Russian Kronstadt company has unveiled a concept of newest stealth unmanned aircraft during the sixth International Military and Technical Forum Army-2020 in the Patriot Park near Moscow.

The new aircraft, called the Grom (Thunder), to be a runway-independent, reusable unmanned air vehicle capable of a broad range of operational missions.

The Grom is an unmanned attack aircraft capable of performing intelligence, surveillance, and intelligence, strike, and electronic warfare missions either on its own, as a loyal wing working together with a manned aircraft, or in a networked autonomous swarm.

“The unmanned vehicle has a mass of seven tons and a payload of about 500 kilograms,” said Nikolay Dolzhenkov, general designer of the Kronstadt company. “The new drone will operate in one connection with the Su-35 and Su-57 fighters.”

Russian first home-made stealth unmanned combat aerial vehicle will be a copy of a Kratos’ XQ-58A Valkyrie with some refinements, according to analysts.

The Valkyrie system, developed by Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems in partnership with the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) on the Low-Cost Attritable Strike Demonstrator (LCASD) Program, is a low-cost, multi-mission, runway-independent unmanned air vehicle capable of long-range flights and high-subsonic speeds intended to support a variety of defense mission applications. In addition to the Valkyrie’s extreme survivability and adaptability, as part of the Low-Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology portfolio, it is designed to break the escalating cost trajectory of tactically relevant aircraft.

The post Russia tries building own unmanned combat aerial vehicle first appeared on Defence Blog.