verbatimThe Ah-1Z is the best example about the true reason “big is good”.
Until the previous version, AH-1 has been always a light attack helicopter, and suddenly, with the Zulu version, its empty weight has doubled even if its size hasn’t changed at all (and the same way the payload has doubled, too).
Payload nowadays is no longer related to the amount of tanks an attack helicopter could engage in a single sortie, instead it provide the mean to provide great flexibility.
And it’s of paramount relevance for helicopters as AH-1, because lacking internal room for fuel tanks, they have to heavely rely on the ability to employ additional fuel tanks attached to some of the weapon stations.
I’m pretty sure Bell has packed AH-1Z’s airframe up to the last available bit with all the new avionics, and this is IMHO evidence of the advantages of a big airframe, because if you deploy all the whistles and bells of modern avionics, you need a huge power supply, dictating powerful engines, opening the way to a larger airframe able to ease the integration process and giving more option for further upgrades.
verbatimMi-8 (All Variants): Many. ~500?
Wouldn’t that mean the death of the Mi-38 program?
verbatimAll that, and you still haven’t managed to explain why the Il-76 would be exempt from all the problems you describe here. It’s not that they don’t exist, it’s just that the Il-76 suffers from them just as much as all the rest.
At least, the whole supply chain has managed to keep a satisfactory prodution of spare parts.
About the emphasis around cross section and oversized cargo: oversized cargo is only a fraction of the whole, the rationale behind of the A400M design lay on the basis it has to be a jack of all trade, plus the operational requirement to move something really bulky, as a MBT or a medium helicopter in remote areas, Afghanistan to name one, where land transport would be risky or politically challenging.
And it would be in tiny numbers anyway, nobody is going to move even a single armoured battaillon by air.
Until Russia is not concerned to be involved in such kind of operaton like present Afghanistan, it would not be really needed.
As for prospective customers, if only an handfull of countries has ordered the C-17, despite western ones being the richest and most involved in MOOTWs around the globe ones, I wonder how many of the notional russian customers really have an operatonal requirement for a military cargo aircraft able to move one MBT around.
It takes just to have a look at the current operators’ list to realize that most of Il-7’s6 operators doesn’t have such a requirement and that they are more likely to SLEP and upgrade their existing aircrafts, adding maybe some newbuilt one, than to swap to a whole new type as An-70 with all the related transition’s costs.
verbatimTo start with, around twice the payload, better armour, more room and power supply for avionics, greater range.
It should be noted that actually there are two classes apart of attack helicopters, the light ones (AW129, Tiger, AH-1) and the heavy ones (AH-64, Mi-24/35/28, Rooivalk, Ka-50/52).
There are pros and cons with both, costs being only one factor.
The only reason I would pick up the heavy ones, is not about armour or payload, but it is about room and power supply availabe to avionics.
As whatever has to fly, the first and most vital line of defence is to avoid to be hitted, then to give the crew the better chance to survive when hitted, third and last to be able to withstand heavy damage.
About the AW129 rotor, described as “civilian”, it has been designed to withstand the standard russian 23 shell and it’s a very unusual design, with the mast hosting all the blades’ leverages and hydraulics lines internally.
verbatimThe original AW.129 has proved to be reliable ed effective, and there are no know issues related to vibrations at all.
It was conceived as a pure antitank helicopter, neither scouting nor fire support were conceived during the design and development phase, and it hadn’t any gun at all.
Following the deployment in Somalia in 1992, the need for something less “kinetic” than a TOW missile arose, so a lightweight three barrel gatlnig gun was installed as a refit, and the absence of internal room dictated thh external ammonition feeding arrangement.
The gun has proved in every actual mission to be really accurate, the only real drawback being its 20mm caliber.
Until now, the main weak points emerged in almost twenty years of duty, incuding several years of permanent deployment in Afghanistan, are the optronic package, nowadays severely outdated and to be replaced with a new israeli one, and engine’s output in hot and high environment, that proved to be not always good enough when operating with transport helicopter as CH-47s.
To speak it plainly, in the worst (hotter) days the transport helicopter(s) had to slow down to let the escort keep pace with them…
Anyway, Spyke’s integration is well under way, and the new targeting unit has proved to be able to feed targeting data to Lizard guided bombs (released by fixed wing aircrafts, of course) past their dropping, as in a “lock on after launch “fashion.
So until now, AW-129 has proved itself to both look good and work.
I’m not positive it could be said the same about Tiger despite several years of development.
verbatimThis argument around Il-476 vs. An-70 is getting a little too harsh, I suppose.
As my last note on the subject, I’m not denying the fact that An-70 is an overall better aircraft than Il-476.
I’m only fairly skepical that both VVS and most if not all potential customers of an heavy military transport aircraft manufactured in Russia are really in need of something like An-70.
At the very same time, I’m fully skeptical that An-70 is worth the efforts and the costs for VVS.
As a pure Il-76 replacement, An-70 will need a whole new support chain, and even the An-70’s engines alone will be quite unique with a little installed base, again driving up all the costs related to support and future upgrades.
