No, that is showing the sorry state of that industry branch. This thing 1/1 i can personally make if you feel like borrowing me 10.000USD.
You are clearly not listening... why is simple and cheap a bad thing?
Plus how sophisticated is it actually... all we have seen is a test video... what are its actual performance specs and capabilities?
No. Drones always have to communicate with satelite to transmit data, or they are useless, otherwise they fill buffer memory which you can later empty but what would be the point of that, this is not WW2.
They transmit the data they collect but there does not need to be a command channel that can be hacked to take over the drone. With a datalink sending data back to Washington the enemy can listen in or even try to jam it but if you design it properly (ie encrypted datalinks) they wont be able to make it land or take control or even see the data it is collecting.
On other hand most of UAVs do not even have really big buffer memory to save weight, so its used only to store data long enough to it to get "uploaded".
A drone developed right now could easily be fitted with 3-4 portable hard drives with 2-4 TBs each... unless you are 3D mapping for a half a world flight in and back that should be plenty of space for video and location data as well as telemetry.
Are you now serious here? "Wtf does it matter"? It matters alot, its crucal for items like this.
Crucial?
The UK is not produced a modern fighter plane on its own for some time... I would think such a technology would be rather more crucial than something you admit yourself can be bought off the shelf online. Russia does not have bottomless pockets and has to be selective on what it pisses its money away on.
I would suggest recon UAVs are more valuable than UCAVs... simply because UAVs can direct conventional fire on target which is generally more effective than anything a small UCAV could carry.
Its called technological advance. Do you know how many technolgies that relate to drones are in use today by civilians? Some were even first time developed for drones, various drones not only UCAVs as they are after all very specific product.
Technological advance makes no sense unless it fulfils a purpose and is cost effective. There is no point developing a brand new drug that might have serious side effects and be enormously expensive when a generic drug already solves the problem. Beware gold plating.
Do you have any idea how much Israel earned on drones production, servicing and acompanying technologies? Billions. Also war in Georgia would look alot different if they had suitable recon platforms. Georgians had only small tactical Israeli UAV-s themself too.
I doubt the Russian military will develop capabilities based on what they can later produce for the civilian market. That is an opportunity for the MIC to exploit.
4. "Kornet missile launcher is quite complex too.. making something modular is making something simple.." - That depends. When i said modular, i was refering to fact that it can be assembled and disassembled with no or little tools in field so it can be transported in backpack, as this is where this would be used, on squad lvl, mayybee on a long shot on company lvl. That thing cant be easily disassembled, let alone without tools.
I am impressed you think you can tell just by looking at it. I have seen a few of those types of UAVs fold up to take up less space... even the main rotors of the Kamov series coaxial rotor families of naval helos fold up... the folding mechanism can be quite complex but the folding and unfolding procedure is not.
5. "And for the love of god that is a GOOD THING. Cheap, Mass produced, already half developed, disposable." - Cheap is good, true. However not THAT cheap. You for an example praise SU35S...but its 30% more expencive than SU30 variants... why is it expencive? Coz its more capable hence the price increase is legit. I never said you should turn tactical quadcopter into 2 million USD per piece Mumakil, however it should not be that junk either. Sure, use commercial electronics and optronics in it or partially, just dont fkn do what they did there.
If it wobbled like Fk or had bits falling off or it crashed a couple of times in the video I would support your view, but to me it seems to be able to do what they want it to do so I don't care what they make it out of. Being cheap makes it better for me not worse.
If they can buy 50 of these for the price of the western 1 equivalent then that is a huge advantage... if two of them wont take off and are just thrown away... who cares.
6. "Blades on a Hind and V-22 are unprotected too..." - Yes, truly they are not, however they have couple hundred hp engines and few m long composite rotor blades that cant really be damaged by grass or even thin branches, unless you really try to by throwing a log on it or you run into a tree. On other hand this is probably 90+ cm drone in diameter and its supposed to land in grass, hopefully you see the point.
