Shahed-136 Drone

Among the many suicide drones that have emerged in the recent conflict between Russia and Ukraine, there is a UAV known by the Russian military as the Geran-2, which is believed in the West to be Shahed-136 UAV. This article will talk about some features of shahed 136 kamikaze drone for reference. 
The Shahed-136 drone is one of the larger suicide drones, although it's quite large. Because it's a single use drone, it doesn't have a lot of equipment on it. So, it's relatively cheap. It can hit its target through the satellite navigation positioning coordinates input before it takes off. 
The Shahed-136 kamikaze drones is virtually invisible and invulnerable even against the most advanced air defense systems. The engine on the Shahed-136 is air-cooled, and due to its relatively low power and heat, it is impossible to shoot it down with an anti-aircraft missile along a thermal trajectory. It also flies at such low speed and altitude that it is really hard for air defense systems to detect, and also hard for the naked eye to detect if it is flying at night, so it cannot be shot down with small arms. Its wings have a special structure, and when hit by small arms, the wings tighten. 
The Shahed-136 was most famously used in a large-scale Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities in 2019, when drones launched from Yemen were not noticed by air defense systems, including Patriot systems, and the accuracy of the attack was remarkable. 
Shahed-136 parameter online
The Shahed-136 drone weighs 200kg with a 50kg warhead. Since the outer walls of the warhead can be made thin, the charge can reach 40kg, which is equivalent to five 155mm grenades, and its delta wing layout can carry more fuel, the claim of a maximum range of 1,800km may not be just an exaggeration or a misrepresentation. 
The TL-180, a drone similar to the Shahed-136 that we are launching today, can be used either single-use (suicide drone) or reusable (reconnaissance) compared to the Shahed-136. The TL-180 is equipped with guidance modules and can engage moving targets on land. So the entire structure of the TL-180 drone is not plastic like the Shahed-136, but aviation carbon fiber.
  1. Technical specification, performance, application scenario
  ⬧ Low cost, small size, fast deploy UAV.
  ⬧ Easy modification and change payload.
  ⬧ Typical operation condition: height=1000m, speed=180km/h.
  ⬧ Payload: ≥ 35kg, endurance ≥ 11.5h.
  ⬧ Launching method: vehicle-mounted rocket-assisted take-off.

2. Features
2.1. Design 
    ⬧ Using delta wing layout to improve cruise speed, and reduce
UAV size.
    ⬧ Using wing fuselage integrated design to reduce the resistance
of UAV, and realize the advantages of compact structure and
easy-to-carry.
    ⬧ Using wing + fuselage 3 fuel tank design to increase the UAV
fuel tank volume effectively, and reduce the cross sectional area 
of fuselage, which will reduce the flying resistance and increase 
the endurance.
    ⬧ Using tail thrust power arrangement to effectively improve
propeller efficiency

2.2. System introduction
The overall layout of the delta wing and the cylindrical fuselage are adopted to facilitate the installation of payloads such as seeker and warhead. The overall structure of the UAV is compact and easy to transport.



2.2.1. UAV platform
Main geometric parameters

	Terms	Value	Remarks
Overall size	Total length	2.7m
	Wingspan	2.5m
	Wing area	2.55 ㎡
wing	Chord length	1m
	Aspect ratio	2.5
	Sharpening ratio	0.3
fuselage	length	2.5m
	Maximum section diameter	320mm	Able to install 300mm diameter rocket warhead

2.2.2. UAV system layout


2.2.3. UAV appearance picture


3. Specification
Using the above aircraft characteristic data, the overall design output indicators of the UAV are as follows:

Term	Specifications	Remark
Wingspan	2.5m
Total length	2.7m
Flight speed	181.3km/h
Endurance	11.5h
Effective range	2084.95km
Effective payload	40kg
Max. take-off weight	186.4kg