Flying axe: Putin presented with ‘cutting-edge’ warfare tech at MAKS-2015 (VIDEO)

The opening of the MAKS-2015 international biannual aerospace show stunned appreciative viewers with the latest tech on Tuesday. Among the exhibits was a baffling invention designed by young engineers for aerial warfare – a flying motor axe.

The flying axe displayed by the young engineers at Zhukovsky Airfield in the Moscow Region impressed the show’s guests – including Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The technology – a giant light-weight axe equipped with a motor – was presented to Putin by 17-year-old Pavel Komarov. The president seemed to doubt that it could really fly.

“It really does fly?” Putin asked the young mastermind behind the project disbelievingly. “Of course,” he answered.

Though not demonstrated in action, the 1.5-meter axe sparked a lot of excitement and questions about its application.

“To put it mildly, they surprised the president,” wrote Dmitry Smirnov, a correspondent from Komsomolskaya Pravda, on his Twitter account. “I don’t think Putin believed that the axe could actually fly. However he wished the best of luck on future projects to its creators.”

READ MORE: Best military, civilian aircraft on display as MAKS-2015 show takes off in Russia (PHOTOS)

Surprisingly, this is hardly the first flying axe designed in Russia. Earlier in June, a group of school boys from Siberia invented a similar device.

In an interview to the Lifenews tabloid, the young engineers, headed by Siberian eighth grader Zhenya Makashenets from the Siberian city of Kemerovo, said there are few people who do believe that the weapon can fly.

Sergey Letkov, the scientific head of the project and an employee of the Kemerovo center for tech creativity, said in June that the experimental model has flown for a total of 50 hours reaching speeds of 65 to 70 kilometers per hour.

“The flying axe surprises and frightens us,” the local residents who witnessed it in action told Lifenews.

Makashenets said that he hopes his idea comes in handy in the aircraft or space industry.

Meanwhile, social media users were quick to point out that another design for a flying axe appeared in a Soviet popular science journal as early as in 1986. It was similarly devised by a young engineer, who wasn’t clear about the wonder axe’s practical applications.