news
air & space
Development of the Grot-2 single-engined lightweight jet designed by the Warsaw-based Instytut Techniczny Wojsk Lotniczych (Air Force Institute of Technology: ITWL) is to proceed as a cooperative effort with Ukrainian industry, IHS Jane’s reported on Jnauary 17.
News of the collaborative teaming formed part of a presentation given in Warsaw on 13 January by ITWL director Colonel (retd) Ryszard Szczepanik during a day-long conference on military helicopter and aerospace programs. The conference, organized by the influential Narodowe Centrum Studiów Strategicznych (National Centre for Strategic Studies: NCSS) think-tank, was timed to coincide with a series of internal analyses and external negotiations on procurement programs being conducted by the new Polish government.
POLAND DEVELOPING GROT-2 AIRPLANE WITH A MOTOR-SICH ENGINE
Szczepnik stated that the Grot-2 - intended to be a multimission military aircraft - will be powered by a Ukrainian Ivchenko/ Progress engine built at the Zaporizhia Motor Sich aeroengine production enterprise. The decision by ITWL to adopt a Ukrainian
engine as the powerplant for the Grot-2 comes after several years of design validation that involved wind tunnel tests and computational fluid dynamics modelling. The decision on an engine was left open for several years while ITWL considered several possi-
bilities. Modelling of the Grot-2 design was conducted with a Honeywell/ ITEC F124-GA-100 propulsion model. Dr Vyacheslav Boguslayev, the general director of Motor Sich, was also present at the forum and told IHS Jane’s that the engine
intended for the Grot-2 program «will be the AI222-28F design» developed at the Ivchenko/Progress design bureau. This engine is an updated, developed version of the AI-22225 installed in the Chinesebuilt Hongdu Aviation L-15 jet trainer.
UKRAINIAN ARMED FORCES HAVE TAKEN DELIVERY OF NEW UAV SYSTEMS The Ukrainian Armed Forces took delivery of new Fury-class UAV systems in January 2016, press-officer for the Ministry of Defense, Colonel Victoria Kushnir told a news briefing. «Five units of the Fury unmanned aircraft system have been added to
the Armed Forces inventory,” she said. The Fury UAS is designed for airborne monitoring of the earth’s surface and downlinking live imagery to a ground control station. The UAS consists of a mini UAV aircraft equipped with a gyro-stabilized optical camera module for daytime observation (it can
6 / UKRAINIAN DEFENSE REVIEW / JANUARY-MARCH 2016
be optionally equipped with a gyro-stabilized thermal imaging cam-
era module); a mobile ground control station with integrated display
units, a charging station and video recording equipment; an integrated computer preloaded with GIS and other necessary software; a ground data transmit/receive station; and high-capacity batteries. The Fury UAS provides an endurance of two hours, and an operational range of up to 130 km.