its radar visibility is even lower than that of the Russian fifth-generation fighter Su-57. Today UAVs of this class are being developed only in the United States and China.
Click to see the full-size imagee
“Okhotnik” research work was initiated in 2011. The main executor of the project became the Sukhoi company. The development of the machine was carried out in an atmosphere of strict secrecy. Even its appearance was unknown. The “Okhotnik” prototype was openly presented only in 2018, and its first flight took place on August 2, 2019. A month later, the Ministry of Defense announced the start of joint flights of S-70 and the manned Su-57. At the same time, the UAV expanded the fighter’s radar field of view with its sensors and carried out target designation for its long-range aircraft weapons.
The plan for the future is that a drone will be able to operate not only under human control, but also completely autonomously using elements of artificial intelligence. The device will have a satellite ground link, which will make its range limited only by fuel supply. It has not yet been established whether it has the ability to refuel in flight, like modern manned aircraft.
A new version of the AL-41F1 fighter engine – Product 117BD – has been specifically developed for equipping the S-70 by the UEC – Ufa Engine-Building Production Association. It will provide the vehicle with a speed that is close to the speed of sound. In 2019, a model of the unmanned “Okhotnik ” was presented which had a flat engine nozzle instead of the usual round one. According to calculations, such a design should reduce the visibility of the jet drone.
In addition to the S-70, two more large strike UAVs are being developed in our country. The most lightweight of them, Orion, weighing 1 ton, has already been put into service and tested in Syria. In the spring of this year, the military received a set of three serial drones. The larger Altius, weighing 7 tons, is capable of carrying heavy guided bombs and is currently in the testing phase. At present, the Russian Armed Forces have more than 2 thousand unmanned aircraft systems at their disposal. Most of them are designed for reconnaissance missions and belong to the light class. Their take-off weight does not exceed 18 kg.
Told you so… First operational loyal wingman ever…in service. Good job Comrades ??? CIA trolls and ukropnazis will cry and rage ?
Amen!)
?
Wait the US doesn’t have one in service yet ? if so then that’s a shock, they’re in the drone business for decades and they haven’t made a loyal wing man so far?
Well now they’re going to accelerate things just like what they’re doing with hypersonics.
They had one in prototype phase but it was put on halt. Navy didnt like the idea to replace its manned jets with heavy drones. Yes, well….they will have to do a lil catching up, Russia is decades ahead of the U.S. I would point out that the U.S. doesent even have supersonic cruise missiles in service let alone hypersonic ones.
The XQ-58A Valkyrie “loyal wingman” flew before the S-70, the first 12 units will be delivered in 2021
Unlikely its still in developement. Adide from that they are not in the same class. S-70 can carry 3 times more and is 50% faster with bigger radars and already ready for serial production with first units being delivered soon. Russia won this one too. Sorry to dissapoint you.
Sorry, friend, the S-70 is still in development, check the source Isvestia, the 3 new airframes are for TEST, the serial production begins in 2025.
You are mixing it up with the XQ-58. It was already tested over Syria with a success. Over and out…
You can’t even build a decent fighter jet nowadays (period) ozis lead unmanned combat ready,far cheaper and more effective than any f35(soviet copy) variant:
P.S. S-70 flew first in 2015. The XQ-58 4years later.
Check your sources, S-70 first flight August 2019
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_S-70_Okhotnik-B
Wikipedia is not the best source, see the original TASS news of the first flight
Sure. Truth hurts, try to handle it… That was the first flight in tandem with a jet. But like I said they are not in the same class, the S-70 has a similiar weight as an F-15. Have a nice evening.
Better luck next time. They made it public in 2019, not the same as first flight…
Indeed. Just few months before. March and August of last year. That’s strange, because X-47B (closer to the size of S-70 “Hunter” than lighter “Valkyrie”) made its first flight much before. Both UAVs, S-70 and X-47B, have almost same max. flight mass – near 20 tons. Why not to make X-47B as LW, and not create new “plane” instead it?
The X-47 was a Navy program for aircraft Carriers, and is the base for the MQ-25 Stingray tanker/recon drone, due to enter in service next year
Bullsht,no soviet scientists = no usa excellence but rather fake news (period)
Smoke and mirrors. 3 units in 2 years? I have said it in the past and I am even more convinced now. Russia’s strategy is pivoting towards subs + missiles. Any other thing is just a joke to them.
