The Ministry of Defense of Kazakhstan will purchase UAVs from Irkut Corporation
Oh look those chaps have a pair of Garmin Rino’s extra tracking perhaps? If you had one near the exercise area might you see the IRKUT in flight? You can tell they are Rino’s and not a 60 series because of the extra antenna (Ed)
The Kazakh Ministry of Defense (MoD) will purchase 10 Irkut-10 unmanned reconnaissance aircraft systems (UAS) from Irkut Corporation, Lenta.ru reports.
The first four UASs will be delivered in 2012. The cost of the vehicles has not been unveiled. According to the president of Yak Alacon, Alexander Toporov, besides Irkut-10 UAVs, Kazakhstan may also purchase a large batch of Irkut-3 UAVs. In addition, the deliveries of Irkut-1A tethered aerostats to Kazakh MoD are also possible.
At present Kazakhstan is operating two Irkut-10s and one Irkut-2M UAVs.
The website of Irkut Corporation reports that all the UASs developed by Irkut have the status of “advanced projects” and their serial production has not been launched yet. At the same time the Investigation Committee has already acquired several Irkut-10s in 2009.
Irkut-10 is intended for day-and-night surveillance and reconnaissance. Each Irkut-10 unmanned aircraft system includes 2 UAVs and ground control and maintenance facilities. Each UAV has a maximum endurance of 2 hours and a radius of 70 km. UAV’s maximum speed is 120 km/h. The vehicle’s wing span is 2 m, maximum takeoff weight is 8.5 kg (including maximum payload of 1.5 kg).
Irkut-3 UAS is also formed by two UAVs and control and maintenance facilities. This UAV is relatively compact: it has a wing span of 2 m and takeoff weight of only 3 kg. Its radius is 15 km and its endurance is 75 minutes. The vehicle’s maximum speed is 90 km/h.
Besides Irkut, Vega and Zala are among Russian manufacturers of UAVs. However, Russian MoD has made an arrangement with Israel on assembly of Searcher II UAVs in Russia in 2010.