It will costs more than an upgraded support chain for the Il-476, that’s quite a fact.
An-70 would not be able to replace in a timely fashion the whole Il-76 fleet, nor it would remove the need to support A-50 and Il-78 fleets.
That in turn would dictate two support chains, plus a likely upgrade program to keep residual Il-76, all A.50s and all Il-78s airwhorty for years and decades to come.
OTOH, Il-476 provides a straightforward way to get both upgrade packages for the whole family, and to get a smooth transition from tha present Il-76’s fleet to the prospective Il-476’s one.
That means a lot of money saved, that Russia could use to get new An-124s, and An-124 has really what it gets to haul any conceivable oversized cargo.
About Il-96, it’s not a puny aircraft, it is a giant, without a very large commercial fleet asking and paying for the technical support, VVS would have to pay a large amount of money only to get spare parts manufactured.
And it would costs huge sums, and take a long time, to get an AWACS and a tanker out of the Il-96.
It would cost so much, that it is ways cheaper to keep Il-78 as tanker.
You have on one hand one large family, able to do most if not all of the required tasks with lilttle effort, on the other hand the need to invest huge amounts of money just to put in service at least two different families, An-70 and Il-96, still supporting existing Il-76s for many years to come, and another huge amount of money of design just to design the required military variants of Il-96.
As very last thought, I wouldn’d discard the notion of a next step in the Il-476 development introducing a new wing in due time, when production will be under way.
Even if it’s costly to develop and certify a new wing, when the transition from Il-76 to Il-476 wwould be running well, and the production procedure well mastered, it could be attractive to develope a new wing, both as refit for legacy Il-76 and as option for new built Il-476.
verbatimI suppose it’s worth mentioning or recalling that even the An-70 is something designed during late 80s early 90s, amidst the turmoil that followed the collapse of Soviet Union.
While it has been designed to give a proper answer to the problems related with the hauling of oversize cargo, it’s from a pure technological perspective something deeply rooted in the old technological heritage, the same very way Il-76 was and is.
Even if its development phase is completed it will need a deep redesign process to take account of almost 20 years advances, and most of all to take account of the progressive acceptance in former SU’s products of the western maintenance philosophy.
So I don’t bet a dime about the reported estimates about its service induction costs.
Nor there is any viable option for tanker, AWACS and so on.
Il-96 is already dead, and there is no point, in any Air Force, to adapt a dead civilian aircraft to military roles.
The rationale behind military derivatives of any civilian aircraft is to exploit the civilian base, and its needs for support and upgrades, to get enormous savings in the aircrafts life cycle’s costs.
Adapting the Il-96 would translate in a white elephant which future costs would be 100% upon VVS.
So there is no alternative to Il-76 for tanker and AWACS roles, and in turn there is no alternative to further upgrade and support the Il-76.
Adopting An-70 and keeping Il-76 and A 50 would mean only to add another type to the inventory.
Adopting An-70, and Il-96 as tanker and AWACS platform, would mean huge costs to convert the Il-96, huge costs related to the transition of the transport fleet from the Il-76 to the An-70, huge costs to support the Il-96 derivatives in the future.
IMHO, the Il-96 option would be plain insanity, a limited amount of An-70, deployed as intratheater air transport acting as a feeder of the An-124s, would be reasonable, but it won’t delete the need for a deep modernization of Il-76 and its derivatives, and of course the Il-76 fleet would still be the backbone.
verbatimIMHO, if there is an attitude to bin or hamper Su-35S.s acquisition for the sake of RSK MIG, it would be a painfull mistake.
There is no rationale for Russia to aim toward a two tiers fighter force, brutally speaking prospective numbers don’t support two different fighters, and VVS in the end should consolidate around only one fighter type, i.e. a true air superiority one.
Su-35S could find a niche waiting for a full deployment and assimilation of PAK-FA, Mig-35 would be a waste of resources while VVS is in urgent need to modernize the whole of its aircraft inventory, spanning from basic training types to strategic ones.
If RSK MIG has to survive, first of all it should have been merged before with some other concern, second it should focus on something really new and competitive, and last but not least it’s quite debatable to promote as “light fighter” (that in turn suggest the notion of being quite cheap to purchase and operate) a more than 20 tons MOTW, two engined aircraft.
verbatimAccordingly to ITAR-TASS, PAK-FA’s development process is ahead of schedule, and VVS will have already on 2013 the first deliveries (would they be pre-production aircafts?) for State acceptance trials.
Is it conceivable it’s the main reason behind the blames Zelin put on the Su-35S’s performances?
