Nick_76Kudos to China. Instead of this, however, I wish the PRC had sent its astronauts* to the moon itself. One more huge step for mankind.
* I find the term taikonauts to be cheesy..
Nick_76Nick76,
Do you have more information on engine upgrade ( RD-33 Srs 3 8700-8800kg thrust rating or something else like RD-43)? Also, are the attrition replacements going to be new-built or remaining white-tails MiG-29As? Thanks.
Hi Grizzly,
The engines will be RD-33 series 3.
http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?idr=500&id=702187
There is no surety yet about attrition replacements being ordered. But if they indeed were, I’d wager zero houred airframes, either old or new.
Nick_76Havent seen any figures for either radar coverage, for any chinese aew&c platform so far.
For that matter, these figures are hard to come by even for their western equivalents.
Nick_76Bah, I dont even know why folks are trying to rebut this “Euros cant do AESA” stuff.
Euros will do AESA provided someone foots the bill. Nothing more nothing less.
MEADS apart, there are several Thales AESA designs, including M3R and MASTER-A IIRC, plus there is that Arty tracking radar as well.
Nick_76Actually i am tired of talking about MMRCA again and again ,now i am waiting for nov so this jets are evaluated and by june 09 we might have a winner so wait for some more months
Indeed! Terrible waste of bandwidth and …what an utter bore. Death to topics devoted to the MRCA!! 😎
Nick_76(And I decline to write an off-topic essay about whether the European Jaguar/Jap T-2/F-1, or the Chinese J-10/Israeli Lavi, are twins separated at birth, or independent domestic developments?)
No, you should write one.
I for one, have always been fascinated about the Japanese T-2/F-1 and its common heritage, looks wise with the Sepecat Jaguar.
The Jaguar has indeed seen its day in RAF and FAF service, but in India it will soldier on for another 2 decades.
Nick_76Oh please, I think you might want to take a look at the real world.
By your deliberately restrictive and derogatory interpretation of what ‘reverse engineering’ entails, if might not make much sense, but thats not how things work in the real world.
Oh please ..yourself, by your needlessly petulant response, I can see you are bent upon taking pointless umbrage, and I really dont have any time to waste upon a long response to a long post of yours which then leads into another pyrrhic exchange. You are welcome to your views, but I might add that many dont share your acceptance of the manner in which the PRC “reverse engineers” military tech & the manner in which it does it. Real world & all that..of course, you are free to disagree & defend the PRCs actions etc. It really doesnt matter either which way..so ..
Regards etc.
Nick_76Here are pics of a new Be-42/A-42PE
I thought it had turbofans??
Nick_761. “Obsolete” is a totally wrong adjective here.
2. US weapons – what are you talking about? Automatic rifles? Because what we’ve seen were Ukrainian (Soviet) Buks and MANPADS, Israeli battle management radars, comms and IR tank imagery, Cobra APCs, German assault rifles…
As for intelligence – sending a Tu-22 recce against a very potent and still not supressed AD is certainly a proof of great intelligence. And yes, I know that didn’t have UAVs and had to react quicly…
Which Israeli battle management radar was used by Georgia?
Also, did you mean an Air Surveillance radar or a battlefield radar..?
Nick_76RSM,
Thanks for that informative post. I agree the training schedule matters and not just flying hours.
I am sure that if the balloon had ever gone up, ie if war had broken out (and luckily it never did), they would have been competent at their tasks.
What do you make of the Israeli victories over the Russian crew during the wars? I think it was more of being caught off guard and without proper support which did the trick.
Nick_76Yup, I picked that up wrong. As for the detection ranges: They all seem very vague, no matter the manufacturer. It always seems like they are tiptoeing around giving away real(istic) performance figures for definite targets.
American/ Western manufacturers dont release details at all. Russian/ eastern manufacturers are very open till they get export details, whereupon details dry up.
The one system about which some details are available is the basic 624mm Zhuk ME radar system, which can reportedly detect 5 Sq Mtr targets at ranges upto 150-160 Km. Tracking ranges are around 0.8 of that. For western manufacturers we have to depend on AvLeak and other sources, which are not reliable or cent per cent correct, but thats whats available.
Nick_76There was/is no such thing as “line” and “non-line” pilots in the USSR/Russia. It’s a term coined by journalists or people who have lost contact with the military since WWI. The USSR did not have “reserve” pilots, the way the Swedes or the Swiss do, so there is no such term as “line/non-line” pilot when applied to the Sovs/Russians.
There was, however, a gradation sistem that was intended to reflect the pilot’s expertise and take into account the fact that pilots are a bl**dy infatuated folk worldwide 😀 and badly need nice badges to feel special.
So after graduating from a Military Flight High School/Institute, every Soviet pilot basically had a minimum flying hours in his logbook – in the Russia of the 90’s, this requirement was of course often disregarded. In the course of his learning years, a Soviet pilot received basic squadron tactics and technics education, and quite extensive flight experience. But the schoolwork did not stop by then – the cadet receives a “pilot 3rd class” badge and proceeds to master the combat duty proper in a given regiment – depending on the aircraft type he was specialising into during the final years in the Flight School.
