Ukraine’s WWI-Style Vintage Drone Hunter Was So Good that Russia Just Copied It

A year after some enterprising Ukrainian airmen converted an old Yakovlev training plane into a drone-hunting dogfighter, a Russian design bureau has rolled out a copy .

A Ukrainian Yakovlev Yak-52 with a backseat anti-drone gunner. Via Eye of Horus

The Ukrainians turned at least two propeller-driven Yak-52s into drone-hunters in the simplest way possible: by arming the backseat crew member with a shotgun. The Russians got fancy—and added an underwing sensor turret in addition to a backseat shotgun to create the Yak-52B2 variant of the classic training plane.

All the Yak-52 dogfighters, Russian and Ukrainian alike, benefit from availability, simplicity, maneuverability and forgiving low-speed handling at a cruising speed of just 225 km/h. They’re a cheap, effective way of engaging enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over vulnerable cities.

Shooting down a $100,000 Russian drone with an air-defense missile might cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Shooting it down with a shotgun from a light plane might cost a few thousand dollars.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.