The big advantage NIIP has over Phazotron is that the Zhuk family is a whole new radar, needing expensive new production facilities to produce commercially, while the progressive evolution of the N001 builds on existing components which have been in production a long time and are still being made. It is possible to gradually work towards a new radar in stages.

Phazotron it seems are forced to assemble their ‘production’ Zhuk radars in house, in facilities normally used to make only test radar sets.

Russia has UAVs, just not UCAVs. Different things 😉

Well, I had a shedload of stuff but I threw it all away in 1993 when I left my Aero Eng course to study English. I was in denial…

Of course, I regret it now… having to start again 😉

Yakovlev are working on a UCAV based around Yak-130 technology.

Tupolev claim to be working in this area:

http://www.tupolev.ru/English/Show.asp?SectionID=66

Lavotchkin (OKB-301) closed down in 1960 after Lavotchkin’s death, both it and Myashishchev’s OKB-23 being incorporated into Chelomei’s OKB-52. It reopened 5 years later as a producer of unmanned space probes.

The Yak canard delta pic is from Yefim Gordon, and is definitely their MFI project.

I only agree with their right to exist inside their original borders. Is there something wrong with that?

Well, there is the little problem that prior to the creation of Israel the whole area was Palestine. Any two part state solution concedes the right of one people to forcibly dispossess another of its land. Also which borders do you pick- 1948, 1967, etc?

The only fair solution is, as Arthur indicates, a single secular state with Arabs, Jews, and others given full voting rights and citizenship, with no “state” religion.

Unfortunately neither side seem interested in the fair solution…

R-77 is only in LOW RATE PRODUCTION. It never entered production in one of the big old Soviet factories and probably never will.

This means you can’t order 5000 of the buggers unless you want to hand the Russians a big wad of cash to tool up a large factory to make the things. Thats why both India and China have ordered small quantities as stopgaps pending their own BVR missile programs.

The R-27 series was built in large numbers, and hence is easily available. Also the tooling etc is probably still around somewhere so you could build more.