Ukraine using gunners in prop planes to down drones from Russia

Yakety Yak counter drone attack Right now in the skies above Ukraine, a 50 year old propeller driven airplane is racking up kills against 21st century unmanned aerial vehicles. An unknown number of the Soviet era Yak 52 training aircraft crewed by Ukrainians from a local Civil Air Patrol chapter appear to be flying free hunt missions in southern Ukraine, tracking down Russian surveillance drones. Now this is a pretty good distance from the front lines where Russian air defense systems would down these things almost as fast as a Patriot missile could down a SU34, which is pretty fast. Be that as it may, Downing the drones in a World War One style air battle is not easy either. For starters, the types of drones the axe are hunting or small, and the pilot has to find the things in the sky without modern sensors or equipment. Once a target is located and the pilot manages to put the plane in a suitable firing position, the gunner still has to shoot the thing down by hand, likely with a basic infantry weapon in the open cockpit of a moving plane. Obviously not an ideal or effective tactic for every situation, but it's not ineffective either. These images of kill marks on the side of 1 Yak 52 showed up online recently, and if true, the plane is responsible for Downing at least eight Russian drones. Two other drones are seen marked out above pictures of a Pelican and a storm cloud, leading some military analysts to believe the Yak crew witnessed two Russian drones get taken down by a bird and a storm. Of course, the best time to take down unmanned aerial vehicles, whether they're just surveillance systems or one way attack drones, is to blow them up before they launch in late June. That's just what Ukraine's Navy did. Using domestically produced Neptune missiles or similar weapons, Ukrainian forces launched a night attack on a base in Russia's Krasnodar region. The base is home to the 726th Air Defense Training Center, where Russian pilots are taught how to fly all sorts of drones. Like the Goran 2, Moscow's version of the Iranian made Shaheed 136. Satellite imagery shows the level of destruction. Ukraine says it blew up 20 Garons, 50 Lancets, 40 Zala reconnaissance drones, 10 Super Cam Recon drones and an unspecified number of smaller attack drones. Some barracks on the base and administrative buildings were also hit, causing an unknown number of casualties. In fact, the surnames of three Iranian men believed to be flight instructors were listed among the dead. The key post is calling the strike the most effective Ukrainian counterattack against Russia's long range strike capabilities since the war started. We've been covering the war since it started as well. You can find all of our reporting on the Straight Arrow News app or [email protected]. For Straight Arrow News, I'm Ryan Robertson.