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In Ukraine, a drone with a jet engine and a flight range of 400 kilometers has been developed
(odessa-journal.com)
this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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I would think it's got to do with spanwise flow. The forward swept design brings the spanwise flow toward the fuselage and allows for more effective control of the ailerons when traveling at transonic speeds like can be expected from a "drone/missile/UAV" like this.
It also allows for a reduction in vortices formed by the wingtip which would increase drag and decrease efficiency. That means you can get away with a smaller wing, decreasing weight and either increasing your payload or maximum range.
If it were beneficial in total, most transonic planes would have it. The only aerodynamic advantage over backward swept wings is higher manoeuvrability, which isn't a priority here. This isn't a dogfighter. My money is still on better payload distribution.
Not sure what that means. I don't think agility is a priority with a jet-powered drone. Or benign stall characteristics.
That is negligible. We know how to reduce wingtip vortices, and reverse sweep is not the answer. Raked wingtips as used on the 787 and the larger-wing versions of the 777 and the 777X are optimal for transonic flight. Blended winglets are a close second, as used on the A350 and A330neo. Again, not forward sweep.
This thing also does not look very refined aerodynamically, and there are many more things that could be done to reduce drag that are much cheaper. Wing-body fairings come to mind to reduce interference drag, or winglets if you really want to go there. This has all the looks of "Eh. Good enough. Send it!", which makes sense given the urgency.
The design is already used for the beaver drones. Why? They're not idiots, so probably understand what you're saying.
I would expect a better fuel efficiency. Maybe manœuverability too, to avoid air defense once they reach the target.
Also, this is not a large plane. The power and weight have nothing related to a b777 or an a320.
This is an ECM/reconnaissance drone, not a cruise missile. So no "target" in the normal sense (although I wouldn't be surprised if it was going to be used a cruise missile, too). And reduction of induced drag (raked wingtips or winglets for transonic; straight high aspect-ratio wings with elliptic lift distribution for subsonic) works the same at both scales. At a cruise speed of 600 km/h this is fast, but almost certainly fully subsonic, so sweep makes little sense aerodynamically, in either direction. If they were bothered about fuel efficiency, it would have long, straight, high-aspect-ratio wings, like the Global Hawk, or the Reaper, or the Predator, and a turbofan or turboprop engine.
I'm sure they're no idiots and have very good reasons for the design decision. I just doubt that the reason is aerodynamic efficiency.
The beaver cruise missile is completely different, it is a propeller-driven canard with straight wings. But that may actually be the reason: they re-used the fuselage design, and with the same wing attachment point, forward sweep was required to maintain a reasonable centre of lift in a conventional configuration. Again: a compromise for a short time to deployment. Not aerodynamic refinement.