1. Lyutyy (Fierce) is what the Russians call a #drone that has been burning up their #oil refineries and storage depots. Ukraine has been striking deep into Russia seemingly at will. What is this drone that is doing so much damage?
2. The only official photo of this drone is a desktop model complete with a cat & flowers. However, it turns put this model is quite accurate. It has a 3-blade pusher propeller with a twin-boom V-tail. Cooling intakes on the sides suggest a boxer engine.
3. Videos of attacks provide additional details. Most of the design features seen in the model are present. In addition, there appears to be winglets and a long pitot tube. There may be a pod under the nose (perhaps a camera).
4. A video of a crash provides a more details. Two dark bumps on top of the engine cowling are the air filters confirming a 2 cylinder engine. The propeller hub sits high and there appears to be a drive pully. Unidentified bits are on top of fuselage.
5. A different crash provides more insight (as found - no footprints). The tail broke off and is in front of the nose. There is no sign of the left wing. There is a good view of a winglet. A coupler & (possibly) longer boom differs from the other crash.
6. During the crash, a spark plug boot punched through the cowl. As one might expect, the colour & construction of the wing is very similar to the Beaver. Note how the propeller sits above a drive pulley.
7. The engine looks a lot like a Hirth F23. This is a 50 HP 2 cylinder with a belt speed reducer. The speed reducer also positions the propeller high in the aircraft. Note that there are various options for this engine including fuel injection.
8. There is not much of the nose remaining. Note the complexity of the engine cowling. It carefully curves around the exhaust and includes cooling air intakes. There are also bumps on top, possibly clearance for the fuel system or carb heat.
9. This drone had written on it, “warm greetings to the Lipetsk Metallurgical Plant”. This is a very large steel plant that was also struck by drones on February 24.
10. The Lyutyy has some similarities to the Beaver but is much larger and more advanced. For example, Lyutyy has a complex engine cowl while the Beaver has no cowl. There is attention to small details, like fairings where the tail booms attach.
11. A video of Lyutyy in flight suggests it is very stable. It has also been extremely successful at attacking targets deep in Russia. The drone in this video hit an oil refinery.
12. The airframe looks great. Ukraine has used these with skill. Attacks on refineries looked perfect with smooth turns before a terminal dive. These attacks were extremely precise.
13. Lyutyy is big enough to carry a useful payload 1000 km but small enough to be made in large quantities. With these, Ukraine can seriously dent Russia’s exports as well hurt them militarily.
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1. It is beautiful but is this reconnaissance drone too good to use in a war? The various reconnaissance drones flown in Ukraine are well made and usually expensive. But are they too expensive?
2. At the start of the war, Ukraine obtain several Penguin-C military drones made in Latvia by UAV Factory (now called, Edge Autonomy).
3. This aircraft is fairly small but has a number of fancy design elements. The wing and tail are removed for transport. The red triangles show where the fasteners go.
1. Here is something a little unusual. It is a Zlin Z137T agricultural aircraft (crop duster) equipped with two R-73 air-to-air missiles for shooting down drones. There is no obvious gun so this is likely only for large drones like the Geran-2 (Shahed 136).
2. For reference, here is a Z137T in its tradition role of applying chemicals to a crop. A maximum cruise speed of 252 km/h will be a constraint as a drone hunter.
3. The R-73 missile uses infrared homing and has a maximum range of about 30 km. It is not clear how many of these are in inventory.
1. What would have been unthinkable a few years ago is now routine. Several Ukrainian drones successfully attacked a russian drone factory located in Dubna, only 115 km from the kremlin. This is a smart move by Ukraine, and there may be more to this attack than at first seems.
2. Importantly, one video showed several drones attacking, one after the other. Oddly, there was remarkably little air defence heard as each drone approached over a lake. What happened to russia’s air defence?
3. This shows the factory with the lake on the left (west) side. This building is very large. The camera operator (for #1) was quite close and was almost hit by shrapnel.
1. Developing a new weapon is hard so why not just copy another company’s design? Fibre optic drones are a hot product and part 4 of this series looked at a company (Skywalker) who developed their own. Other companies have rushed to make similar weapons.
2. Here are two fibre optics kits made by the Chinese company, Skywalker. Opening the boxes is the likely owner of PGI Technology, which operates in China but is effectively russian. Initially, this photo was confusing. Was Skywalker collaborating with PGI Technology? Nope.
3. PGI bought these two Skywalker kits with the goal of copying the technology and selling their own version. The following photos are very unusual since they show the design process. Here is the Skywalker canister with a large drone frame.
1. Need to ship weapons? The previous thread in this series showed a small russian company, PGI Technology, making electronic warfare systems in China. But how do they ship these systems & other equipment to russia?
2. PGI Technology showed this photo of equipment being prepared to ship from China to russia. The packing tape has a company name & phone number on it. Note the Wallace restaurant and #24 bus across the street.
3.PGI also showed a video of this heater but it is the background that is interesting. Visible is the company name (3188 Kapro) and a phone number. There are also signs on the steps written in russian.
1. This is a look at a small russian company that operates in China and exports military equipment to russia. One interesting aspect is this company manufactures some equipment, including electronic warfare kit, and places its logo on the products.
2. It currently calls itself “PGI Technology” but there are also references to “Dongguan PGI Technology”. Its location is murky but a now-defunct website gave an address in Tangxia Town in Dongguan.
3. This is a very small company likely run by the single person shown here. He is easily identified by a distinctive tattoo on his left arm. Oddly, his face is obscured in some videos but not in others. Here he is testing a drone jammer.