The 2nd grade – 1st grade progression was not only a function of flying hours but also of the number of specialisations aquired by the pilot – for example basic combat tactic; basic combat application, night operations, air-to-ground operations, clearance for different weapon systems etc etc.
1st grade pilots could then become flight instructors – but that necessitates a new “schooling” programme.
“Sniper pilots” were/are a über-1st-class gradation – it’s mostly honorific and certifies that the pilot is a pilot 1st class who has vastly exceeded the minimal flying hours requirements, has been cleared to fly several types of aircraft/helos, has had constitutive combat/combat application experience and a conclusive experience in combat/combat training use of all the types of ammunition he is cleared to use. That’s why test pilots are usually “simply” 1st class pilots and not sniper pilots, as their qualification presupposes little real combat/combat application experience but much more testing/flight research/tech expertise.Now, concerning the real/supposed/official performance of Soviet/Russian tech: Soviet military hardware was very officially designed with several levels of “limitations”. For example, the official “G-force limitation” could well be beyond the military “combat” limitation and be in turn below the real max. G-limit. The reasons for this are multifold and would vastly expand the scope of this post, so I won’t elaborate here.
But the fact is that we know that:
– in a famous incident in the mid-80’s, a Foxbat survived a 7G and returned to base before safely landing with critical rivets simply blown away and the canopy incrusted in its casing
– a Tu-95 returned to base with its upper fuselage resembling a waffle after surviving a violent dive recovery
– what was the range at which the infamous Ukrainian S-200 downed the civilian Tu again?
– what was the range that the famous pilotless MiG-23 covered before crashing somewhere in Western Europe again? 😉
What were the minimum number of hours or sorties that a 3rd, 2nd and 1st class pilot would fly?
Also, agree about overengineered aircraft- the Soviets/Russians pay a weight/performance penalty, but the bloody thing always performs when asked to, and it does its job well.
In IAF experience, the Russian gear was often more rugged & even EMI/EMC resistant than the fancy new western gear.
Nick_76Strange claim about lack of spares the special relationship of Russia to India in mind. There was never a shortage of that, except some strange behavior about that in the IAF.
😮
That “special relationship” was in tatters once the Soviet Union broke apart.
After that, for a substantial period of time, till the late 90’s, the only thing special was cold, hard cash & even after that there was no guarantee that any spares would be delivered or that they wouldnt be second hand.
The MiG-25 was no longer supported by MiG, & would have been phased out but for the fact the IAF couldnt afford its own sats and long range UAVs/ electronic whizbangs to compensate.
So they kept the MiG-25 going with a TTL & locally built spares. When they were retired, the MiG-25s had a minimum of another 2 years to go before the life extension ran out.
There is a big difference to operate a fighter well within his ordinary performance envelope or at the edge of that.
Which is why training matters. If you have a good training set up adapted to the fighter in question, then it should suffice.
Nick_76Another issue is of how the Russians did pilot training. In most western AF’s, the pilots are all trained to a common standard. I remember reading the Soviet AF/s used to have “sniper pilots”- the experten, and the line pilots, and the former got better resources, etc.
Could be absolute BS for all I know.
Pit, might have more details. This appears to be his area of expertise, or RSM55/ Martinez’s.
Nick_76I agree and out of that comes a major shortcoming of the whole weapon system MiG-25 as it was required and finally designed: it could never really perform as it totally outgrew the operational procedures at that time, and totally saturated the operators.
An air force that operates Yak-28 and gets handed over a MiG-25 will ultimately fail in using it. Flying is difficult, handling the engine is difficult, using the weapon system is difficult, and still only one Valeriy is sitting at the controls.
Maintaining such a machine looks like a epic challenge, too, when most Soviet squadrons had problems with the MiG-23, which is less complex in most areas.Few landmark missions flown by specially picked pilots under specially picked conditions falsify the image.
Actually, pilot saturation was a huge issue even with the Starfighter.
Well I have to disagree here.
Every new gen system with radically new performance parameters requires careful handling and detailed doctrinal evaluation to fit it in properly.
If the USAF is to get x F-22A’s, its not really the planes fault if the USAF were not to plan properly and the average rookie straight from flight school is thrust into the aircraft without proper training or the like.
Similarly, the MiG-25 as an aircraft is surely maintainable and a robust, well made design. If an IrAF, after a decade of mismanagement could use it in combat & decades after being declared obsolete it could go head to head with modern fighters & survive, purely on speed & hack/slash – its a tactically useful plane.
Plus the IAF kept its handful of recce Foxbats going despite lack of spares, and by reverse engineering the critical ones required, modifying the plane itself. All in all, its a good design which has stood the test of time.
I dont think its the planes fault that its users, namely the Arab AF’s, didnt use it to the best of its ability.
That doesnt mean its the best plane eva, ,loollzzz and all that..it just means it was a good design.
My 2Rs/-.
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