A Russian drone operator’s view of a Ukrainian Yak-52 with its gunner in the back seat.
Russian military takeover
The Russians were really tired of the Ukrainian crew of the Yakovlev Yak-52 trainer aircraft fighting and shooting down Russian reconnaissance planes – World War I style.
In three months, two pilots in a Yak-52 — a pilot in the front seat and a gunner in the back — managed to shoot down at least 12 Russian drones, if you believe the kill marks the crew painted on the side of the 1970s-era aircraft.
“Isn’t it time to bring him down?” one Russian blogger asked. books.
The problem for the Russians is that the Yak-52 is hard to shoot down for the same reason it makes an effective platform for a crew member armed with a rifle to shoot down approaching drones. The Yakovlev is powerful and unobtrusive.
The Yak-52 turboprop doesn’t paint much of a picture on the radar screens of Russia’s beleaguered long-range air defense batteries. And even if you damage a Yak-52, say by ramming it with a drone, the crew might still be able to land the plane.
Earlier this month, another Russian blogger wrote, complained About the Yak-52 crew “who shot at our drones like a shooting gallery” over the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa.
This was not a new problem. Seeking an effective way to take out $100,000 Russian drones without firing a $4 million Patriot missile or other expensive air-defense munition, the Ukrainians began flying Yak-52s into the air in April, maneuvering to within striking distance of the intruding drones—and shooting them down in midair.
The strategy has been so successful that earlier this month, the Ukrainian Intelligence Directorate began training gunners to hunt down Russian drones from domestically made A-22 sport drones. The successful hunts by Yakovlev’s crew inspired an entirely new counter-drone tactic.
The Russians are losing patience as their losses pile up. “A Yak-52 flew over Odessa and shot down our reconnaissance drones with great efficiency for a week, which caused some to laugh. This has not been funny for the drone operators and for us for a long time,” the blogger wrote.
But it’s not clear what the Russian military can do about the Yak-52. Its patrol zone is at least 50 miles from the nearest Russian position. But the closest Russian air defense batteries may be much further away, as Ukrainian drone and missile strikes continue to wear them down and push them further from the front line.
However, the Yak-52 can be difficult to spot. One study in 1976 The researchers found that a Cessna 172—a helicopter similar in size and shape to the Yak-52—provides a radar cross section of less than a square meter at certain angles. That’s a quarter of the radar cross section of a typical fighter jet.
The operators of the Russian drones the Yak-52 crew was chasing might try to ram the Ukrainian plane. That would not be unprecedented. On numerous occasions during Russia’s broader 28-month war in Ukraine, Russian and Ukrainian crews have shot down enemy drones by launching their own drones at them.
But when two drones, each weighing just a few pounds, tangle in the air, each can destroy the other. But if a 20-pound ZALA drone crashes into a 1.5-ton Yak-52, the damage may not be catastrophic.
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