On aircraft carriers, Shoigu was eloquent, when he said that Russia doesn’t need them, they just need the missiles to sink them.
Aircrafts aren’t a top priority anymore. The Su-57 is a great styling exercise, but not something they will start producing en masse. Same goes for the Okhotnik.
Its true value is as a test platform for artificial intelligence. The same AI that can be embedded in the Burevestnik and the Avangard. Can you image how powerful can be an hypersonic vector with AI on board? And if you have such a thing, why waste billions on developing aircrafts and/or drones? Drones that are and will be always much slower than a non ballistic hypersonic missile.
And the subs. Why the subs? Because there could be, sometime, somewhere, a country with powerful AA systems, capable of shooting even hypersonic missiles down. This is something we will see 10-20 years from now, at minimum. However the russian military is already preparing for such eventuality, by developing subs that will transport the hypersonic missiles as near as possible to the targets.
So why work on the Su-57, Su-70, various reconnaissance and attack drones? Because not all wars need hypersonic missiles, and Russia is in for a century of proxy, regional and whatnot wars. And using hypersonic missiles from the start would mean escalating the situation from the start. So, they will use aircrafts in the future, but for political reasons more than technical ones.
you forgot to mention Russia’s very secretive space weapons who are making US having nightmares latest two years because they know they are there and doing things which the US have no clue what is their capabilities but magnetic pulse weapon is a possibility and their fleet of research ship^s and admiral Kamarov that can annihilate and control Israels complete missile defense they gave them a taste of it about two months ago Israel was in panic because they were under attack by swarm of missiles but then it stopped and started again but Admiral Kamarov was in Mediterranean Sea and gave them a little warning about their new rab radio communications and electronic warfare they already dropped many F 35 22 DRONES TOMAHAWKS hundreds of them Apache choppers and even their b52 s had a little taste of it
It is difficult to speculate on secret technology, because we know nothing about it. With don’t even know the details about hypersonic technology. For example, it is well known that a hypersonic vehicle is immersed in a plasma field, which stops every kind of electromagnetic radiation to go in/out. So how is it possible that Avangard, Burevestnik, etc… can use Glonass and communicate with command stations? Obviously there must be some sort of new tech at work. It is just uber-secret at the moment.
Boeing built the latest with Australian engineering excellence,(not cia affiliated salesmen)
hope are not useless like their electronic warfare systems
Russian ECMs are the best on the planet.
You must be mixing them up with Americants. They even have a hard time avoiding container ships…
who will putina use these against? russian citizens? he is clearly too scared to protect his peoples (ukraine, armenia, belarus). maybe he should gift them to turkey
Donbas is secure, why should he protect ukropnazis…? Belarus also secure aside from a few trolls. Armenia didn’t ask for help, their traitor soros/CIA run leadership is too busy betraying their own country.
putina is a bigger traitor than soros, fuck the PM, what about the people being slughtered by putinas jew drones
Didn’t you claim Armenians were winning? What happened? No need to help Armenia, they are great warriors, they will manage themselves:))))))
(((random jew))) armenia will rebuild then slaughter muslim dogs while russia disintegrates under the leadership of traitor putina
Don’t ask for help then. Best of luck on your own
There are no signs of Russia collapsing that was 30 years ago.
It was a tactical retreat, admittedly a bit messy but necessary. Russia is stronger now for it.
They are managing to die…for nothing! On this front they are the best ones around.
Who is Putina?
vladimina putina the weak president of the former russia (now turk colony)
There aren’t enough rolling eyes emoticons to do justice to that response.
Forgot to take on your pills?
forgot where your balls are?
Put in is not a woman so remove the A
no he is putina that is erdogans bitch
Erdogan will soon have bigger problems, with the european public opinion fastly switching to rage and hate versus Turkey.
The jews are working hard to put the christian Europe against muslims. Soon there will be war.
i wish
Are you a mouthy lchild?
“The cost of one is 286 million rubles.” Seems too chip. It’s around the cost of 1 T-90. I think combat-ready heavy and versatile UAV will have the same cost as fighter planes, at least medium fighter as MiG-29/35 – 1,5-2 billion in rubles and 30-40 million dollars to foreign buyers. Price of 50 MiG-35 for Egypt is 2 billion dollars, 40 millions per 1 plane.
