Our fearless leader, Steve, sent me an email that he learned the mother of all AK companies, Kalashnikov Concern, appears to be building unmanned aerial vehicles under the Zala Areo brand. A bit of back story on Kalashnikov, not only do they build AKs, trucks and other military weapons under the Kalashnikov brand, they also build a ton of other stuff like biathlon rifles under the Izhmash name, hunting shotguns and sporting rifles under the Baikal brand, even special purpose boats. Sadly we don’t get to see their products on US shores anymore as a result of some political posturing that prevents importation.

With modern warfare relying more on technology to remove soldiers from as much danger as they possibly can. With the prevalence of the UAV in militaries as well as law enforcement and business roles dozens of companies are popping up producing some pretty interesting models. Kalashnikov Concern seems to have identified a market for the drones. It appears that their drones were even used at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi to monitor security at the events.

Kalashnikov has developed a pretty diverse lineup with fixed wing models and rotary wing models as well. The capabilities of each one are detailed in Russian on their website.

The ZALA 421-21

The ZALA 421-22

The ZALA 421-16E

The ZALA 421-08M

The ZALA 421-16E