Photo Credit: Fars News Agency via Wikimedia
The American-built RQ-170 stealth UAV, captured by Iran, at an IRGC-ASF media expo, May 11, 2014.

The first flight prototype of Russia’s state-of-the-art S-70 Okhotnik (Hunter) heavy strike drone was rolled out at the Novosibirsk Aviation Enterprise and preparations are underway for its debut flight, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexey Krivoruchko said on Tuesday.

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Haaretz noted in 2020 that the Okhtonik bears a visual resemblance to the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel which is operated by the United States Air Force for the Central Intelligence Agency. It has been speculated that the Russian engineers had access to the RQ-170 that was captured by Iranians in 2011 (Russia Shows Off New Military Drone, Which Looks a Lot Like the U.S. Sentinel Drone).

A photograph of a RQ-170 Sentinel at Anderson AFB in Guam on an unknown date. / United States Air Force photograph, released to Joseph Trevithick via FOIA

On December 5, 2011, a US Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was captured by Iranian forces near the city of Kashmar in northeastern Iran. The Iranian government announced that the UAV was brought down by its cyberwarfare unit which commandeered the aircraft and safely landed it after initial reports from Western news sources claimed that it had been shot down. The US government initially denied the claims but President Obama eventually admitted that the downed aircraft was a US drone. Iran filed a complaint with the UN over the violation of its airspace. Obama then asked Iran to return the drone. Iran offered it to Russia instead, it appears.

The Okhotnik has been under joint development by MiG and Sukhoi since 2011 when Sukhoi was asked by the Russian Defense Ministry to come up with a new heavy unmanned reconnaissance and attack drone. The drone’s maximum speed is reportedly 1,000 km/h while carrying its payload internally.

It is likely the Okhotnik was designed by the Russians to act as a “loyal wingman” controlled by the Su-57 stealth multirole fighter developed by Sukhoi. A source in the domestic aircraft-building industry told TASS that a pilot of the Sukhoi Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet would simultaneously coordinate the operations of four Okhotnik heavy strike drones. Moreover, a group of drones will most likely be controlled from a new Su-57 special two-seat version.

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David writes news at JewishPress.com.