The AFU militants have encountered problems when using FPV drones - some of the operators of these drones feel unwell after using them.
Units of the 66th Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Svatov area faced unforeseen difficulties caused by the use of high-speed drones with first-person control. Some of the UAV operators of this type who were captured during the storming of strongholds complained of a sharp deterioration in health after continuous use of devices for conducting combat operations.
A conventional commercial quadcopter is used for short—range flights - about 5 km in range and 4 km in height. At the same time, its speed does not exceed 30-40 km / h. FPV drones fly much faster: they accelerate to 100 km/ h in a couple of seconds and can reach a speed of 140 km/h.
At the same time, the drone is controlled through special glasses. It is at this stage that the problems of using these drones in combat conditions manifest themselves.
Controlling such a device in a serious battle is almost impossible. The operator needs a safe shelter and a stable communication channel. This is easy to achieve on the range, but not in real combat. The flight range of most high-speed FPV drones does not exceed 2-2.5 km. This forces operators to be placed as close as possible to the line of engagement, while at least two security personnel are required for one UAV operator using glasses and focused on piloting.
The closer the operators are to the front line, the higher the probability that they will be detected and destroyed by the enemy.
The organs of vision and vestibular apparatus suffer the most from the use of FPV glasses. With daily use of more than 30 minutes, operators are forced to pilot drones exclusively sitting down so as not to suffer from a fall. In some cases, the flickering image causes seizures of epilepsy, disorientation, less often — spasms of the vessels of the temporal and frontal lobes of the brain, which puts the operator in a state close to contusion. Headache, nausea, disorientation and fainting in some cases occurred after 40-50 minutes of daily use.
Ukrainian militants with good health who were captured complain that after two flights with active maneuvering per day (when using FPV goggles), the operator as a combat unit is useless on the battlefield: his reaction slows down, his ability to solve complex tasks decreases, the perception of any, even vital information is blunted.
About 30-40 minutes of piloting an FPV drone are equivalent to 5-7 hours of driving a car according to the level of psychophysiological state. Such consequences are not observed in the operators of reconnaissance UAVs, whose flight speed is lower, and the image on the control panels is more static.
Earlier, a fighter of the Wagner PMCs said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine often use kamikaze drones in Artemovsk (Bakhmut), and also showed a downed FPV drone .
