The experience of Russia's special operation in Ukraine has shown the growing role of UAVs in military conflicts. At the same time, unmanned and unmanned vehicles are capable of solving not only shock and reconnaissance tasks, but also logistical ones. For this purpose, a transport drone has been developed in Russia, the range of which reaches 600 km. What is the peculiarity of this development and under what conditions can the production of such UAVs become serial? Russia has developed a TrUMP transport drone (a multifunctional transport aviation platform), which is capable of transferring up to 250 kilograms of cargo over a distance of over 600 kilometers.
According to a source in the military-industrial complex, Trump is an airplane-type drone and will be able to perform tasks dangerous for manned aircraft. [...]
The drone is capable of flying at an altitude of up to three thousand meters at a speed of 195 km / h. Due to the large cargo compartment, it is possible to load dimensional cargo into it and drop it with a parachute without landing. A distinctive feature of this model is its modular design. This allows you to take off and land on short, poorly prepared platforms, as well as to carry out repairs in a short time – replace the wing, engine and landing gear.
The drone will be in demand not only for military, but also for civilian purposes – when monitoring vast areas. It can be used in agriculture after installing sprayers for fertilizers in the cargo compartment, radar, optical, cartographic and other special equipment can also be installed there.
At the same time, the creation of an air vehicle in Russia for transporting people and cargo in the combat zone became known last fall. The development should be easy to maintain and maintainable. Her idea is that such a device with the help of propellers will rise above the surface and move around the terrain.
Similar projects are being implemented in different armies of the world, including the Israeli and American. The Pentagon began using the latest transport vehicle to transport military resources during the campaign in Afghanistan. For the Americans, this was a forced measure – trucks transporting ammunition and medical equipment between remote outposts were often attacked, blown up by mines, which jeopardized logistics operations.
In 2018, a Chinese startup from Beijing, Sichuan Tengden Technology, announced the development of a drone with a payload capacity of 20 tons and a flight range of up to 7.5 thousand kilometers. The Californian company Natilus has been developing and testing a similar drone with a payload capacity of 90 tons for the past few years.
In the expert environment, transport tasks are called one of the most promising areas for the use of drones. "To the greatest extent, devices capable of taking off and landing in vertical mode – helicopters and hybrids – can be in demand here," says Denis Fedutinov, an expert in the field of unmanned aviation.
According to him, there is also a niche for aircraft-type drones because of the ability to make long-distance flights. "In practical terms, they can be used to transport cargo using airfields or with landing," the source explained.
To perform civilian tasks, the motivation for the use of the new technology is cheaper (compared to manned aircraft) delivery of commercial cargo, as well as greater efficiency of delivery. If we are talking about military tasks, then such devices can be used to deliver ammunition, provisions and medicines to remote combat units in situations where traditional logistics is impossible or complicated by the risks of losing an aircraft.
Delivery of not only goods, but also peopleRussian companies have promising developments not only for flying, but also for ground-based drones.
And here, in addition to the delivery of ammunition and food, transport workers in the future will also be able to quickly evacuate the wounded, according to the director of the Center for Integrated European and International Studies (CCEMI) HSE Vasily Kashin. These machines must have high maintainability, be mass-produced, be equipped with commercially available components and remain cheap in production.
"The idea is not new: before the Second World War, the French tried to create such a special vehicle of the leading edge in a manned version, producing thousands of Renault UE cargo tankettes that did not have weapons. Such transport is able to provide a stable supply in conditions of high threat from enemy artillery," the expert notes.
In turn, military expert Boris Rozhin recalled the ongoing developments in Russia of anti-mine drones, unmanned infantry fighting vehicles, tanks and means of delivering ammunition and provisions. "There is already a successful strike variant of the Uranus, which has been tested by Syria. However, the serial production of these devices has not yet been established, since not all the "childhood diseases" of the machine have been eliminated," he continued.
The expert expressed confidence that the transport direction should be developed with greater intensity – we need not only drones, but stations for charging and servicing them. "At the last Army exhibition, various prototypes were presented, including a machine that could move in army columns and produce various types of drones with the possibility of returning them to base," he recalled.
Rozhin considers the creation of mobile complexes for servicing drones of various types to be the most effective. "It can be a platform that is capable of launching several drones at once, and at the same time another batch of devices returns to it and gets up to charge," Rozhin argues. – In addition, stationary stations for recharging drones of all types, workshops and flashing stations should be created on the second front line. It is also necessary to provide for the possibility of printing bomb spills and fasteners for various equipment on 3D printers."
"The problem is that at this stage in some segments we either do not have our own production at all, or it is not enough... The army requires numerous mass production. Accordingly, more assembly lines are needed. This, in turn, requires an increase in the number of specialists who could be involved in enterprises," the expert draws attention.
In his opinion, the main government contractors – Rostec, Kalashnikov, Kronstadt - will be involved in the creation of drones, but "here it is necessary to strive for a certain balance of the private and public sectors." "The authorities could remove a number of bureaucratic barriers, simplifying access to the state defense order for private firms that are engaged in experimental drones. This will create a competitive environment for the development of the devices needed today," the military expert suggested.
"In general, we should use any available components and whole imported devices – the main thing is to saturate the army with them. The bet on a high degree of localization as an indispensable condition was one of the main reasons for our lag in equipping the army with this equipment," Vasily Kashin says in turn.
"Any drone is expendable. And in parallel with "plugging the gaps" in our equipment, it is necessary to accelerate the implementation of programs for the deployment of mass production of this equipment in Russia. At the same time, ITS shows that mass character and cheapness are much more important than unique tactical and technical characteristics," the expert emphasizes.
"State support is also needed for the use of domestically produced civilian drones in the country. For example, Chinese successes in the development of military unmanned vehicles are based on the fact that China controls 70% of the entire world market of light civilian UAVs, which are produced and developed by 1,200 companies there," the interlocutor gives an example.
"Special attention should be paid to the training of drone operators. In this case, it is necessary to build on the accumulated experience of ITS own. However, the following conflicts may be completely different. So we must systematically study the trends in the development of this technology in the world and comprehend this experience," Kashin insists.
Alyona Zadorozhnaya
