Here are retail prices for new Rotax engines. For comparison I could overhaul my 150 HP Lycoming O-320 for between $20 and $24K depending on which cylinders I wanted. A new 140 HP Rotax is about $40K plus tax, with lower power engines proportionally less.
On topic, obviously anybody could buy a few of them new or used and use them for anything… if they wanted (in the US) to be open for prosecution under ITAR or similar Commerce Department law. That is no different new or used.
gallois wrote:
The Rotax 912s that have been found on shot down drones are definitely not the Chinese ones.
I doubt they are 912s – the drones are quite small (Zelenskyy did a speech next to a shot down one, and its wingspan is not much more than he is tall).
The reports from Ukraine are that they are Rotax 912s. Itsbthe whole reason why the investigation started. Authorities want to know how they ended up in Iran.
I can’t comment on the engines but a TMS320F28335 is of a similar power to the 5 quid ST processor I am using. I doubt it is ITAR. Completely impossible to prevent the Russians obtaining it, in any volume they want. The problem is that you don’t need a lot of CPU power to make a cruise missile. Actually I am confident I could make one with a Z80 running at 8MHz 
“Relatively jam resistant” GPS receivers are also easy – I am using the U-BLOX NEO-M9N which costs under ten quid. Right now you can’t get that one due to the chip madness (I have only a small qty for R&D) but presumably Iran built those drones years ago.
Any inertial nav parts (FOGs etc) would be much more interesting.
Hope this is true and not just a story to boost morale.
https://eurasiantimes.com/ukraine-is-rebuilding-worlds-biggest-aircraft-an-225-mriya/
The Ukrainians have been pretty sure for some time that this is a trap for them. They aren’t stupid. ISW
That whole area is within reach of HIMARS and with the bridges gone, the Russian forces there will just get gradually frozen and starved, in between being bombed with drones while they are lying in 1- and 2-man holes dug out in the ground. Life for the soldiers there must be appalling and that’s without the way Moscow is treating them, as meat. They are also quite obviously not only stupid but untrained; just seen a video of ~10 walking in an open field, a drone drops a grenade on them, 5 go down, the rest look around, somewhat surprised, don’t seem to realise where this thing came from, and carry on walking.
Nothing has changed from 1968 where the soldiers would steal, at gunpoint, what was called “transistor radios”, press a button and music would come out, which was really amazing. A box where you press a button and it makes music. Compared to where these soldiers come from, the Peoples’ Republic of Upper Volta must be a paragon of cultural and intellectual achievement.
Comical TV interviews on Russian TV between some military figures, one telling the other what to do on the battlefield. This staged stuff can be aimed only at an audience which is completely brainwashed and stupid.
Re the AN225, what I read was that they have collected about 30% of the parts needed to build another one, and are assembling these at a secret location. Basically anything in Ukraine whose location can be betrayed will eventually be betrayed, because the country has a good % of pro-Russians (much like W Europe really ) and Putin will send a GPS guided missile there.
Peter wrote:
The Ukrainians have been pretty sure for some time that this is a trap for them. They aren’t stupid. ISW
Your link to ISW says the opposite – that it is not likely to be a trap.
Things are changing. Russia is pulling out as fast as it can get stuff back over the river, leaving the ground littered in corpses… They’ve nearly always done that – once they start to withdraw, it is a race for the exit, leaving behind lots of hardware. The Ukrainians cannot chase them fast enough because their supply lines can’t extend fast enough. In the end, they are advancing over empty ground and some Russian deserters who managed to hide from getting shot in the back by their own. The reported record so far from being sent to the front line, to getting captured by Ukraine, is 1.5hrs. Russia is however booby trapping absolutely everything: from looted apartments all the way to sewer manhole covers. The best estimate for de-mining is 10 years and some say 100 although not many will be viable at 100 years.
Lots of jokes about the Moscow Marshall Plan
Sadly, as this thread shows in places, and as I know from elsewhere, quite a lot of Europe would have preferred Ukraine sacrificed on the altar of cheap[er] gas, to use an old idiom.
