Regarding the switchblade drone
An Washington Post article notes that the US is sending Switchblade drones to Ukraine. These little stinkers are sneaky. The WaPo writes:
They are single-use weapons — small, unmanned aircraft that are launched from a tube, and that experts say are capable of inflicting significant damage. The drones have blade-like wings that emerge when the device is launched.
Switchblade drones are cheaper than most U.S. drones, and come in two sizes, according to AeroVironment, the manufacturer. The Switchblade 300 model weighs about five pounds, flies up to 15 minutes at a time, and is designed to be carried in a backpack, assisting small infantry units tracking the Russians’ movements.
The Switchblade 600, by comparison, weighs about 50 pounds, flies up to 40 minutes and is known as a “loitering missile” that can target armored vehicles. It is not yet clear which version the United States will be sending to Ukraine.
“The tube is set up like a little mortar on the ground,” Steve Gitlin, who served as AeroVironment’s chief marketing officer, said during a 2020 interview in which he described the product. “Using the ground control system, the operator launches it. It exits the tube. Its wings spring open.”
“Its propeller spins up, and it starts flying in the direction the operator wants it to and streaming live video back to that operator, viewable on the screen in the middle of that hand-control unit,” he continued, adding that once the threat is identified, “they then designate that target on the control station screen, and the Switchblade then navigates itself in the terminal guidance mode and detonates on to that target.”
Switchblade drones are cheaper than most U.S. drones, and come in two sizes, according to AeroVironment, the manufacturer. The Switchblade 300 model weighs about five pounds, flies up to 15 minutes at a time, and is designed to be carried in a backpack, assisting small infantry units tracking the Russians’ movements.
The Switchblade 600, by comparison, weighs about 50 pounds, flies up to 40 minutes and is known as a “loitering missile” that can target armored vehicles. It is not yet clear which version the United States will be sending to Ukraine.
“Its propeller spins up, and it starts flying in the direction the operator wants it to and streaming live video back to that operator, viewable on the screen in the middle of that hand-control unit,” he continued, adding that once the threat is identified, “they then designate that target on the control station screen, and the Switchblade then navigates itself in the terminal guidance mode and detonates on to that target.”
They are part of a category of weapons known as “loitering munition,” said Ingvild Bode, an associate professor at the Center for War Studies, a research group within the University of Southern Denmark, because they “are designed to loiter over battlefields, within potentially quite a broad geographical area, where they search for a particular class of target,” such as radars. “When they have found the target, [they] launch themselves onto it” — hence the “kamikaze” label.
By Germaine: The weapons engineer
Launching a Switchblade 300
Switchblade 300 before full wing deployment
the wings fully extend straight out after launch
Switchblade 600
A bigger drone in development
by the Stitchblade company
AeroVironment
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