I wonder why is heavy helicopter project going so slowly, cooperation on a concrete project was announced a decade ago. and yet one can read that actual airframes in service aren’t expected for another decade.

it’s not like it’s a super high tech, advanced design. at least Russian side should have some experience and knowledge, at least to lean on the mi-46 research.

only reason I can think of is that no side actually needs such a helicopter urgently. so the money invested is probably slim.

Were those two types really the primary strike assets? Mig-23B and other strike variants, including the MiG-27 were produced from 1971 onwards. Su-17 was produced from 1969 onwards, until 1988. Mig-27 was produced, for Russian needs, until 1985 or so. According to take off magazine lists.

There were in total some 1200 Su-24 produced (including those for export)
1644 Mig-23 (strike variants) and MiG-27 produced (including export ones but without the ones for India/built in India)
1705 su-17 produced. That’s russian variants as su-20/22 were for export. Another 1150 Su-20/22s were produced for export.

As far as I know, MiG-27 never had IFR in Russian service. Iraqis added IFR on their airframes on their own. Not sure about Indians. IFR on Su-24 was also a fairly late feature, on M variant. Certainly not entering service before 1982/83 and were in minority (of total Su-24 fleet) until late 1980s.

Primary means of survival in my opinion was, as with any air force of the time, mission planning, route planning, the fact enemy fighters can’t be in the air 24/7 everywhere and terrain masking. Basically, I don’t believe most of their missions were meant to go much beyond the frontline. Flying low meant they wouldn’t have been detected (in most situations) until 20-ish km away from the frontline. That’s by various tactical AD radars. The big radars would have likely been neutralized in numbers. AWACS wasn’t much of a factor. We had instances in 1999, by modernized variants compared to Cold War, where they detected Serbian low flying planes against the clutter just several tens of km away. They couldn’t have been much of an asset for detecting low fliers in mid 1980s either. Even if NATO did plan to use them for 24/7 defensive surveillance.

Their defense was primarily not being detected and when detected, getting the hell out before any interceptors managed to arrive to the area. I’m sure SOME missions (bombing NATO airfields in western germany?) did require longer range, but we’re still talking about depth of some 300 km (western germany width) plus whatever they had to cross from their bases in Poland and Czech Republic. Fighter MiG-23s, for all their short range, should still have been able to accompany them on such missions as they basically had the same range with their a2a loads as MiG-27s with their a2g loads. Su-24s had some more range, but not much. Perhaps 15%.

I don’t believe Soviet doctrine prescribed deep strikes at all. Even NATO didn’t really believe they could pull it off. Fighter escort or no fighter escort. The reason NATO planes had greater range and IFRs was so they could operate from bases farther away from the front. From UK, Italy, France, etc.

Did you perhaps mean fourth power in your formula, instead of fourth root?

How is this Chinese air power content? That’s like posting this in US air power thread, had the plane involved been F-16 instead of JF-17.

In short the PLAAF and PLAN will need vast numbers of the latter to support both the Army (PLA) and Navy (PLAN). As without such a fleet it has no “hope” of even putting up a “credible defense” against the US and her Allies.

Sure, China does need big numbers and it’s been procuring new planes at a pace that outpaces the actual size of its air forces. For a few decades now China has been procuring roughly 80 (give or take a dozen) combat planes per year. That figure hasn’t actually changed much over the time, despite China having a much larger budget nowadays. Of course, what’s different is that the planes today are all 4th and 5th gen planes. They’re big and expensive. So in a way it’s quite something that China managed to stick to same figures per year but now with much more capable planes.

And it’s likely the planes today, such as Flankers, J-10 and J-20 last longer. 6000 flight hours or more shouldn’t be hard to achieve. Which means these planes produced today are likely going to be used for 30-something years. Which in turn may suggest Chinese air forces numbering 2400 combat planes in active service. (80 times 30) That figure is bigger than what PLAAF and PLANAF operate today in their active units. So we are probably seeing a gradual increase in numbers.

That being said, expecting just J-31 and J-20 to be produced is not realistic for the forseeable future. Perhaps from 2025 onward, when J-31 is ready for full scale production (assuming PLAAF uses it) the number of 5th gen planes produced will eclipse the previous gen. And perhaps from 2030s we will see J10 procurement cease. Either to be superseded by another new gen fighter (single engined?) or larger number of some new J-20/J-31 variants? But I’m pretty confident we’ll see at least another 300-400 more J-10s before its production run for China ends.

FC-31 doesn’t exist either, really.

What does exist is two demonstrator planes. 00031 and the second, redesigned, one. FC-31, IF it gets the funding to go ahead, will most likely be heavily based on the second variant. (it still may see further changes and redesigns) But until there’s a confirmed customer for FC-31, that’s a paper project.

PLAAF or PLANAF may or may not have ordered a plane based on those demonstrators. Or they may or may not order it in the near future. That plane in Chinese service may or may not get called J-31. Basically, despite the rumors abound, there’s been no actual confirmation or any sort of hard photographical evidence to CONFIRM Chinese armed forces have signed up for financing the project.

maybe this text can help, though it talks about commercial use of ro-ro ships in soviet times.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0308597X77900458

Nastle, what sort of game are you working on, all this time? 😀