Thanks to nationwide support, the Come Back Alive Foundation’s team has purchased 10 PD-2 unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Foundation announced it on Facebook.

The purchased drone systems include mobile ground stations.

The total cost of the UAVs systems is approximately UAH 300 million, or $8.5 million.

10 systems amount to 20 PD-2 aircraft and 10 ground station vehicles, converted into mobile command posts for drone control.

PD-2 is a multi-purpose reconnaissance unmanned aerial system produced in Ukraine. It was developed by Ukrainian UkrSpecSystems. The drone has a flight radius of more than 200 kilometers.

This domestic-made drone has a piston engine. Fully fueled PD-2 can fly as far as 1000 km or more. PD-2 does not necessarily need a runway to take-off. The UAV has a vertical take-off feature.

PD-2 can stay in the air for up to 12 hours. The drone cameras have a five-fold optical zoom on the thermal imager and up to 30x zoom on the daytime camera.

PD-2 can precisely determine the coordinates of objects at a distance of more than 5 kilometers. The drone camera can automatically track target movements.

The drone uses military communication standards with pseudo-random rearrangement of operating frequencies, which makes it resistant to EW countermeasures of both navigation and control channels.

Previously, the Come Back Alive Foundation ordered a production of 25 Leleka-100 UAVs. The cost of 25 Ukrainian-made systems is UAH 45 million.

It is a battalion/brigade level UAV that can effectively provide air support to such brigade level weaponry as 2S1 Gvozdika, 2S3 Akatsiya ACSs, BM-21 Grad MLRS, etc.