The quiet offseason the small resort village of Blagoveshchenskaya near Anapa was recently broken an amazing story. On the local beach (by the way, considered to be the only one in Russia created by natural sediment sand) threw away a unique find – a device that resembled a small plane. Caused on a scene representatives of field services and law enforcement agencies, he identified an unusual “gift of the sea” unmanned aerial vehicle, according to the inscriptions on Board of which managed to establish its brand – Airbus Direct Targets.
A little later, were announced early guesses about how the drone could be the resort village. According to some experts, the reason for his appearance was unsuccessful using the device of the NATO military, which used the UAV as a target during a recent exercise in the Western part of the Black sea.
Daddy, daddy, our network…
The view that was found in the Krasnodar territory the drone belonged to NATO fleet, expressed, in particular, chief editor of the magazine “arms Export” Andrey Frolov and expert in unmanned systems Denis Fedutinov. According to them, was found near Anapa UAV could be used as a jet target in the conduct of missile and artillery firings. Specialists with precision determined and the unit type – Airbus Do-DT 25 and called teaching, during which he “lost” – Sea Breeze, held in July last year.
The characteristics of this UAV is not a mystery. By the way, the unit originally was designed primarily as an air target. According to open sources, in the production of the Do-DT 25 (Dornier-Direct Targets) was attended by specialists of the German company Dornier GmbН created on the basis of the former aircraft manufacturer Dornier Flugzeugwerke. According to public information, the ability of drone not too powerful: the flight duration was no longer than 1.5 hours, the range of controlled flight – no more than 100 km. However, the device could rise to a height of over 7.5 km and fly at a speed of about 540 km/h, which gave the opportunity to use it as a target for anti-aircraft missiles, including the ship.
“Judging by the pictures, the target is well preserved externally, – says Denis Fedutinov. – Length Do-DT – three meters, wingspan is just over 2.5. Apparently, the gunners simply missed while conducting training and combat firing, and UAVs through the development of the resource, both his jet engines fell into the sea by parachute and was handed over to the Russian shore near Anapa”. Experts also claim that the UAV could not be hurt upon landing. It is manufactured by parachute, and, in addition, the device is specially launched in the sea in the area where is forbidden the passage of ships.
Maneuvers provocateurs
The teachings in question took place last summer in the northwestern part of the Black sea, covering parts of the territories of the Odessa and Nikolaev areas of Ukraine. In the maneuvers Sea Breeze (the Sea breeze) was attended by representatives of 16 countries, but actually part of the Maritime presented the ships of the United States, Ukraine, Romania and Turkey. “All set before the participants of the teaching objectives fully implemented”, – said at the closing ceremony of the maneuvers of the Deputy head on the American side captain 2 rank Kenneth Engle. Ukrainian partners and all shrieked with delight: according to their leader on the part of the Ukrainian Navy captain 1st rank Alexei Moscato, “the exercise exceeded all expectations.”
Meanwhile, the current Sea Breeze caused a lot of misunderstandings. First, even before they started the misunderstanding about the composition of participants. Many were unclear why maneuvers in the Black sea attracted far non-black sea countries, such as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Lithuania? In addition, summed up the technical component. For example, is not the first attempt managed to bring in the sea the only Ukrainian frigate (aka – the flagship of the Navy of the country) “Hetman Sahaidachny”. And to top it all off and now have to figure out who is still missed at air targets, which eventually landed on Russian shores…
According to the chief of sector at the Russian Institute of strategic studies, candidate of historical Sciences Larisa Usova, past Sea Breeze was generally quite provocative. By the way, this was during all such maneuvers held since 1997. The first teaching was with the scandalous overtones, like an expert. “According to the original plan Sea Breeze – 1997 anticipated development block Russian black sea fleet in Sevastopol. Only the ensuing international scandal and clumsy excuses the organizers of the “Sea Breeze forced the United States and Ukraine to change, at least outwardly, an overt anti-Russian maneuvers”, – said Larisa Usova.
Generally, as the expert notes, the saber rattling in the Black sea in recent years is in the nature of “consistent development of a potential theater of war”, covers the topic of peacemaking. Suffice it to say that between 2000 and 2015, the ships of the NATO took 324 sunset this sea basin. Indicative of the opinion of the commander of the 6th fleet of the U.S. Navy Vice Admiral James Foggo, who at the end of last year stated that the duration of the patrols of us warships in the Black sea may be increased to four months.
Drone incident
It is easy to guess that in the case of such frequent visits of the Black sea such unwelcome incidents with the discovery of various “consequences” of their stay may be far from unique. The more that such cases are not uncommon in other parts of the world. A few years ago the same “gifts of the sea” was found by local fishermen near the barrier beach in the town of Icapui in Brazil. They discovered the object was an unmanned aerial vehicle that supposedly could be used during the exercises carried out in the area together with local military forces of France, Chile, Venezuela and Uruguay. According to other information found on Icapui the drone belonged to the U.S. air force. By the way, it was the same model as the current Nakhodka in Russia – Do-DT 25.
Piggy a bad experience with drones Americans in General are replenished constantly. What to say if not long ago a remote-controlled flying machine was discovered… on the White house grounds! Moreover, the device, which got on the territory of the main protected area of the country was ruled by a drunk intelligence officer. Your UAV launched it from the window of the building opposite the residence of the President of the United States, but has not coped with management, and the apparatus crashed into a tree. By the way, the actions of the intruder was later identified as a “minor offense committed in a state of alcoholic intoxication”.
However, the us military does not intend to abandon the use of drones in their work. Recently, it was reported that the US Department of defense ordered to launch UAVs, including aerial targets, new pneumatic fitting. The device will be capable of launching an aircraft weighing from 110 to 500 kg, and it can be used on ships. We can only guess what other “gifts” will bring the sea to the coast of different countries of the world.
A sea of surprises
It is fair to say that aerial targets are used in our army. They are also used in solving problems of training of military specialists. However, it should be noted that information about that somewhere once found unhit target with Russian symbols, did not receive… among the most famous types of domestic air targets, manufactured, in particular, the Kazan enterprise “Eniks” should call the device Е08М. The flight speed reaches 280 km/h, while the target may maneuver to do, “hill”, “snake”, to make a u-turn. Another means of ensuring the combat training of the troops -small-size air target ground launch E95, production of the same enterprise. The features of this UAV is the possibility of repeated transition in different modes of operation, manual and automatic modes. As previously reported, the Deputy Director of CJSC “Eniks” Vladislav Karpikov, interest in the Russian production show and international customers: in particular, one of the contracts was signed some years ago with Algeria.
As for the current finds off the coast of Anapa, there is no information about her fate is not reported. Besides, no one brought found camera their rights – neither the Ukrainian side, as one of the organizers of the last Sea Breeze, nor the representatives of the countries participating in the maneuvers. Besides, according to experts, to use the drone again after such a long stay in sea water, it will be impossible, even though there is no visible damage. It remains only to give it to one of the future participants in Sea Breeze as a reminder of the need to behave in away more carefully, to avoid incidents.
Author: Dmitry Sergeyev
Photo: Vadim Agafonov / VK, eucom.mil c6f.navy.mil, army.mil