Trying to articulate it better, I’m under the impression something is going on behind the scenes, either Su-35S is ranked really low by VVS, thus a shift to an accelerated acquisition process of PAK-FAs, or there is a strong political willingness to bail RSK MIG by any means, even through diverting the resources from Su-35S to Mig-35 or whatsoever else RSK MIG could offer.
verbatimHi guys, allow me to answer your responses one by one, ok? 🙂
Why do you think this? What makes the “civilianized” KC-390 a nice product that can only make a profit in som hard to get bush airport? When I say “standard”, I actually mean an aircraft so well suited to their operation that it ends up replacing many older gen cargo planes that they now use. Thus turning itself as the “natural choice” for these companies fleets…
Because a civilian freighter version of KC-390 won’t offer that huge payload, nor it’ll offer a really long range, to become more than a feeder.
I would add the issues related to crews type-rating, fuel efficency a stated by others, the integration withlong estabilished cargo handling and management.
Most cargo don’t need at all a RoRo capability, being palletized cargo.
The really revolutionary plus of KC-390, IMHO,is the ability to be a real STOL aircraft, able to handle both moderately oversized items, single heavy ones, palletized ones, maybe even mixing all of them.
Developing a network of airports able to operate standard freighters would cost huge amounts of money and the only way to recover such sums would be high fares charged on freighters.
You now lost me here… How different would be an airport able to operate the Civilianised KC390 be from a regular airport now served by 727s/757s, and MD-10s/11s? Quite the contrary! Airports that now CANNOT receive the current “standart aircraft” can now be served by the new KC390. If anything the new plane decreases local requirements and reduces landed time rising the companies operational efficiency. Do I make sense?
In your reasoning you are sticking only to “airfield characteristics” as a pro-KC390 argument but there is certainly much more than that, think about much MUCH faster loading and unloading times, no local external equipment such as generators, cargo elevators, loading belts will be now needed. Neither the significant local personel needed to operate them… Now, add the all the costs related to these systems, all around the world, and suddenly you have a pretty hefty yearly bill for these companies not to foot anymore.
Hammer
Beacause while wherever there is a good airport in place is really easy to schedule any kind of freighter you are in need of, spanning from an ATR-72 to a B767-300F, there are plenty of location too poor, as average income, to generate enough passenger traffic to justify the investments required for a modern airport, but still generating enough wealth to call for air transport services and provided with some small airport able only to operate an ATR-72 or something on the lines of the previous aircraft.
A mining or oil extraction area (in Latin America, Asia, Africa) could be a easy example of such a location.
A KC-390 could exploit existing mall airports boosting the kind of services offered, both in capabilities and in range, giving such places a chance to be effectively connected to the global services networks, enabling them to grow beyond the present single economy model.
verbatimAny statement about this episode being a victory of the Taliban is pointless speculation.
There is no knowledge whether it happened by chance, mishaps, poor planning or whatever else.
The only way it could be a real Taliban’s victory would be if it was born out of Taliban’s intel efforts, but I’m skeptikal about any chance it would be divulged if true.
verbatimLove the comments about this being a futile war… how many of you have served in it? yeah thought so. the soldiers that are there want to be there…. and its a war that can be won….. but not in a few months like most people want…. wars like the gulf war, won over a few months are NOT the norm. so you actually think it’ll be better if we withdraw and let afghanistan fall, meaning pakistan will too…. and then we have terrorists with nukes….. no….. i can see the logic in that:rolleyes:
RIP brave warrior brothers…. you wont be forgotten
I wouldn’t like to derail the thread, but it is upon the citizens to choose whether it’s an effort worth of the costs, not upon those fighting there.
I would dare to say that in most of the involved countries, people would choose to pull out of Afghanistan in a hurry, if actually asked what they think of their country engagement.
verbatimAs upsetting as this is,it is another loss in a long,pointless war.Operation Anaconda saw a few Chinooks get lost in the same way as this one.So,in a way,this isn’t suprising.Chinooks are not the best thing for hot/high ops. And to quad bike: Why would other nations want to send their aircraft in to get shot down and soldiers killed for no reason!?This is exactly why alot of the NATO nations have been WITHDRAWING from not only Afghanistan,but Iraq as well.
Actually, Chinooks are perhaps the best helicopters ofr hot and high environments.
Problems arise when they get hitted, as with any other equipment in the world.
The best defence is always a carefull routes’ planning and surprise’s exploitation, but when by chance or by enemy intel you get to the wrong place in the wrong time, there is little left to save the day.
verbatimI don’t think something like a civilian KC-390 could become any standard freighter, still it makes sense as a civilian freighter because many developing countries, Brazil to just name one, have huge economic potential in remote areas with low population densities.
Developing a network of airports able to operate standard freighters would cost huge amounts of money and the only way to recover such sums would be high fares charged on freighters.
A civilian KC-390 could allegedly operate from the already existing small airports able to operate just the little STOL aircrafts usually providing passengers transport services in such remote areas.
It could give a boost to the economic development of such areas giving them access to modern and fast air cargo networks without breaking the bank.
verbatimMaybe test pilots will have to push the aircraft into its very limit even about its ability to recover from a spin, and they are looking for a last resort to avoid any depictable mishaps and losses.
I would not surprised if an anti-spin parachute make its way into the prototypes to eventually disappear when the whole of the flight envelopment has been throughly tested and certified.
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