Trident, supporting the idea of a militarized Il96, either as a tanker or an AWACS, you are missing two facts, first Il96 is since long time a dead project as for commercial aviation, second any serious military conversion of a commercial airliner took time, money and plenty of engeneering resources.

There was no reason to push Il96 for military roles because there was no economic sense investing extensively in some civilian airframe when it’s going to be phasd out of commercial aviation.

This is not related with theoretical advantages of Il96 airframe, it’s strictly related with costs vs. benefits.

All in all, a native military airframe, already proven and assimilated, is ways better than a derived commercial one with no present or past prospects, barring future ones.

As for Il76/Il476, if they actually reengineered the whole desing up to the tiny bits, turning it in really CAD/CAM driven design, it will open two potentially tremendous prospects: getting any future modification/upgrade quicker and more proficient, and switching from the old fashioned manteinance on schedule to the more efficient maintenance on condition.

I think to be on safe ground thinking the An70 was not a CAD/CAM driver design, and it is still confined to the expensive maintence on schedule philosophy.

An70 is absoultely a winner as a concept, still it could hardly be a real world winner in its present iteration, and its time is running out very quickly.

Actually, its time could already be ran out, we can blame past political harshness between Ukraine and Russia, still it won’t change An70 is a brilliant concept turned in a technically old and almost dead design.

I agree with the view that Su-34 is a bit of a relic from past’s operational doctries and requirements.

As a Su-24’s replacement, it would have been great if inducted in service around a decade earlier.

Right now, it will fail to get the same chance to accomplish a strike mission and/or to survive it of a Pak-Fa, that I’m inclined to think about as something more apted to strike/intediction roles than air superiority ones, and will miss any strategic relevance/meaning when the alleged Pak-Da will debut.

About the RuAF aircraft inventory, it needs to be heavily streamlined.

The Su-35 is the right hot spot to look at: if it really has the operational advantages claimed to be, there is no reason to order in tiny numbers while still upgrading decades old Su-27 and even worst operating Mig-29s.

Mig RAC should have been allowed or forced to merge (really merged, with all the redundancies and consolidation processes related) with some other company not specialized in fighters aircrafts like Tupolev or Yakovlev (I would bet the first one would have been a almost perfect complement for Mig) and saved not through a lifeline connected to the Mig-29 family, but instead giving it a chance to compete in other markets even ad a second tier company.

Right now, I would cann a whole bunch of models: Mig-29, Su-27 earlier models, Tu-22 (what are they good and required for? Maybe against China and no more than that?) and so on.

Provided Su-25s are not easily replaceable, I will just replace all of Mig-29 and most of Su-27 with Su-35, retain Su-24s just waiting for Pak_Fa to enter service with an addiction of Su-30 and disbanding the Tu-22.

Within a decade, I would bet on a combat line comprising only four models: Su-25s for the mudfight, Su-35s for anything from air superiority to BAI, Pak_Fas to take all the most demanding mission from Su-35s, and Su-30s for anything requiring a second crew member.

Well, I think it makes little sense ofr RuAF to get any single seater version of Yak-130, when there are plenty of Su-25 flying around.

Neither I would make a business case of such a development for the export market, too much effort for too much resulta.

What could be actually interesting, it is a purely software/on board computer package able to turn the basic trainer in a light attack aircraft after a mere few hours of field workshop’s modification.

Something such swapping mission computers, turning on on board system, resetting the cockpit’s data presentation software et voila’, you got a light CAS/COIN aircraft, provided with a pilot and a WSO.

That could be actually tempting for many Air Forces, getting just packages on top of the training infrastructure, without any hassle about a dedicated airframe.

Whenever the russian electronic industries wll be able to get it, a really small and light ISAR radar in the nose would be the most demanding upgrade, anything else should be integrated only as external payload driving down overall costs.

^^^
Saab Draken ripoff! :diablo:

Indeed, I think Soviet Union would have been better designing something along the lines of Gripen, just larger, but with the very same philosophy: extreme ease of manteinance, strongly multirole, with the bigger engine they could get around (either a spin off from D-30 or NK-33 maybe?), and overall really cheap to mantain, again the same very way of Gripen.

I suspect they just didn’t have a viable model at hand, and chose to exploit one common theoretical model both for Su-27 and Mig-29 ending with a twin engined “light” fighter, and had no care at all for the maintance and management needs of their customers abroad.

Not necessarily, at least not with modern AESA arrays and lighter processing equipment. The Israeli G550-based CAEW has more endurance and a more capable system than the A-50 despite being based on a significantly smaller platform.

And with the number of Russian aviation production plants that are wanting for orders why couldn’t room be found for a dedicated military MS-21 limited-series production line?

I find it quite difficult to believe.

G550 huge range is accomplished only with a puny 900 kg payload.

