Well, for a start, if you can find any way of turning out a 1,700 bhp + powerplant on a run of 20,000 copies for less than $10,000 do let me know.

Moggy

hmmm, how did the soviets during WWII do it then? and why do the engines have to be just for this plane?)

perhaps the new ones with the new imported engines can be considered block 2. Or those that actually ever pass the IAF standards can be called block 2.

I assume you mean $100,000, and even then you are pushing it with the simplest Pipers or Cessnas being considerably above this figure despite long production runs and no armament or defences fitted.

Moggy

No, let me put my neck out here and say the base IL-2 today, built en mass (say, over 20,000 units) in the third world could cost that much. Remember the materials used on the IL-2 and compare them to what is used on Cessnas. Also remember that 10k is a lot of money in the third world..

In my opinion the Chingkuo is a generation behind the FC-1. If you look at the cockpit pictures you can clearly see the difference. Internal fuel and top speed are better for FC-1. The FC-1s diverterless inlets also give it better performance at high speeds. As long as the Chingkuo is not armed with AMRAAMs I’d guess PL-12s would have an edge in BVR.

You’re only fooling yourself here mates, we all know what date it is.. :dev2:

I think the A-10 was way too complex and expensive to be produced in real numbers and was airfield based. I don’t think the segment that the mass produced IL-2 had served is identifiable in any aircraft flying today (perhaps except the FROGFOOT).

I agree with Garry B on the Guerilla warfare front but I am looking at the scenario of a large scale conventional battle. Numbers and simple, rough and ready platforms could clearly win an advantage after the first few weeks of any war today. Even the US airforce does not have enough funding to keep up with a decent number of A-10s. In a conventional battle over plains / deserts, a modernized IL-2 could easily be an overwhelming force that overrides all that comes its way. Even if we don’t upgrade the armor on the IL-2, you can literally fly one over a ZSU and survive a burst. And as GWII has shown, medium caliber weapons can cause a great deal of damage to modern aircraft. Armed helicopters are overcomplex, expensive, short legged and if we look at the examples today, complicated to train to fly. Further, they are almost all operationally tied to bases rather than to forces. The IL-2 could break through all these problems and do so at less than $10,000 a pop if manufactured en mass.

Clearly there is an opening here in the market, the strategic need and tactically. The power of the numbers you could field would itself be a huge advantage. As Stalin once said, numbers have a quality all of their own. (not that I like that chap personally).

I’d forgotten the A10 – I was thinking Spectre when I originally posted. Surely an update of the Warthog would be the IL2 for the 21st Century?

What do we read into the fact that there doesn’t seem to be one forthcoming?

Should I moderate myself and move this to ModMil?

So many problems 😉

Moggy

Moggy My Mod Man, I’ve actually been seeing this problem at a far deeper and philosophical level. Let me show you my posts pertaining to the problem I am attempting to solve.
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=66139

Now I’ve spent the last 3 years or so trying to dream up the perfect aircaft to solve this problem, rather than looking at the past, to design one from scratch. HOwever, I keep rejecting my designs after every few months they don’t look “perfect” any more. So I’m forraying into the past to come up with a solution and thereupon, on a theoretical secret garden came upon the IL-2. The single seater would be just perfect. At least if built in the 21st century, with a new engine, materials and weapons. Imagine an IL-2 coming up firing anti tank missiles, cued by a HMS, operating at night, flying over and releasing cluster bombs, coming up close and personal and no matter what you shoot at it with it more often than not survives. Imagine RWRs and flares and chaff. Imagine how cost effective it would be and what numbers you could field. For a first world force maybe not relevant but for a third world power this could be a great and effective way to get a decisive advantage. Obviously there are many caveats including the absence of enemy air superiority.