OMSK. June 10 (Interfax-AVN) - Chinese military specialists participating in the arms show in Omsk voiced their intention to buy the Voron unmanned helicopter demonstrated at the section of Russian Federal Security Service.
Alexander Lyubeznov, designer of the helicopter and an employee of the Iskatel design bureau, told Interfax that delegations from many countries showed their interest in the helicopter, but the Chinese were the most persistent.
According to him, they took a lot of pictures of the aircraft and shot a whole film of it with their video cameras.
The Chinese offered to buy the demonstrated aircraft at once or provide funding for further development of remote-controlled equipment.
"However, we cannot sell the remote-controlled helicopter to China, as we are not allowed to sell single pieces of equipment. Only large amounts are for sale," Lyubeznov noted.
According to him, the Voron was developed at Iskatel on an order of the Russian Federal Security Service. It is intended for observation and cargo transportation with an effective radius of 5-25 km. It has specifications as follows: weight 32 kg, max payload 18kg, max flight speed 150 kmph, max range 150 km. The only example of the helicopter is the one demonstrated at the show. Its first flight was held in 2000. The baseline version costs 45,000 euros.
"Iskatel is going to build a batch of Vorons for the Russian Federal Security Service in the near future," Lyubeznov said.
The sixth VTTV Omsk 2005 international arms show in Omsk is attended by over 200 participating enterprises from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Delegations from 40 countries are also present, including the ones from Germany, France, Great Britain, Argentina, China, Chile and India. The most numerous delegations at the exhibition are those from the U.S. and China.