Volunteers buy recon plane for Ukraine army due to fundraising effort

A successful test launch took place on February 15, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"This is an airplane that we named Khort. The entire community of Zaporizhzhia had been raising money to buy it. In less than a week, we raised almost UAH 2 million and then we bought it. It is a Dutch-made airplane with European components that scouts target to spot our artillery fire," volunteer Maksym Tereshchenko said.

This model is already operating in Ukraine, in particular in Bakhmut, as well as in the Kharkiv and Kherson directions. According to the volunteers, it is almost impossible to buy airplanes in Ukraine at the moment due to the long queues for orders.

The Khort was being assembled for more than six weeks, while the crews were undergoing online training in order to skillfully operate it. The volunteers assured that, despite its simplistic appearance, the aircraft boasts of rather complex technology.

"Today there was a test take-off in manual mode. The plane coped well with wind gusts. This aircraft can fly at a distance of 50 km and has a system of protection against enemy e-warfare, which was one of the main criteria for us as we were choosing the model. It has a good camera with a good zoom option, it can be flown both autonomously and manually, in complete silence mode," says a warpilot with the call sign "Sky".

According to the pilot, if the signal with the control panel is lost, the plane turns back. The video is encrypted, that is, a special key is needed to read it, and it is only available to the operator. So even if the enemy gets hold of the equipment, they will not be able to take any information off of it.

In the near future, the volunteers plan to purchase a vehicle that will serve as a command post for the Khort.