Heavy Drone

[willedoo]

Some photos of the new heavy drone, Sukhoi Su-70 Okhotnik , recently put into operation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Marty_d]

Serious looking piece of kit!

 

 

[willedoo]

Latest video of the Okhotnik doing a test flight in tandem with a Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter.

 

 

 

 

[kgwilson]

Similar styling to the B2 spirit without the stealth engine exhaust bits. It looks to have a pretty big engine though based on the size of the jetpipe. As it is a Sukhoi I imagine it will perform well, won't take 20 years to get into service and will be cheap (relatively).

 

 

[willedoo]

Latest M.o.D. video of the Okhotnik with a Su-57.

 

 

 

 

[Downunder]

As it is a Sukhoi I imagine it will perform well, won't take 20 years to get into service and will be cheap (relatively).

 

Reminds me of a US analysis of a Mig 25 after they got hold of an example.

 

Basically it come down to "Massive engine surrounded by fuel tanks"......lol.

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Drones are making manned planes obsolete faster than i would have thought.  It looked like the wheels were left down, was that so?

 

 

[facthunter]

 A drone is not an aeroplane. (aerodynamic). Without power it's not even controllable and can never be as efficient as something with a WING carrying most or part of the load If the L/D ratio is about normal say 12/1 your thrust is only 8% of the total weight.. Vertical take off and land is better  but efficiency will never get close.  Nev

 

 

[spacesailor]

Someones Drones worked,

 

" Norma Jeane, brandishing a propeller and with her Radioplane ID at her waist, was photographed, using rare color film, by Private David Conover of the Army’s First Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, Calif. He had been assigned to snap some fresh Rosie the Riveter-type pictures of women in war production.

 

Once it was published, this image and others like it helped to open a Hollywood future for Norma Jeane, who soon changed her name to Marilyn Monroe.

 

 They also established a historical link with the only American president with a Hollywood background, because the commanding officer who gave Conover this assignment was Captain Ronald Reagan."

 

(https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/upshot/marilyn-monroes-world-war-ii-drone-program.html)

 

spacesailor

 

 

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

Drones don't need to come home, and they don't need all that life-support stuff.  I would hate to be a soldier trying to hide in a foxhole and be visited by an enemy drone.

 

And what about drone torpedoes? With or without nuclear warheads? They could lurk silently with passive sensors  until they detected the acoustic signature of an enemy ship. I reckon aircraft carriers are dated already.

 

A few weeks ago, I was spot-spraying weeds in a paddock when I was visited by the kid's drone. It had flown about a kilometer to say hello.  This stuff is here right now. Yemeni rebels are using them. The Chinese gave a display with hundreds of formating drones.

 

 

[Marty_d]

 A drone is not an aeroplane. (aerodynamic). Without power it's not even controllable and can never be as efficient as something with a WING carrying most or part of the load If the L/D ratio is about normal say 12/1 your thrust is only 8% of the total weight.. Vertical take off and land is better  but efficiency will never get close.  Nev

 

Have a look at the video - that's not your typical 4-rotor drone.  It's a full on stealth aircraft.

 

 

[spacesailor]

My drone went up above the house level.

 

AND

 

Goodbye, long gone but not forgotten !.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[facthunter]

 Yes it's a more or less conventional aircraft remotely operated. So it's a conventional aircraft  for all intents and purposes  except it has no pilot on board as distinct from what we have been considering here for a while. which is vectored thrust alone to keep it UP. Nev

 

 

[willedoo]

Technically it's a UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

 

 

[willedoo]

Drones are making manned planes obsolete faster than i would have thought.  It looked like the wheels were left down, was that so?

 

Bruce, on the earlier video flying with with the Su-30, the wheels are down, but the last video with the Su-57 shows the gear retracting and a while later lowering again. I remember early video of the Su-57 prototype test flights flying with gear down. Maybe it's a common thing with test flights. If something goes wrong, the gear is already down - one less thing to worry about in a forced landing. Could be procedure for low altitude test flights.

 

 

[Litespeed]

It is a standard operating procedure when testing to keep it dirty, ie gear down for the first flights. 

 

Just in case the gear system fails. All very normal. Gear problems on new machines are common, so they make sure all other systems work as expected. Then next flight they test the gear.

 

 

[facthunter]

Could also be, since it's the condition you approach and land in it's given a priority to check out all its low speed handling envelope configured that way. It's not difficult to engineer retracting U/C and there's usually/ always alternate means of extending it. Static checks (on blocks ) are often done after repairs /mods. Aircraft used to require  an actual FLIGHT test prior to being put on the line but that's no longer a requirement. Nev

 

 

[Jabiru7252]

 A drone is not an aeroplane. (aerodynamic). Without power it's not even controllable and can never be as efficient as something with a WING carrying most or part of the load If the L/D ratio is about normal say 12/1 your thrust is only 8% of the total weight.. Vertical take off and land is better  but efficiency will never get close.  Nev

 

Today's UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are the UFOs of the 60s and 70s. Military research and development. People reporting UFO activity these days is almost non-existent because most know that those 'lights zipping about in the sky' are almost certainly some kid flying his $49.99 quad copter. 

 

 

[onetrack]

The major UFO reports were and are, definitely not reports of drones. By far the greatest number of UFO reports, reported that the UFO's made off at a speed that was impossible to match with any known type of aircraft or rocket.

 

And this W.A. farm employee had one land so close to his Landrover, in 1967, he couldn't get the Landrover door open.

 

http://ufos-scientificresearch.blogspot.com/2012/09/cold-case-investigation-yerecoin-wa-15.html

 

I know too many level-headed people who have witnessed huge UFO's, and said nothing to authorities about them.

 

Some of them were witnessed in broad daylight, and the witnesses actually walked up to the UFO, before it took off at warp speed.

 

I have personally witnessed a house-sized brilliant green fluoro light that appeared in the middle of a natural bush reserve, full of large Salmon Gum trees, in the wheatbelt of W.A., when I was travelling in my ute along an adjoining road to the bush reserve, at 100kmh.

 

That light ascended vertically into the sky at a speed that was nothing short of incredible, and it vanished out of sight to a pinpoint, within 3-4 seconds.

 

This happened around 10:00PM on a Sunday night in the mid-1970's, and my brother and his wife were following me in another vehicle, and saw exactly the same thing.

 

None of us reported the weird light, as there's little point in doing so. But it was definitely not any technology that we know of - not then, and not now.