The Russian military will acquire long-range,
presumably jet-powered strike drones to help replace
its arsenal of decrepit Cold War-era Tupolev heavy
bombers, according to Moscow’s long-range aviation
commander, Lt. Gen. Anatoly Zhikharev.
Just one problem: The new drones won’t be ready for
combat until 2040 at the earliest, Zhikharev told
Russian news agency RIA Novosti . That’s a full two
decades after the U.S. plans to deploy its own jet-
propelled, armed unmanned aerial vehicles.
Remember when U.S. presidential candidate Mitt
Romney called Russia America’s “number-one
geopolitical foe ?” Romney subsequently dialed back that
rhetoric. But the two-decade gap between U.S. and
Russian drone technology is still a useful reminder that
Moscow does not pose a major military threat to any
country that isn’t its immediate neighbor.
Zhikharev’s admission of the drone gap comes at a
desperate time for the once-mighty Russian aerospace
industry. Political pressure is building for the Kremlin to
acquire modern weaponry on par with that of the U.S.,
European and the most advanced Asian militaries. This
summer, newly reelected Russian president Vladimir
Putin vowed to equip the air force with a new manned
bomber, a new early-warning radar plane and several
types of drones. “This is a most important area of
development in aviation,” Putin said of UAVs.
But while Russian industry has reliably churned out
upgraded versions of Cold War jet fighters while also
slowly developing the T-50, Moscow’s first stealth
fighter prototype , aerospace companies have struggled
to design working UAVs. Drones demand lightweight
materials and systems, but Russian flight hardware
“tends to be overbuilt,” according to U.S. trade
publication Defense Industry Daily .
Lack of technological foresight is another problem.
Putin’s recent cheerleading for drones belies decades
during which the Russian military willfully neglected
robotic aircraft.
In 2007, Moscow’s state-owned gas and oil producer
Gazprom teamed up with aerospace firm Irkut to
develop two models of camera-equipped medium drone
for patrolling Gazprom’s thousands of miles of
pipelines. In size and endurance, Gazprom’s civil UAVs
were roughly equivalent to American and European
military models, including the U.S. Predator. Even so,
the Kremlin was “not overly impressed” and “largely
ignored” the drones, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Cindy Hurst
wrote.
A year later Russia went to war with its neighbor
Georgia, a country of only 4.5 million people that
nevertheless had been able to equip its armed forces
with Israeli-made Hermes drones , totally outclassing
Russia’s surveillance forces. After the war Russia spent
$53 million on its own fleet of probably a dozen or so
Israeli UAVs , including Searcher and I-View models.
These remain Moscow’s only modern drones. Belated
efforts to design indigenous flying robots have all fallen
flat. In January 2010 a prototype of the Vega Company’s
Stork UAV crashed and burned on takeoff , as seen in
the video above. The crash apparently ended that
particular program.
In essence, Russia is starting from scratch on
homemade robot warplanes, some 20 years after other
advanced nations began getting serious about UAVs.
Russian officials are promising a first flight for an
indigenous, Predator-class drone in 2014, but in light of
past failures the plan lacks credibility. It’s not hard to
see why a jet-powered drone bomber could require a
full 30 years to develop, starting today.
The U.S. military, by contrast, already operates
hundreds of medium drones, including armed Predators
and Reapers — to say nothing of thousands of small
drones and dozens of airliner-size Global Hawks.
Meanwhile, American firms have produced four different
jet-propelled, drone bomber demonstrators in
anticipation of a Navy contest to put armed UAVs on
carrier decks by 2018. And the Air Force is planning to
make its newest bomber, due to enter service in the
2020s, “optionally manned.” That means it can switch
from a piloted warplane to a drone with the flip of a few
switches.
Against these robots, Russia’s 2040 drone bomber could
seem hopelessly late — if it enters service at all.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/08/russian-drones/