Altius UAV program

Look at the nose of the thing... the white part on the front of the nose isn't a pretend radar and cockpit... there will be a forward looking radar and an upward pointing satellite antenna with a datalink to control the drone from anywhere on the planet...

It is likely that shock versions of Altius will appear in the near future and, most likely, they will be armed with the X-35 anti-ship missile, the expert concluded

The Kh-35 has anti ship and land attack versions... and of course the Kh-31 has similar weight and is much faster with both anti radiation and anti ship versions which would be rather interesting...

A flight launching anti ship Kh-35s, but if the attack is detected the target will turn on radar for situational awareness... so they could then fire a volley of Kh-31s in anti radiation mode to take out the radar... at mach 3 plus they will probably get to the ships before the Kh-35s pop over the horizon in their attack... so with radar blazing away trying to intercept the incoming high speed Kh-31s the Kh-35 will sneak over the water horizon and attack the ships wildly looking up for diving ARMs at mach 3....

Interesting... most of the navies of the world today would be very vulnerable to such an attack...

and yet another guy says the Altius-U in now almost completely made of composites … in other words it was overweight …

Most aircraft makers and designers are conservative and only after testing do they increase the use of composites... simply because reduced weight fixes a lot of problems and improves performance all round.

Increasing composites probably means they tested parts previously made of conventional materials using composites and found they did the job but were lighter so they are going to incorporate them in to the design.

A lighter aircraft with more power is going to have improved performance... better acceleration, better safety margins on take off and landing, and better climb rates.

50% more power available … and already lighter ? ….. seems like overkill …. but they may be forced down that road ?
guess you get lots more load carrying capacity …. but shorter duration ?

More power and reduced structural weight on their own would probably improve performance but reduce range but by using that power to increase fuel weight you can recover range lost and add to it in fact. You could probably also increase payload too, but I get the feeling they are interested in range and endurance as being the important features. Lighter weight is always a good thing and more powerful engines can be very important too as it can allow more power on board for running electronics and sensors as well as transmission of data.

It mentions very long range radar... which is interesting... and something that would be useful at high altitude at sea...

I thought OKB Sokol was a design bureau …

It was, but these days it also seems to be a branch of UAC (OAK) where the MiG OKB and Sukhoi OKB etc etc all design but also produce aircraft as well...

With the Ansat helicopter a helicopter production factory designed the helo themselves so design bureaus are not what they used to be.

The LE of MALE is long endurance so one of its missions might be to fly out over the arctic and patrol over the arctic ocean using radar to detect shipping traffic in the area.

It operates at medium altitude to improve performance... at medium altitudes the air is thinner and easier to push through at low cruise engine settings... which makes the long endurance aspect easier to achieve without having to have enormous fuel tanks.

They might equip it with small bombs to allow it to engage targets of opportunity, though most likely four 50kg bombs carried internally so they don't cause too much drag, but most of the time they will be collecting data and information.

They don't get tired or bored and can spend days operating looking for targets or things of interest... if it detects something odd then you might send a manned platform or look at satellite data, but this is the cheap operating all the time option that is not the end of the world if it crashes or indeed gets shot down.

An aviation company would be a better choice for making diesel engines for aircraft as the requirements are fairly different to what trucks have to deal with.

Sure trucks would have to cope with low temperatures in Russia, but low oxygen levels at 10km altitude would be something new for them...

they are called "medium altitude"
there are 2 obvious attractions …. thin air more endurance and above Manpads

For how long... we have seen both the Serbs and the Houthis add booster rockets to what are essentially WVR AAMs as long range ground launched IR guided SAMs...

this is such a Russian aircraft …. 2 engines ….

I reckon this gives you a good clue where the "Ohkotnik" is going …
I can't see more than 20-30 Okhotniks being built before they switch to a long wingspan 2 engine version
Russians don't like or build single engine aircraft ….

??? You think they are idiots?

Why would they switch anything?

They have a job and are designing unmanned vehicles to meet certain specifications and criteria, why would they start with an unsuitable design so they can produce some and then change the design completely... that makes no sense at all and would be incredibly expensive and risky.

Okhotniks are not HALEs they are MALEs... they have some long wingspan drones already like the various new Orion types with single engines and the Altius-M which this thread is about that clearly has two engines... are you confused about the different UAV threads here and think you are posting to a different one?

you only have to read the history of UAVs in the USA ..
the govt told the Navy and Air Force to work together …. to save money
then over time the Air Force wanted longer span / long endurance drones
and the Navy didn't as they don't fit on carriers ….
the project split ….
and only the Navy is going ahead with short span …. and they are tankers with tails …

I usually don't find it useful to read about US history to find out how the Russians think or the way they do things... it makes rather more sense to look at Russian history and requirements to work that out.

Ohkotnik is just a stepping stone to me … Altair makes sense as a "Russian" aircraft
Okhotnik doesn't …. but it does make sense as a stepping stone to Okhotnik 2

They are different platforms for different roles and purposes and are not related... they can both be used without any problem or conflict.

if they end up sticking VK-800s on the Altius …. they might as well widen the fuselage and have internal weapon bays

Would make more sense to lengthen the fuselage to fit more things in that make it wider and offering more drag.

