Ukraine struck Russia’s largest oil refinery, located in the city of Omsk, on Monday, marking what its forces say was its furthest-ever drone attack in the war.
The Omsk facility, which processes about 21 million tons of oil a year, is in Western Siberia and about 1,700 miles from Ukrainian territory — roughly the distance between Los Angeles and Houston.
Pretty sure they didn’t fly ‘all’ the way there ;)
In this case, no, they were on jets. But some drones can. The MQ-9 “Reaper” drone has a 1200 mile range. That’s not just a short run.
Is that confirmed? Their FP-5 drone has a 1900 mile range, so it wouldn’t exactly need the assistance of being fired from a jet for extended range capability. I don’t really know what the benefit would be considering the north and eastern border is being controlled by Russia atm. I guess it may just be safer to fire it from a jet than doing a shoot and scoot.
From the article:
The last paragraph was what I was getting at, given that the FP-1 range is just a tad short.
Ahh, that makes more sense. I figured they were using the fp-5 just for the range. Makes sense firing the fp-1 from the air would add a bit of range though, guess you wouldn’t have to fight to gain altitude.
Not all drones are fpv quadcopters.
I am fully aware of that. :)
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. Probably the smilies. The headline does say “drones flew all the way to Siberia,” so it would be reasonable for the reader to assume the drones made the trip themselves without more information.