Any further kg put in payload would mean less fuel embarked and at the same very more deadweight.

So G550 CAEW’s real range should fall well short of theoretical G550’s range, and I mean very short of it.

And because AESA modules are quite heavy, I doubt those comformal arrays are fully packed with modules, I find it more likely the modules are spread with some space between them to exploit the surface available to gain some more angular resolution.

Both payload and power supply limits make very unlikely those array are really that large

that’s not saying much.. the A-50 is an old, huge, outdated system.. its like saying my iPhone has more computing power than a huge Apple IIe computer

Are you really comparing different generation electronics in relation to power absortion?

I could ask you what has more computing power, your IPhone or my old P4 @3Ghz, equipped with a 7800GT videocard, several GByte of RAM and so on?

Well, my old workstation require a good 420W, it’s a little bulkier than an IPhone and it’s not that fancy, but I believe can still hold his ground.

What if I upgrade it (the case, I mean) switching to a Pentium i3 with all the bells and the whistles?

Ok, it’s still a couple of years behind an IPhone, it’s still bulkier and far more power comsuming, but nonetheless it could provide some slighty better performance and capabilities than an IPhone.

This is a very, very, small market.

The same is very true for any strategic air transport aircraft or tanker.

AWACS even much more, but they are in another league.

An AESA antenna of 1 ton really is no big deal, on an airliner. The Erieye antenna is about 900 kg. Look at the size of the aircraft it’s mounted on. Fighter radar antennae have CG implications, because of their position, & fighters have to do a lot more than carry a radar. The radar is a tool to enable them to do their main tasks. For an AEW aircraft, the radar & C&C suite is everything. It carries no bombs, no missiles.

Raw power & size of antenna is important, but it is not the only thing that counts. If it did, why upgrade the A-50? Sophistication of software, processing power, etc. are all important. Nor does aircraft performance in itself make one system better than another. It helps, but the radar system is more important.

Installed thrust most definitely is not the main factor! You seem to believe that because some fighters have more thrust than some AEW aircraft, that makes the AEW aircraft useless against them. Tell me, do you know what a radar does?

I think he was saying an AESA antenna is as much as 1 ton heavier than a similar size passive antenna, and it could be even a conservative estimate.

Electrical power available is depending on the engines’ power output, if you have an aircraft which installed power is far less than a usual figther, you can start drawing the limits its radar, its processing units, its comms wouldn’t be able to overcome.

Obviously software and DSP are of paramount relevance on real performance, still with a small electrical power output you can not get much.

Again, I cannot conceive how could be more economical, and get more export success, developing two different families of aircrafts, still financing a third legacy one (Il-76) that you simply cannot write off for at least a decade or two anyway.

And there is little actual requirement for the oversize cargo mantra.

Real world lessons tell us that only wars like Afghanistan are requiring a fair amount of oversize cargo hauled by air, while even in Afghanistan most cargo is shipped by Il-76s and even smaller aircrafts, as C130s.

And most likely foreign operators won’t need at all to move around MBTs and medium helicopters by air.

Obiouvsly Il-76 is not C-17, or A400M.

It’s not only decades older than them, it has been designed from the outset as a strategic air transport, without any goal to make it landing and taking off from airstrips just few kilometers away from the frontline.

All my arguing around engines and techical support was related to PS-90 and PD-14 against D-27.

PS-90A could not be very appealing as ofr their maintenace costs, still they would be a viable option for those countries, let say Venezuela, Iran, Cuba or some asian ones, not able to grasp any engine delivered with some critical US or EU content.

This apply whether we talk about military cargo aircrafts, tanker, AWACS, whatsoever.

Providing a technical support centered around one single family of engines, incidentally available in some russianmade commercial aircraft too, would mean less costs and less troubles.

And as a further option, PD-14 would provide an engine both 100% russian and really competitive.

When users would be immune from bans and embargoes, there is as bonus the chance to get P-90A2 and get support through Lufthansa Technik, which is building the MRO network for SSJ100, and likely will do the same for MS-21.

The real problem around An-70 is the lack of a real economical edge, it would dictate more costs thorugh many little additional costs.

This is the reason I doubt VVS really needs it, and I don’t believe there is a real chance it can compete in export numbers against Il76/476 notwithstandind it better performance.

If it won’t be the case, years and years ago somebody else would have stepped in the rpoject, either LM still looking for a C-130 replacement, or some chinese manufacturer (incidentally having good budgets available for such ventures) or India.

Everyone still saw some actual cons, and everyone saw too little pros.

As for Il-96, it imply makes no sense, there is virtual no commercial base and it’s ways too large, it would require both another supply and training chain to VVS, and a likely deep upgrade of many air bases, from hangars to service areas.

It has 10 meters wider wingspan and it is 3 meters taller than Il-76, no existing tanker base in Russia would be able to operate it on a regular basis without a good upgrade.