Ukrainian Volunteers Use Skydiving Plane Drone Hunter
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- Ukrainian volunteers have converted a Soviet-era AN-28 skydiving plane into a drone hunter, mounting an American-made machine gun that fires up to 3,000 rounds per minute.
- Valerey Slipkan, who lost his son in the invasion, lives on the remote airstrip and coordinates the crew, taking orders from Ukraine’s air‑defense coordinators.
- Timur, an aerobatic world champion and father of five, serves as co‑pilot, sold his business and poured the winnings into the project, and plans to build a personal fleet of drone‑fighting aircraft.
- The crew is on call 24/7, often waiting long periods before a launch is approved, and must follow a law that limits shooting drones to unpopulated areas.
- Ammunition cost per down drone is about $500, far cheaper than the tens of thousands of dollars per Shahed drone or the millions spent on surface‑to‑air missiles.
- Russian forces have been launching thousands of one‑way Shahed attack drones each month, overwhelming Ukraine’s conventional air defenses.
- Drone kill count remains a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of thousands of drones Russia has launched.
Why it matters: At $500 per kill, the volunteers give Ukraine a cheap supplement to its strained air‑defence budget, while Russia’s cheap Shahed drones continue to flood the skies, underscoring the strategic value of civilian‑run, low‑cost anti‑drone tactics. The approach also respects legal constraints by limiting fire to unpopulated zones, a factor most headlines ignore.
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