The Advisor to the SBU Head Markiyan Lubkivskyi writes on his official Facebook page about Russian Forpost tactical drone, which was shot down in the ATO area in Eastern Ukraine on May 20, 2015.
PHOTO:Markian Lubkivskyi
“As we reported earlier, on May 20 anti-terrorist operation (ATO) forces shot down an enemy drone that was performing illegal surveillance along the demarcation line. The drone shot down near the village of Pisky, began its fall around Avdiivka and hit the ground north of Vodiane. More interesting information about this drone was gathered by the SBU specialists while studying the remains of the wreckage. The Forpost drone system is manufactured by the Ural civil aviation plant (Russian Federation) under an international contract.”
Actually, Ural plant of civil aviation (Russia), under an international contract, produced 10 similar drons between 2011 and 2013. Basic technical specifications of a drone are as follows: maximum takeoff weight – 454kg, load capacity- 100kg, length- 5.85 m, wing span- 8.55 m, operational speed – 126-148 km/h, maximum altitude- 5,797 m, flight duration- 17.5 h, and operational distance- 250 km.
PHOTO:Russia Arms EXPO-2013
“Each Forpost system comes with a deployment station consisting of a ground operation center and three drones at $6M each. The central component of the video surveillance with infrared camera is worth about $1M,” Lubkivskyi said.
PHOTO:Markian Lubkivskyi
The drones include video and infrared equipment that allows transmission of information back to a station operator and may be equipped with location devices that are capable of monitoring surroundings and transmitting the location coordinates in case of a crash, or even activate other drones.
“The drones require an airport infrastructure for takeoff and landing with a runway length of at least 250 m. The apparatus has a multipurpose system that consists of two independent gyroscopes supported by GPS systems positioned on top of the wings. The drone is also equipped with a multifunctional system of video surveillance, and a high resolution latest technology infrared camera. It is capable of calculating distance, position, as well as perform ballistic calculations”, reported the Advisor to the SBU Head Markiyan Lubkivskyi.