Picture and mock-up from exhibition. https://img2.cgtrader.com/items/2102422/0f949390fe/sukhoi-s-70-hunter-in-future-3d-model-animated-max–obj-mtl-fbx.jpg
https://sun7-6.userapi.com/OTDgyOVSs64gObtVme3sS9rWUjlAfJmbeIMgkA/sJnN_503qKA.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECz7CwrWsAALwrf.jpg
These Drones are made to be expendable and cheap enough to be used in large numbers but i doubt it’s 286 million, the engine alone costs 240 million ruble if the reports from Izvestia are true, it’ll probably cost 600 million ruble
That’s around 3 million USD and indeed sounds too cheap. For both, a tank or such a drone.
It’s plausible that this money buys you a jet engine and the hull, or a bare bone tank that you can drive. But in either case, the moment you place your order, you usually tick some of the checkboxes, like communication equipment, cameras and other sensors, weapon control systems and a better car stereo. All of that bundled up with a nice maintenance contract and the price of 40 millions for one plane is what it will cost in the end.
I’m sure the cost given is just for public consumption. There are a lot of Russians who still scream about military expenditure instead of enhanced pensions and the like (one Russian I’ve known for years told me Putin has money for wars but nothing else). Unfortunately they have a point from their PoV (living in Russia isn’t cheap) so the cost of military acquisitions is probably deliberately understated to keep them from protesting.
“There are a lot of Russians who still scream about military expenditure instead of enhanced pensions”
I know about such idiots, but i can assure you, that i’m not one of them, not LGBT liberal psycho. And i like military stuff. May be it’s the cost of hull and engine without electronic components. Or even without engine. Such big and sophisticated “plane” can’t be so cheap.
“Putin’s great innovation is that he did not like the patrimonial relations created by Yeltsin. He disliked the wealth and influence of the oligarchs; he reduced it by half and redistributed it to the general population”. Ivan Szelyeni New Left Review 2015
he disliked the oligarchs and yanks looting his country that’s all, and he was and is still right to eliminate the liberal traitors out of the Russian political equation
jees what an idiot and wannabe troll you are pathetic useless idiot
Very cogent. Hopefully you didn’t strain too many neurons coming up with that.
the one with strain neurons is folks like you with an alias like yours you must be a real egghead or swallowed to many meds
Don’t overwork three couple of neurons you still retain, you might need them.
the use of polymer materials reduces the prices and the knowledge and experiences from the wars in Caucasus Libya and Syria has created an opportunist climate of facilities for experiences research and massive data feedback for their MIC to rely on makes this less expensive and this without influence on the quality and do not forget many of these projects were frozen in the Days of USSR in the 1980s and with their economy in complete self-sufficient mode you can make things cheaper and innovate now what you could not apply “30years ago its still a win-win situation look at the Kalashnikov cheap but reliable that’s with all Russian weaponry they have great experience in warfare nobody beats them
If only the engine was ready
Welcome to the 6th gen world, and Russia seems to be leading the pack. A 20 tone drone is heavier than all the fighters we know, from Su 35 to the F22, what’s in that drone? Just add another engine to the damn thing.
US sentinel copy…but its ok
The only similarity is the wing planform, and even that is only a vague approximation, since the Okhotnik has considerably more sweep than the RQ-170 and has a different control surface configuration. Every single other parameter is different: size, weight, power, payload, mission, structure, systems… When the first pictures of Okhotnik became available, a few observers mentioned a “visual similarity”, and that is the closest that anyone has ever come to calling the one a copy of the other.
The great advantage of Russian design is that Russia isn’t addicted to the Top Gun Hollywood crapaganda and therefore has nothing invested in the “glamourous fighter pilot” mythology. Russia will design what’s necessary, not what looks good. I will predict that the SU57 will never come into service in large numbers if the flying wing drone fighter programme works as anticipated. Far from being a wingman, the drone will replace the manned fighter except in the export market.
what makes me smile is the fact that Russia’s progress on arm innovations is all made in real combat environment and this always results in complete dominance and progress that makes USA being behind for decades Russia is protected by a dome especially Moscow and the space weapons are aimed at intercepting and destroy all attacks and coordinate all parts of the military ( Russia is unstoppable ) and USA knows this to well they do not stand a chance vs RF they will sign a new start they have no choice
Cia noses outta joint after oz built the true 6th gen unmanned combat jet,why they did everything in their powers to spead corona there,thankfully the lost again,however this russian version looks even sharper!
Top level trolling to name the drone S-70, as opposed to the source RQ-170. Iran cashed in well I bet.