- The cost to develop an aircraft (the aircraft itself) of about 5 tons is significantly lower than the cost to develop a manned aircraft of about 25 tons like the Il-114 or about 50 tons like the Il-38. Even being VTOL.
I would think the opposite... cramming even part of the capability of a 25 ton aircraft into the frame of a 5 ton aircraft would be extremely difficult and expensive... and giving it a power to weight ratio to allow even basic VTOL capacity would further ruin its potential performance... the obvious conflict of lots of lift and power to get airborne at low speeds conflicts with low power consumption for long range and long loiter time as well as weapons payload...
UAVs are fundamentally more expendable than manned aircraft and will likely not last as long operationally.
Maritime patrol of Russian Naval territory does not need to be ship based... the territory to be patrolled is not going to move away from Russia any time soon.
- The cost by unit of the aircrafts would be significantly lower. The requirements to make the aircrafts habitable make the aircrafts significantly more expensive.
The value of having people on board who can take decisions and indeed save the platform in case of attack is greater than the few dollars saved not needing seats and air supplies and screens onboard.
The redundancy needed to ensure it does not just fly into something means less money is saved than you might think.
UAVs are still not mature enough to replace manned aircraft in some roles.
- The cost of the equipment that the crew need to read the sensors would be lower thanks to be more free of requirements of size and weight to be inside the aircraft.
The lack of onboard interpretation of collected data means there is a need for transmission of raw data to another platform to be processed... which will reveal the location of the UAV.
- The operational cost would be a lot lower in the case of unmanned aircrafts, thanks to lower consum of fuel, and thanks to lower loses on accidents (less material ruined)
Operational costs will actually be higher as no other branch will need such a UAV, and being unmanned the chances of crashes is higher, not lower than a manned aircraft. An Il-114 based aircraft will have commonality with other Il-114s in service used to replace the An-24, An-26, and An-32s currently in service in the light transport role.
- Lower costs on the crew. The crew needed would be about the same (the unmanned aircrafts also need pilots and people to analize the information but would travel in the ship instead than in the aircraft). The cost would be lower thanks to have less risk of accident (lower costs of medical assistance, lower cost on pensions by death in accident, lower need of rescue teams, or lower costs in insurance).
- The need of infrastructure on land for the Russian Naval Air Force would be lower in the case of unmanned aircrafts based on ships.
Actually the costs of operating MPAs from ship would be much higher than from land... anything operating from a ship costs more and adds to the crew size... a ships endurance is generally measured by the amount of food it can carry for its crew... increase the crew size and reduce the endurance of the ship.
More importantly a ship operating in bad weather would not be able to launch or recover aircraft.
- The technology to send the information of the sensors from the unmanned aircrafts to the ships existing today surely would be enough for the proposed solution.
The Ka-31 already performs in such a way, but it is not ideal.
And an Il-114 MPA would be faster than a VTOL 5 ton UAV and have much better operational range.
- The unmanned technology begins not from 0. Surely the current software and hardware for navigation would be enough for this kind of unmanned VTOL aircraft, but surely will be significantly improved in the following years, with this solution for maritime patrol or without it.
AFAIK the Soviets had excellent technology for landing manned VSTOL aircraft on carriers, but as far as I am aware they have no UAVs that use that technology at the moment.
- It would be needed a bigger effort to develop sensors. what would be very positive, since it is the key question in maritime patrol. The surplus in other chapters would allow to a decent improvement in some years.
I suspect technology development in surface radar arrays and photonic radar elements would greatly improve performance while reducing weight and introducing 360 degree arrays which would be optimal for an MPA and indeed AWACS aircraft.
- It is possible that this change would require some strategic bombers more in the fleet. Taking into account that there is a good number of them in the reserve (Tu-22 and others), plus the upgraded Tu-160 and the Tu-PAK-DA are coming, surely is not a very expensive requirement.
Well actually the Tu-142 is still a very capable platform and with two of the new engines being developed for the PAK DA would be a very capable aircraft... it would lose some top end speed but have a huge increase in range and loiter time with plenty of space on board for operators of all sorts of unmanned aircraft operating nearby.
The production of Tu-160s and introduction of PAK DAs means lots of Tu-22M3Ms and Tu-95MSMs will become available... new engines for the new Tu-160s could be adapted to the Backfires and new engines developed for the PAK DA could be adapted to the Bears... the Backfires with hypersonic Zircon anti ship missiles and Bears as MPAs with depth charges and torpedoes and commanding UAVs...
For ships I would suggest the best 5 ton UAV for a ship would be an airship... able to hover... take off and land vertically... make it out of carbon fibre and largely fire proof with a fuel cell on board to produce hydrogen from water so it could operate at very high altitudes with a radar array on its lower skin. Some of the time it could operate tethered to its ship, and other times it could go up to 30,000m or higher and act as a radio relay and scan enormous distances with its radar and electronic equipment.
Make its structure fold down when not filled with hydrogen so it can be very compact when non operational. When needed use the fuel cell and water to fill it with hydrogen...