The Chirok (Russian: чирок – "

Teal alt=American teal duck (male), Green-winged teal (male) Teal is a greenish-blue colour. Its name comes from that of a bird — the Eurasian teal (''Anas crecca'') — which presents a similarly coloured stripe on its head. The word is ofte ...

") is a Russian hybrid amphibious

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

vehicle in development by

United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation (russian: Объединённая приборостроительная корпорация) or UIMC was a Russian state-owned company, which was founded in March 2014 within state corporation Rostec ...

, a

Rostec Rostec ( rus, Ростех, p=, r=Rostekh), officially the State Corporation for Assistance to Development, Production and Export of Advanced Technology Industrial Product Rostec (russian: Государственная корпорация по � ...

subsidiary. The drone was presented in the

Innoprom Innoprom is the large-scale international industrial exhibition annually held in Ekaterinburg, Russia. As declared, "the purpose of the Exhibition is to present advanced technologies developed in Russia which are ready to be used in industry, to fa ...

2014 technology exhibition in

Yekaterinburg Yekaterinburg ( ; rus, Екатеринбург, p=jɪkətʲɪrʲɪnˈburk), alternatively romanized as Ekaterinburg and formerly known as Sverdlovsk ( rus, Свердло́вск, , svʲɪrˈdlofsk, 1924–1991), is a city and the administra ...

for the first time. This machine is a hybridized and amphibious like

meaning it doesn't need an airfield for launching, similar how helicopters work according to Aleksey Smirnov, the head of the unmanned aerial vehicles department at Radio-Technical Institute. It is expected that at Moscow-hosted

MAKS Air Show MAKS (russian: МАКС, russian: label=short for, Международный авиационно-космический салон, Mezhdunarodnyj aviatsionno-kosmicheskij salon, "International Aviation and Space Show") is an international air ...

2015 the UAV Chirok will be presented as an operational prototype. The production of this aircraft could start as early as in the year of 2016.

Data & performance

The first flight tests for the Chirok aircraft will start in 2015. Reports show it will have a wingspan of 10 meters and have a maximum takeoff mass of approximately 700 kilograms, of which 300 kg would be its effective payload. Altitude ceiling is 6,000 meters, the Drone is expected to travel up to 2,500 kilometers on one single fueling. While the material of this device is made exclusively of composite materials and the fabric of its air cushion was developed in Russia and is patented by Rostec, the air cushion is fully retractable in flight mode. The developers plan to use the drone for reconnaissance and wild fire monitoring missions, delivery of necessities to distant oil rigs and other things, it also enables carrying offensive military appliances. Chirok can be equipped with high precision weapons like small-size guided missiles. Unlike most existing military drones, the Chirok will enough inner space to fit the weapons internally according to reports.

References

{{reflist Weapons of Russia Unmanned military aircraft of Russia United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation Hovercraft Landing craft