Ukrainians Hang Air-To-Air Drones From A Cargo Plane, Transforming It Into A Shahed-Killer

The An-28 gunship is now firing interceptor drones

Sometime late last year, some enterprising Ukrainian volunteers mounted a 7.62-millimeter minigun to the port fuselage hatch of an Antonov An-28 light turboprop transport—and went hunting for Russian Shahed attack drones.

By mid-October, the crew reported shooting down around 70 Shaheds. Four months later, French media followed up—and the same crew claimed they’d racked up 150 total kills. By late April, kills reportedly exceeded 220.

That’s 150 Shaheds in probably 20ish major air raids between mid-October and late April. In other words, around seven Shaheds per raid. Given that an An-28 costs a few thousand dollars per flight hour and minigun ammunition is also cheap, the civilian-operated transport probably ranks among the most efficient Shahed-killers.

And it just got a lot better, albeit somewhat more expensive. As depicted in a new video montage, the same An-28 is now launching 3D-printed SkyFall P1-Sun interceptor drones from an underwing hardpoint.