Kazakhstan and Belarus along with other CIS countries have expressed interested in purchasing Russian air drone Eleron, Tengrinews reports citing RIA Novosti.
Kazakhstan and Belarus along with other CIS countries have expressed interested in purchasing Russian air drone Eleron, Tengrinews reports citing RIA Novosti.
Valeriy Pobezhimov, Director of ENICS, the developer company, talked about precontractual negotiations during the World Airshow and Aviasalon MAKS-2015 taking place in Moscow from August 25 to 30.
"We are negotiating delivery of Eleron complexes with three foreign clients. Our product arouse much interest from CIS countries, in particular Belarus and Kazakhstan," Pobezhimov said. According to the head of ENICS, the company had supplied E95M air drone complexes abroad before and was planning to sign a contract on delivery of four more complexes.
Eleron 3SV is a specialized short-range scout system. The developers adapted the system for installation of a photo camera, thermal imager and 10x zoom in a hydro stabilizing mechanism, thermal imager in a low-visibility camera and other service load. The air drone can stay in the air for up to 2 hours and operate in a 5000-meter range. Eleron 3SV maximum speed is 130 km per hours. According to Lugansk News, the air drone costs $200 thousand, which is cheaper that another Russian unmanned aerial vehicle Zastava.
In addition to negotiating purchase of air drones from ENICS, Kazakhstan plans to modernize its Mi-17 helicopters, according to the Deputy Director of Vertolety Rossii (Russian Helicopters) Vadim Ligay.
"We are talking about starting the negotiations. There are a lot of our Mi-17 helicopters and Kazakhstan wants to upgrade them. We are currently working on the technical side of things to understand which elements of the helicopters they want to upgrade and when," Ligay said.
Mi-17 is a medium twin-turbine transport helicopter. There are also armed gunship versions.
By Gyuzel Kamalova, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina