Multicopter FPV drones look like the kings of the jungle in Ukraine, hitting tanks, trucks, artillery and infantry with lethal results. But fixed wing FPVs resembling small aircraft are starting to have an increasing impact at longer distances.
“Range, speed and payload capacity, “ ‘Michael,’ Commander of the Typhoon drone unit of the National Guard of Ukraine told me. “These are the fundamental advantages that make fixed-wing FPVs strategically valuable despite their operational complexity.”
Recent videos have shown fixed-wing FPVs hitting air defense systems, parked helicopters and other targets which the Russians probably thought were safely out of range. Except that there may no longer be any such thing.
In commercial aviation jet aircraft are the norm, with only a handful of helicopters. On the drone battlefield these numbers are reversed, with rotorcraft outnumbering everything else.
The reasons for both are down to aerodynamics. Rotorcraft get lift from spinning rotor blades, and expend a lot of energy just saying in the air. Fuel economy is poor and aerodynamics are not favorable for high-speed flight.
Fixed wings are more efficient. Aircraft are held up by air flowing under the wind, and can glide without engine power. Fuel efficiency is better, leading to longer ranges, and airliners cruise at about three times the speed of helicopters.
So in commercial aviation wings rule. On the miniature scale of drones the aerodynamics are similar, but quadcopters are easy to fly, as the autopilot does most of the hard work. Hitting the target is also easier: multicopters are maneuverable, and can approach targets from any angle. The operator can slow down to walking speed to go through narrow openings or between trees.
A multicopter FPV has a range of around 12 miles, more than any other infantry weapon, so range is not usually an issue. All of this has led to the meteoric rise of FPV quadcopters.
But when it comes to targets further away, fixed-wing drones come into their own.
“Fixed-wing FPV drones excel in long-range operations, typically engaging targets located 30+ kilometers [20+ miles] from the frontline,” says Michael. “This extended range capability is driven by their fundamental aerodynamic advantages—fixed-wing aircraft are inherently more efficient than multirotor designs, allowing them to cover greater distances while carrying meaningful payloads.”
Long-range strikes are carried out against several different classes of target. On the one hand there are high-value assets like air defence systems and radar. On the other are transport hubs, fuel and ammunition storage sites.
But flying fixed-wings is not so simple. For one thing there is launch, which is not a simply vertical takeoff from anywhere but requires an understanding of the terrain and wind. Long range missions also require careful planning. Unlike a basic multicopter strike, flying to a given point, the fixed wing operator will need to calculate fuel consumption, identify waypoints and plot a route around known air defense positions.
And with fixed wings there is the risk of stalling and crashing, not a problem for multicopters.
“Multicopter pilots can simply stop and hover; fixed-wing pilots must constantly think ahead about energy states,” says Michael. “You must learn to work with momentum, altitude, and airspeed as interconnected variables, while paying attention to weather.”
And then there is the nail-biting finality of committing to an attack.
“Once you begin an attack run, there’s less room for hesitation,” says Michael. “Fixed-wing aircraft carry significant momentum and inertia that limits their ability to make sharp directional changes. Adjusting direction mid-attack is possible, but less responsive than with multicopters, and unlike multicopters, a fixed-wing cannot simply stop in place.”
FPV multicopters can chase swerving motorbikes or foot soldiers dodging around trees. But when the target is thirty miles away, the fixed-wings become the weapon of choice.
Fixed wing FPVs are already starting to differentiate into different types. Before the war, there were legacy weapons, known as ‘loitering munitions,’ made by traditional contractors at military rates and in boutique quantities. This year the US Army is buying just 340 SwitchBlade 600s at $170k apieces. The Russian $35k Lancet drone continues to be one of their most effective weapons.
Ukraine’s fixed-wing attack drones are more affordable. The DARTS (“Дартс“ ) attack drones has a pair of propellers, a seven-foot wingspan and an eight-pound warhead. It costs around $1,200 per aircraft. Exact range is unknown but a video from August 17th is claimed to show a DARTS drone hitting a Russian Pantsir air defence vehicle at Melitopol airport over 50 miles behind the front line.
Blyskavka (“Lightning”) is more basic, costing less than $1,000. Based on a Russian design, it carries a hefty 17-pound warhead to a range of 25 miles. This type of drone is a simple bomb truck, mainly used against static targets like buildings in areas where there is little jamming.
There are also more sophisticated options. Lithuanian company Granta Autonomy, who have delivered large numbers of FPV drones to Ukraine, has spent ten years developing drone technology. Their latest offering is the X-WING which is intended to be both affordable and highly capable, without the limitations of other fixed-wings. It is already being extensively tested by the Ukrainian armed forces on the frontlines.
X-WING take off vertically, so it does not need a compressed-air launcher like Switchblade or a catapult like Blyskavka. It can be launched easily anywhere without much planning. The range is in excess of 30 miles.
The drone is designed to be used in a hunter-killer team with the company’s advanced Hornet XR scout drone, taking advantage of the Hornet’s ability to spot and precisely locate targets tens of miles away. It is the pairing of long-range strike drones with long-range reconnaissance that makes them so effective.
“We've taken the lessons learned from providing thousands of drones to the front lines in Ukraine and used that invaluable experience to create a sister system to our Hornet XR recon drone that is ideally suited for modern combat," says Gediminas Guoba, CEO and Co-Founder of Granta Autonomy.
X-WING also benefits from a powerful gimballed camera with AI ,capable of locking on to a target from more than a mile away. The operator designates the target from well outside jamming range, sending the drone to complete the mission on its own.
The 9-pound warhead is fitted with an Electronic Safe and Arm Device (ESAD), making it safer than improvised warheads on many drones, and is a multi-functional type combining armor penetration to defeat tanks and effective fragmentation effective against softer targets like radars and anti-aircraft systems.
Gediminas says they are ‘laser-focused’ on providing advanced capability at low cost, with a target price of under $10k per unit. Production is currently in small batches but should rise to hundreds per month early next year.
Given good reconnaissance, these drones can threaten targets far in the enemy rear, leaving no safe hiding places for missiles, artillery or air defence.
As target seeking AI and automatic target recognition improves, such drones may be able to find targets on their own. Russia has already started flying V2U, attacks drones, recently analyzed in Ukraine’s Defense Express. These are autonomous attack drones which cruise up and down roads looking for moving vehicles and attacking anything they see. The vision system is extremely crude. One reportedly hit a public toilet rather than a vehicle, but it points the way to a future of long-range strikes
Traditional long-range weapons are reserved for high-value targets, just as traditional battlefield guided missiles were reserved for tanks. But with FPVs now cheap and abundant enough to target individual foot soldiers, long-range fixed wings may start hitting everything too. Fixed wings may extend the current ‘grey zone’ in which drones will attack anything in the open from 10 miles to 20, 30, 40 or more.
Another Ukrainian fixed-wing FPV, Bulava, has been upgraded to achieve ranges of more than 60 miles. This is as much as HiMARS and starts to blur the distinction between tactical and strategic weapons.
Multicopter FPVs have transformed the battlefield just as machineguns and barbed wired did in WW1, making movement at the frontline deadly. Fixed-wing FPVs can reach much further, and the effects are likely to be equally significant.