The fact that it is designed to operate from grass suggests to me that if they intend to use it for this they might have adapted it for the role.
I appreciate that sometimes the environment has the last word... I remember a Russian UAV that uses a bungee cord for launch instead of a rocket motor to get it airborne... a clever and simple solution... but when taken to minus 20 degrees C Siberia the cord failed and the drones could not be launched because the cord was no longer elastic and just disintegrated. The solution I believe used compressed air.
7. "Looks like it is too visible and an easy target to me." - I dont see how its easier target than the thing in video above. Various paintjobs can be applied to "sleeves" (which help with thrust vectoring and protect rotor/engines from smaller items damaging them) so its not much of an issue, they anyways fly quite low you will see them eventually. From engineering aspect its far better solved than thing in the video but needs again some work as i assume sleeve is not modular but casted (cant say for sure), which makes it bulky. That surely can be solved fairly easy.
Horizontally it has a larger aspect... it is easier to see and to hit.
For small arms that makes it easier to hit. For light missiles or cannon shells a miss means the drone lives, while a hit with a HE round would destroy the entire drone.
I have yet to see anyone besides Israel produce such impressive unmanned ground vehicles and most of all the UAV's in Russia are surveillance, probably for a good reason.
And little things like the unification of weapons... that robot you pictured has the turret of the new APC vehicles... the flying UCAV in question uses standard shoulder fired infantry weapons... practical, cheap, and simplifies training and supply in the field.
Things are going forward and that is good. Altius-M has potential to be great platform and few other designs that i am looking forward, these smaller drones are oh well, good enough for the roles they are ment to perform. What i expect to see in future is MALE drone. Reason is that surveiliance drones are needed asap, and in huge quantities. Israelis know their shit when its about electronics no question about it, there is reason why even Lockeed Martin runs to Elbit for assistance whenever they are stuck in some their endless loop project.
I agree that surveillance drones should be the priority, but they are also spending money on their new satellite network too, and most exercises I have seen in video recently not only operate drones but are also filming their videos using drones.
the number of drones operational in the Russian military has exploded, but not armed or heavy long range drones... yet.
there are other drones that have no western equivalent that I know of... like two part drones for delivering weapons and ammo and water and provisions and other equipment to troops in the field where the whole drone flys to the location of the troops to be supported and the payload of supplies is released as a glider to land as close as possible to the troops to be supplied without making noise while the UAV that delivered it flys back to base for another glider.
Also the UAV designed to be carried in large boxes on the pylons of a helo (shown in artwork on a Ka-52) where large flat UAVs can be released in flight and flown over a hill or through a gorge or into enemy air space to look for threats. I seem to remember it has a warhead so if a threat is found is can get the target coordinates and fly into it when it runs out of fuel.
One of main reasons why Switchblade is becoming so popular in NATO armies is that they were often using Javelin, Milan, TOW or similar fairly expencive ATGMs to attack fortified positions or even men behind dirt cover, so they decided to make Switchblade which is few times cheaper and still will manage to neutralise same target in over 85% of cases.
And while useful, that shows why such systems would not be such a huge priority for the Russian military that not only has an abundance of RPG like infantry rockets with anti armour and HE warheads, but they also have ultra cheap missile systems like Metis, and large stocks of old weapons like AT-3, AT-4, and AT-5 to use up that are very cheap too.
In their defence its not always easy to use AT4/Matarod/M80/RPG26 on battlefield without exposing yourself to way to high risk of having your head blown off.
So if your unit is in one walled compound and you are getting fire from the next city block down having a small cheap simple UAV that I don't know... could carry an RPO-A to 500m up in the air and shoot down and accurately at a target a few hundred metres away might be a good thing?
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systems such as Yakovlev Pchela, La-17K, Tu-141, and Tu-143, Russia must still have quite a few in storage it could adapt and use in Syria. I understand some have been used for target drones, another option would be to use tired old L-39 
