Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ A project to develop a new Russian heavy-duty military drone has taken two and a half years and cost a billion rubles but has not yet produced any drones in service, in what commentators say is an example of corruption and bureaucracy that hinders Russia's UAV programme. ⬇️

2/ In August 2023, the Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec unveiled the BAS-200 UAV. It has a claimed carrying capacity of 50 kg, a maximum speed of 160 km/h, and four hours of endurance. It is controlled by a pilot and a load operator.

3/ As well as being able to carry payloads, the BAS-200 is designed to be able to "monitor the terrain in the dark and daylight hours, [and] conduct aerial photography, magnetometric and thermal imaging surveys."

4/ The BAS-200 was designed by the Mil and Kamov National Helicopter Manufacturing Centre to a design by the Belarusian Unmanned Helicopters Design Bureau. As its heritage suggests, it is functionally an unmanned helicopter, rather than a quad- or octocopter.

5/ The drone is a direct counterpart of the Ukrainian 'Baba Yaga' heavy drones, which are used for bombing as well as to carry food and water to the front lines. However, a year on, no BAS-200s have yet appeared in service.

6/ The Russian government's notoriously cumbersome bureaucracy appears to be a major factor. In October 2023, the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) held a two-day conference on drone certification, supervised by aviation regulator Rosaviatsia.

7/ The BAS-200 was the only drone weighing over 30 kg which received certification. Officials said that the process of certification had taken a year and a half and had cost 146 million rubles ($1.46 million).

8/ This included 109.5 million rubles to pay experts to confirm the conformity of the design to all requirements, and another 32.5 million rubles to build prototypes, carry out flight tests, and pay for fuel.

9/ However, according to Russian defence minister Andrey Belousov, "taking into account the creation of prototypes and a test base, according to the manufacturer, [the actual cost is] about one billion rubles [$10.3 million]."

10/ Belousov has observed, correctly, that "it is absolutely obvious that for the absolute majority of manufacturers this is an absolutely unaffordable amount." The problem appears to lie in the way that certification is managed.

11/ Sergey Detenyshev, the Chairman of the Board of the Association of Small Aviation Enterprises, says that "certification of aviation equipment today is one of the main administrative barriers in the field of small and unmanned aviation".

12/ Rosaviatsia provides certifications services with the involvement of subordinate organisations and private contractors. However, Detenyshev says, "the composition of the work performed and the services provided, their terms and cost are not regulated by the state in any way."

13/ He notes that there is "no published standard test programme for standard situations, with a description of the composition of mandatory and optional works, their terms and cost, as is implemented in other jurisdictions with developed aircraft manufacturing."

14/ An applicant has the right to know the standards they are being tested against only "after he has already created the product, and then prepared and submitted to Rosaviatsia all the documents necessary for certification, which...is in itself an extremely expensive procedure."

15/ In practice, Detenyshev says, "the costs of certification in small and unmanned aviation often exceed the costs of creating the product itself." Certification "is only possible if the applicant has an infinite amount of money in his pocket, usually from the [state] budget."

16/ As a result of all of this bureaucracy, Russian forces in the field are heavily dependent on donated drones purchased or built by volunteers, rather than officially sanctioned military hardware.

17/ This situation is consistent with previous complaints that major Russian defence manufacturers have created a system to lock in a near-monopoly for themselves, keeping out competitors while gorging on the state budget with overpriced products.

https://x.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1826166923840623009

18/ Aviation consultant Andrey Patrakov says that major UAV manufacturers "almost monopolise more than 90% of the [UAV] market share in the Russian Federation, working without any certification."

19/ He comments that "it is absolutely natural that these 'leaders of the UAV industry' do not want to change the existing black and grey situation of the lack of UAV regulation in the Russian Federation."

20/ "Because as soon as [revised] UAV regulation in the Russian Federation is put into effect, it will destroy their monopoly of 'muddy water'.

21/ "Therefore, for more than 8 years, they have been successfully pushing back the target dates for the removal of administrative barriers in the UAV industry in the Russian Federation." /end

Sources:
🔹 t.me/DnevnikDesantn…
🔹 mashnews.ru/sertifikacziya…