Design and capabilities
Orlan-10 is a Russian medium-endurance reconnaissance drone developed by the Special Technology Center in St. Petersburg, in service since 2011. Its composite fuselage reduces radar signature, and it launches from a collapsible catapult with parachute recovery, needing no runway. Reported figures vary somewhat by source, but typical specifications are a top speed near 150 km/h, endurance of 16 to 18 hours, a direct operational range around 120 kilometres extending to as much as 600 kilometres with relay support, a service ceiling of about 5,000 metres, and a roughly six-kilogram payload of day and thermal cameras, video, and a radio transmitter housed in a gyro-stabilised pod. Units typically fly in groups of two or three: one for reconnaissance at 1,000 to 1,500 metres altitude, a second jamming enemy communications, and a third relaying data to the ground station. A strike-configured version, shown by Russia's defence ministry in May 2022, can reportedly carry small fragmentation projectiles, though the type's primary role remains reconnaissance and artillery spotting. Unit cost is estimated at $87,000 to $120,000, and more than 1,000 had been built by 2018 across eleven variants.
Operational history
Orlan-10 has flown reconnaissance missions over Donbas since 2014 and was used extensively in Syria, including locating a downed Russian Su-24M2 pilot in November 2015. Since Russia's 2022 escalation, Ukrainian forces have reported dozens of shoot-downs and captures, including a notable case on 27 April 2024 in which the crew of an unarmed Yakovlev Yak-52 reportedly disabled one using small-arms fire from the aircraft.
AirVeto context
Orlan-10's role is close-range battlefield reconnaissance and electronic support inside Ukraine and occupied territory, and it does not appear in the ongoing pattern of EU eastern-border incidents that AirVeto tracks. One documented exception dates to the war's early weeks: a Russian-made Orlan-10 was found on 13 March 2022 in BistriČa-NÄsÄud County, Romania, confirmed by Ukrainian Air Force assessment. That single, isolated find predates the sustained pattern of Shahed and Gerbera incursions covered elsewhere in this glossary and should be read as a rare early-war anomaly rather than an ongoing pattern.