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| Dozor-600 UAV |
The flight testing of the first indigenous Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle will be carried out in Russia in 2012, Lenta.ru reports. "We will start the testing of medium UCAV in late 2012", - said Chief of General Staff of Russian Armed Forces, Nikolay Makarov. However he did not specify what UCAV will be tested.
Russian Ministry of Defense has signed contracts with St. Petersburg-based Tranzas Company and Kazan-based development design office OKB Sokol on pilot-plan and research activities in October 2011.
The total value of signed agreements was about 3 billion rubles. It is planned to develop a reconnaissance UAV and UCAV with weight of about 1 ton and 5 tons respectively in the network of these programs.
According to vice-president of Tranzas, Viktor Godunov, his company has signed a strategic partnership agreement with OKB Sokol – the companies will develop both vehicles in cooperation. In particular, Tranzas will develop the guidance systems and airborne electronics for the UAVs, while Sokol will create the UAVs and ground equipment for them. It has been reported that both vehicles will perform the first flight in 2014 and the flight testing will be started in 2015.
It has been reported in January 2010 that Tupolev Company was developing medium-range UAV, based on Tu-300 reconnaissance/strike system. The project’s technical details have not been unveiled. In addition, MiG and Klimov have presented “Skat” UAV, which was being developed using stealth technology. However, this project has been closed, but the technology advance will be used for development of new state-of-the-art UAVs.
