"Wing-1" and "pen": little-known drone of the USSR could be used in the war in Afghanistan

A work in Yekaterinburg, in the scientific and production enterprise "Start", has been carried out over "Wing-1" since the early 80's. The UAV "Pena" was developed in Kazan, in the CB "Falcon". It was a small apparatus with a cylindrical fuselage 3 m long, a straight wing with a wing of 2 m and a tail plumage in the form of an inverted letter Y. The engine-a turboureactive MD-45 thrust of 45 kgf. The starting mass of "pen"-245 kg, speed-240-250 km/h, flight range-only 90 km.

The intelligence radius did not exceed 40 km, and given that the starting position of "wings-1" was not located close to the front line, the intelligence depth was no more than 30 km. The working height of the flight during reconnaissance-from 100 to 1000 m. UAV was launched from the starting unit of 801H-20 on the chassis of the tractor MT-LBU, which was the carrier of three drones. The complex included machines of providing on the chassis of trucks ZIL-131.

Like Tu-141 and Tu-143, the UAV "pen" was not managed in flight-he flew on a pre-laid program, on a route with two or three points of turn. The intelligence equipment included: probably the sets of the equipment were variable, and the drone in flight could carry only one of three options. There is no direct mention of this, but given the small dimensions of "pen" and the cumbersomeness of Soviet equipment, it looks quite logical, according to the publication.

Technically, the complex, which appeared in 1987 (according to other data of 1982), lagged behind for about 20 years. UAV was not remotely controlled. Secondly, there was no possibility of transmitting intelligence information in real time, says military historian Andriy Kharuk, Professor of the Department of Humanities of the National Academy of Land Forces named after Hetman Peter Sahaidachny. Preparation of a photo shoot of 40 images took 1. 5-2 hours.

Materials from the Wing IR equipment were ready for viewing 10-15 minutes after planting. Even the TV TV equipment provided a retention of 6-8 minutes and only in the stop card. Not surprisingly, the wing-1 drone has not been widely used. At the turn of the 80-90s of the last century, the complexes of "Krylo-1" armed two squadrons of the 405th separate regiment of unmanned aerial vehicles (Baltic Water, Taurage, Lithuania), in the third squadron were complexes "Flight".

In June 1993, the regiment was brought from Lithuania to the prisoners of Vladimir region. Krylo-1 complexes were operated in the Russian Federation until 1998, after which they were preserved. In the middle of zero years, UAVs tried to "reanimate". "Wing-2" appeared from the shock UAV "Dan-Baruk". It was not taken into service because of too low flight range, but after 2015 was transformed into Dan-M.