The decision to use missile weapons with the Hunter heavy attack unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) will be taken by the pilot of the Su-57. The scenario for the use of a fifth-generation fighter slave drone in an interview with RIA Novosti was revealed by military expert Viktor Murakhovsky.
According to him, the “Okhotnik” and the Su-57 will operate in tandem, with the former solving the problem of detecting the enemy at distant lines and, upon the decision of the latter, launching air-to-air missiles.
Murakhovsky noted that the use of missile weapons by a drone will require the pairing of the corresponding avionics (avionics), analysis of the incoming data by the drone, their transfer to the fighter and display on indicators in the cockpit of the pilot. “Plus the passage of reverse control commands to the drone, in particular, permission to launch weapons of destruction,” the expert added.
He suggested that in the future, not one Hunter, but several may interact with one Su-57. The expert noted that it is planned to create such a UAV in the version for striking ground targets, including for suppressing the enemy's air defense (air defense).
In November, RIA Novosti, citing a source in the military-industrial complex, reported that the Okhotnik was first tested with missiles.
In August, the head of the United Aircraft Building Corporation, Yuri Slyusar, said that the Russian Ministry of Defense would begin to receive serial heavy shock-reconnaissance stealth drones “Okhotnik” from 2024.
In September 2019, the Ministry of Defense showed the first joint flight of the Hunter and the Su-57.
In August of the same year, at the 2019 International Aviation and Space Salon (MAKS-2019), Sukhoi presented the Okhotnik model, which differs from the flight model undergoing testing by the presence of a flat nozzle. At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said that the tests of the “Okhotnik” will take place in the next two to three years, and after 2024 the UAV “will go into series.”
