Inside The Old Skydiving Plane Hunting Drones in Ukraine

Why It Matters

The low‑cost, volunteer‑run model proves that affordable, human‑piloted solutions can blunt mass drone attacks, reshaping how countries defend against cheap aerial threats.

Key Takeaways

• Ukrainian volunteers retrofit old skydiving plane with gun for drone hunting.
• Machine gun costs $500 per drone kill versus millions for missiles.
• Civilians exempt from service now authorized to engage Russian Shahed drones.
• Team coordinates with national air defense, operating 24/7 on standby.
• Model may scale into broader human‑piloted anti‑drone fleet.

Summary

Ukrainian volunteers have turned a Soviet‑era AN‑28 skydiving aircraft into a makeshift anti‑drone platform, mounting an American‑made 3,000‑rpm machine gun to intercept Russia’s Shahed loitering munitions.

The crew highlights the stark economics: roughly $500 in ammunition per drone destroyed, compared with missile costs that can reach millions, while the gun can fire 50 rounds per second, allowing them to pick off drones one by one under air‑defense coordination.

Veteran Valerey Slipkan, who lost his son early in the invasion, lives on the remote airstrip with co‑pilot Timur, a former aerobatic champion, and together they log 24/7 alerts, marking each kill and navigating the moral line of targeting machines over populated areas.

Officials see the experiment as a scalable blueprint; if replicated, a fleet of low‑cost, human‑piloted aircraft could complement high‑tech systems, offering a flexible, affordable layer of protection as nations worldwide grapple with the proliferation of cheap combat drones.

Original Description

As Russian drones overwhelm Ukraine’s vast air defenses, civilian volunteers are stepping in to take them down. The New York Times takes flight with a crew that’s turned an old skydiving plane into a drone hunter.

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