People who compare the Q-5 to an A-10 or Su-25 should check their heads.

The Q-5 is something like the Vietnam-era F-5 in the attack role: fast, with a short range, small payload and very little autonomous ways of finding a target. Give the Fantan a decent LRMTS and you could perhaps compare it to a Jaguar, but it doesn’t even have that. The only thing the A-5 will be able to do, is perform low-and-fast VERY tactical attacks, a lightweight Su-7 if you like.

As for the reputed Q-5’s ruggedness: interesting claims, especially since i doubt many people here have ever seen a Fantan from up close. Trust me, the thing is hardly a rugged machine in the Su-7/25/A-10/Buccaneer class. It looks actually pretty fragile, and some parts of it (like the wings) don’t seem to be able to take much damage. I believe it’s a single-spar wing, for example. Maneuvring that thing with damage to the spar doesn’t seem a good idea to me…

Also, the nice piece of hot steel protruding from the two jetpipes looks like a perfect IRH missile magnet. Not really smart to use in a MANPAD-rich environment.

Still, it is a very pretty and whoa cool aircraft. Would love to see one fly…

No, it’s in port most of the time. Too much Fluglärm for a comfy relaxing cruise.

Spasatel is big – it’s a SAR development of the Lun, and the Lun is the one with six Sunburn SSMs on it’s back. I don’t know if Spasatel’ ever left the factory, it had been in it’s finishing stages of production for almost a decade in the mid-to-late 1990s, and i don’t think it has been completed. Besides, considering the thing is in the factory at Nizhny Novgorod i doubt moving the thing to some other place (the Caspian or Black Sea for example) would go unnoticed even if it were finished.

This ‘N007’ could of course also be a smaller Ekranoplan, as the Soviets/Russians litterally designed and flew dozens of them. The WIG page mentions a lot, but there were even more (including those on the dump at Taganrog, damn you FSB for confiscating those pictures).

Here is the Lun, Spasatel looks the same but doesn’t have the missile tubes on the back. Not the sort of vessel to quietly visit some tradeshow in the US, as Ken nicely pointed out.

All MiG-29S are 9.13 / FULCRUM-C’s (i guess it’s about time i start writing these designators in caps…), but not all 9.13 / FULCRUM-C’s are MiG-29S.

I love Russian and Soviet designation systems. Let’s have three or more designator systems running simultaneously, but please do make sure that no one-on-one translation from one variant to the other is possible 😀

Nonono Flex, you’ve got it all wrong. Phantom actually saying ‘Thanks’ in what form is an absolute miracle.

The usual pattern is like this:

PhantomII:
“So can anyone provide me with a picture of XXXX, or at least give me some info where to look, especially on the weapons loadouts? I know you guys think i’m a whiner, but i still want to know.”

Then somebody else posts a picture as requested/gives the title to a book with the answer/compiles an answer here.

Then nothing.

Then a little bit more of nothing.

Then, either the deafening silence persists, or an answer like this comes up from our belaughed PhantomII:
“So why doesn’t anybody here want to help me out with my request? Anybody? I know you guys out there know this kind of stuff, is it because i ask the questions that you don’t want to help me? It is not even a question about my beloved Phantom this time. Is it because i am American?”

There are plenty of threads with this wonderful display of gratitude by our good PhantomII (check the Ju-87 thread on the Historic board), so Flex: you should definately feel flattered by Phantom’s wonderful and humble display of gratitude. Now if you could only help him with a weapons chart of the HU-25, that would really be great…

:p

Originally posted by Erez
PII, why are you so afraid of me?:(

He’s often afraid by nature, don’t worry about that 😉

Anyhow, as you know my highschool is close as hell to Tel-Nof (just to make my point – from a certain hill I can see them taxing on the runway)…

I believe that certain hill has already been found… unfortunately, i don’t think there were any recent mushroom picking trips through Israel.

Originally posted by Ja Worsley
Still retains the typical Russian look :p

With that rotor on top, you mean? Yeah, somehow Igor Sikorsky really put his home nation’s character on the helicopter concept 😀