A flying axe, useful to lumberjacks rather than to military personnel, has been presented at an international aviation and space salon, which opened on Tuesday in Russia. The medieval weapon armed with a futuristic twist impressed the show’s guests – including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A flying axe for the aircraft or space industry?
The baffling 1.5-meter flying axe was designed by young engineers for aerial warfare. The technology – a giant light-weight, ground-controlled axe equipped with a motor – was presented by 17-year-old Pavel Komarov, RT reported.
Social media responded promptly to the weird invention. “To put it mildly, they surprised the president,” wrote Dmitry Smirnov, a correspondent from Komsomolskaya Pravda, on his Twitter account.
Not the first flying axe made in Russia
Others claimed that this is hardly the first flying axe designed in Russia. Earlier in June, a group of school boys from Siberia invented a similar device. A flying axe even appeared in a Soviet popular science journal as early as 1986, although its purpose still remain unclear.
Russia is currently the world’s second biggest supplier of weapons after the United States. It is highly unlikely that we will see any giant hatchets flying above our heads in the near future unless Thor is in town. However, according to Sergey Letkov, the experimental model developed by eight-graders in Siberia has flown for a total of 50 hours reaching speeds of 65 to 70 kilometers per hour.
MAKS 2015: one of the world’s biggest air shows
Beside the flying axe and a Russia-Iran deal to build Tehran’s own remote-sensing satellite systems, the MAKS-2015 international biannual aerospace show will see major aircraft manufacturers, including Airbus and Boeing attending with billion dollar deals on the line.
Reuters wrote that Russian civil aviation companies are nevertheless facing a disappointing week at the country’s largest air show as “economic crisis” and “Western sanctions” have scared away many foreign firms.
Prospects looked different two years ago just before the Ukraine crisis plunged relations between Russia and the West “to their worst level since the Cold War,” Reuters reported. The MAKS air show in fact generated some $21 billion in deals, a figure “civil aviation firms can only dream of today.”
Over 400,000 people are expected to attend the venue during the six-day event and about 760 companies from 35 countries will participate in the air show.
Despite the political conjuncture, however, Putin has stated that MAKS will continue to serve as a platform for “expert dialogue, the development of industrial cooperation, and for finding new partners.”
What do you think of the flying axe and of Russia’s MAKS show? Share your views in the comments section below.
The flying axe looks tough, but will it be a match for IntelliARMOR’s IntelliGLASS?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evZzeuru5rk
Warfare Tech: Flying Axe Made In Russia
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