A member of Ukraine’s “Typhoon” drone unit discusses training and effectiveness:
In general, it takes at least three months to train the pilots from scratch to the beginner level.
When we talk about pilots, it’s worth mentioning that they also need to be a bit like engineers — if we talk about FPV drones. When you are in position, you have to understand how the system works. If something goes wrong, you should be able to repair it; if the drone crashes, you need to figure out how to make it fly again. So piloting skills are important, but it’s equally important to have some engineering knowledge as well.
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For instance, in communications, a pilot might start a flight and lose control after 10 minutes. We try to understand why that happened — what caused the problem. We review the frequency data, the drone’s altitude at the time, the drone’s route, and collect this information over longer periods to identify patterns and understand the dynamics of how things are changing.
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Here is where effectiveness comes in. Because if you are skilled enough, you can strike a target in one shot, without having them [Russian forces] have time to switch on their jamming systems. However, if you can’t reach the target in a single shot, the jamming systems will have time to switch on, and it will be quite hard to destroy it.
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Currently, there are many cases of fixed-wing reconnaissance drones carrying FPVs and releasing them over target areas of interest. These setups can reach 30 to 50 kilometers before dropping the FPV, which has proven to be an effective tactic. In this role, the fixed-wing drone serves not just as a carrier, but also as a reconnaissance platform and [relay], providing significantly stronger connectivity to the FPV drone and helping to overcome the majority of jamming systems on the frontline.
The Russians have also been working on the quality of the fiber-optic drones they use, around the distances they can reach.
Previously, they could spread 15-20 km; now, sometimes this is 25-30km.[…]
When we talk about the most successful (FPV) pilots, I would say the success rate of their missions is approximately 70% to 80% — but it really depends on how skillful the pilot is.
For mid-range skilled pilots, I would put this at a 40-50% success rate, but for new operators, it sometimes looks like a disaster, and that rate can drop to 20%.
When it comes to fiber-optic drones, it is a really different situation — I would say it’s like maybe 40-50% of success rates is the best you can achieve because a lot of additional things should be accounted for. For fiber-optic drones, you have to change your piloting approach. For these drones, success also depends on artillery intensity (which can sever the cable), weather and wind conditions, the density of friendly FPV operations that might accidentally cut the fiber-optic line, and careful route planning to avoid roads, power lines, and other obstacles that could damage the cable.