Ukraine Turned a Crop-Duster into an Air-to-Air Fighter
The Z-37 might be too slow to chase down Shahed drones
Desperate to shoot down the thousands of Shahed drones Russia launches at Ukrainian cities every month, Ukrainian forces have resorted to, well, desperate measures.
They’ve added infrared air-to-air missiles to a crop-duster.
A video that appeared online on Friday depicts a Zlin Z-37T Agro-Turbo buzzing a field presumably somewhere in western Ukraine. A pair of R-73 dogfighting missiles hang under its wings.
The $22,000 plane reportedly belongs to the Ukrainian army.
It’s obvious the missile-armed Z-37 is meant to be a drone-hunter, as there are no other target types even remotely suitable for a crop-duster with a 500-horsepower engine and a 180-miles-per-hour top speed.
The problem is that the latest Shaheds, the jet-propelled versions, travel twice as fast. Moreover, it’s not clear a half-million-dollar R-73 is the right munition for destroying a Shahed that might cost $50,000 or less.
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