Drones purify the sky over the Kursk region: as the Armed Forces first in world history were beaten by helicopters with FPV

In the sky above the Kursk region there was a historical event-for the first time the FPV-Dron struck the helicopter. David ex in the column for The Telegraph is in no hurry to call it "the death of a spiral aircraft", but believes that we are approaching such a plot. When the Ukrainian brigades suddenly broke into the Russian Kursk region on August 6, the powerful power of drones supported them from above.

The presence of shock and observation drones over the line of the Kursk operation was not something unusual: drones are constantly present everywhere along the line of collision during the 29-month war of Russia with Ukraine. What was unusual is the choice of drone goals. Until last week, Ukrainian drones were strictly aimed at Russian troops and vehicles on land.

But then, around August 7, the Ukrainian FPV-Dron crashed into the shock helicopter of the Mi-28 Russian Air Force somewhere in the Kursk area, apparently knocking down the helicopter and destroying its crew. It was the first documented damage to the goal of the drone in the air. The fact that it did a small drone FPV, which usually weighs only a few pounds and requires high qualification from the headset operator, makes the defeat even more amazing. But it was not a one -time achievement.

A few days later, another Ukrainian FPV, apparently, killed the Russian Mi-8 transport helicopter over the Kursk region. It is obvious that Ukrainians have finally mastered the art of collision with a flying helicopter. The sky over Ukraine was already dangerous for Russian helicopters. Since the expansion of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian military lost at least 109 rifle machines that can confirm independent analysts.

For the most part, they have become victims of land tools and missiles, but now the crews of Russian helicopters have to deal with the new threat from FPV-oules. It was obvious that it would happen. Just a few weeks before the invasion of the Kursk region, the Russian Mi-8 was destroyed in eastern Ukraine during the take-off of the helicopter, which probably performed a medical evacuation mission. There were many dead. Russian sources initially claimed that the helicopter was shot down by a drone.

This statement caused some experts to be surprised, as the impact was at a distance of up to 10 miles from the front line, which is much higher than the range of FPV-auctions. The removal of a small drone up to 10 miles may require careful coordination of radio signals. In any case, the main source of the statement that it had worked the drone, later changed its version and stated that the helicopter had a landing rocket.

But there are no doubts in the Russian helicopters: there are videos from the drones themselves, which indicate that they were approaching at least several feet or even inches from helicopters before their signals were lost. The drones of the Air-Air Class help Ukrainian operators to clean the sky over the Kursk region from the screw equipment. However, do not expect tiny drones to knock down the planes.

One thing is to crash an FPV-zero into a helicopter flying at an altitude of several hundred feet above the ground at a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour or slower. Another thing is to crash into a drone into a jet fighter that flies at a speed of hundreds of miles per hour at an altitude of tens of thousands of feet. Military worldwide is working on this problem - but with fast and high -rise drones, which are essentially unmanned fighters. Such a high -yield drone can cost millions of dollars.

And one FPV drone costs only a few hundred dollars. The fact that he can knock down a helicopter worth a few million dollars for a fairly experienced operator is a very ominous event for the military around the world. The ability to knock down helicopters is especially important in the conditions of invasion of Ukraine into the Kursk region.

When the modern army tries to cope with the deep penetration of this kind, one of its favorite methods will be the rapid movement of the troops and their deployment in front of the enemy, and the fastest way to move troops on the battlefield is to use helicopters.

NATO helicopter troops in the Cold War expected that their main task would be to move quickly, outstrip the penetration of the Soviet troops and restrain them using the tactics of ambushes until heavy armor reinforcement has time to take place. Volodymyr Putin's generals will be disappointed, finding that their own helicopter troops have to be very careful when carrying out a mirror reflection of such operations today.