There are plenty of changes they might make, they might turn the engines around and make them pushers for all we know but just as easily they might extend the engine pods back an extra metre or two and put a couple of FAB-50 bombs in each engine nacelle like they did with the twin engine bombers in WWII.

The VK-800 might be too expensive to put in an ultimately expendable vehicle...

everything they do …. is dictated by powerplants

Yeah perhaps you don't realise they can make new powerplants... in fact they actually have requirements that drive developments of both UAVs and powerplants... or are you suggesting they will get a requirement and then make whatever they fancy and then modify it after making 50 or 60 to something totally different.

Yeah, shock horror mate, they have already been through this issue on the small scale because all their cruise missiles and short range engine powered air to ground weapons that used jet engines like the AS-13 and AS-18 as well as their strategic cruise missiles used Ukrainian jet engines.

They have since developed and built Russian equivalents for all their cruise missiles and jet powered air to ground weapons and they are also developing new engines for their tanks and new armoured vehicles and their light aircraft.

With the S-70 the engine is the same as that used with their heavy fighters so it really isn't a problem at all.

With their other UAVs of various sizes there are an enormous range of new engines being developed so finding a suitable engine should not really be much of a problem these days.

I was going to ignore the personal abuse, but I have banned other much more respected members for the same sort of thing, so I am going to give you a four day break from this forum to think about how tough you sound when abusing a moderator on a forum on the internet.

They have at various times shown special weapons like a reduced size and weight Uran, and they have talked about making specialised small light weapons for UAVs and light helos and aircraft to carry... will be interesting to see what they end up using.

I vaguely remember seeing a mockup of the Uran but it was inside a launch tube on a desk I think... it appeared to have the same cross section as the Uran but was shorter and I believe it was an 50-60km range model of the full sized Uran with a 50kg warhead that at the time reminded me of the British Skua anti ship missile tested in the Falklands war...

I think it was about 200kg compared with 600kg for the 120km range standard Uran of the time... so I guess if they can upgrade the original Uran to 240km range they might be able to upgrade the mini missile to perhaps 80-100km maybe.

It was a smaller lighter cheaper missile for use on light patrol boats and light helicopters AFAIK... though many light patrol boats I have seen have Shturm/Ataka ATGMs with HE Frag warheads instead... probably cheaper and more readily available...

Shturm would be interesting for a HALE or MALE, but they were talking about guided 100kg and 50kg bombs for drones as well... so a KAB-50 or KAB-100 with a glide kit would be interesting as well... but then simple laser homing... you could use S-25L rocket pods... a high speed 125kg warhead or 100kg armour piercing model would be impressive even on a relatively large ship target...

I suspect a wide range of options including that new 25km+ range missile they showed or didn't show being tested on the Mi-28NM.

Much of the time however I suspect when used over areas where there is little to no air defence a simple cheap dumb bomb with smart aiming is probably cheaper and simpler, or perhaps the use of cheap guidance to allow much smaller weapons to be used.

The Shturm has a small warhead, but when accurately delivered it often doesn't need a bigger one.

Footage of Syria show often the target is a small group of soldiers or a single light vehicle where a single small bomb would be plenty... or indeed a very small cluster bomb... perhaps a 100kg guided cluster bomb that releases explosively say 200 x 0.5kg HE frag bomblets over a 30-50m area around the point of aim... so perhaps 100m above the target it explodes and showers the area with these little bombs... effectively 200 hand grenades all going off at once all around the point of aim for troops in the open. A KAB-20 or perhaps even a KAB-10 or KAB-5 bomb if the target is a truck or machine gun position or sniper position...

Which reminds me of that drone that carries hand grenades in its belly ready to be dropped over targets... cheap and simple with weapons and technology already invented and in service...

Range is the matter. That suppose entering air defence zone.

I was thinking of a family of missiles for anti ship, antiradar and why not cruising PGM with a stand off range of 80-100km. The warhead must be bigger than that inside a shturm.

The kh35 you describ would be good for all of those missions.

Of course bombs and atgm will still be there for soft targets.

I agree that stand off range does matter but this UAV seems to be a super long range MALE or HALE and therefore carrying around high drag rather heavy missiles like Uran or Kh-31 would dramatically shorten range and reduce performance... it is supposed to fly high and extremely long distances... 12,000km or so, which means it is likely going to be an MPA type platform that looks for and keeps track of enemy ships... the attack weapons will likely be deployed on a third party platform like a Yasen or upgraded Oscar or even a corvette or land based missile battery.

An internal weapon bay for perhaps a very small bomb or weapon might be justified... equally a small AAM could be carried internally for surprise factor... its rocket motor and warhead could be wired up to detonate to prevent capture of the UAV intact... perhaps locate important technology around where the missiles are stored to ensure they get bits of fuselage and wings and not much more....

KAB-20 type bombs could be located around the body for the same purpose, or dropped from very high altitude on small targets like corvettes or patrol craft that can detect or engage targets flying at 12km altitude plus.