Meet the Ukrainian Stunt Pilot Who Shoots Down Russian Drones

Timur Fatkullin is a Ukrainian flying ace who uses his acrobatic flying skills honed before the war to shoot down Russian drones.

When I fly close to the target, I can’t engage because there’s houses or infrastructure underneath. So we keep flying, keeping it in the searchlight, in the spotlight. And we’re not even, because it’s like 200 kilos target and we’re six tons, and it’s black Shahed in the black night. But from my aerobatics, I brought formation flying. You have to be professional, you have to be confident, practice a lot, anticipate a lot, and trust completely each other. There’s no other way. So these skills help enormously, and with this aircraft, we can stay in the air up to 4.5 hours. It’s my devotion, not just to my country, but to aviation. That’s the truth.

As you can see in this video from the NY Times, planes like these shoot the drones down using low-fi techniques: with machine guns mounted in the planes’ doorways.

One of the drone-hunting pilots, who are civilian volunteers: “Standing aside and doing nothing is impossible. For our team, it’s impossible.”

And from a different perspective, here’s a WSJ video profile of a Ukrainian drone pilot:

• drones
• Russia
• ukraine
• war