Y-20 BaconIf anyone has the time, inclination and knowledge I would be interested in their thoughts on the current state of the Syrian Air Force and an estimate as to how long they could continue to operate at their current tempo. Flying daily ‘combat’ (I do not want a political discussion but will make the one observation that I think some of the ways Assad uses his airforce are absolutely abhorrent and do not properly fit the word combat) operations in a largely arid, dusty climate must take a serious toll on serviceability and they have lost some of their major airbases and supply depots to the rebels.
Further the rebels have made claims of shoot downs in the hundreds most of which are far from plausible but I could well believe fifty plus and have seen convincing videos of at least a dozen. They have also wrecked aircraft on the ground (thirty or so choppers at the captured airbases of Taftanaz and Mennagh, some L-39s at Dabba aka Al-Qusayr plus at least one MiG-23 with an ATGM at Al Dhour) while having Kweires and Al Dhour airbases under siege so I doubt anything could safely take off which is currently at those locations.
I suspect the MiG-29s are virtually unaffected but everything else is under some strain to varying degrees. If I was to guess I would say choppers the most so because they are easier to shoot down (and account for the bulk of verified claims like today) and will more often take battle damage even when they can return to base. That is made more likely because they are used daily to resupply remote army bases that the rebels have under siege. As mentioned Mennagh in particular looks like a helicopter graveyard.
how long can he fund his air force? the Syrian economy is collapsing from a protracted conflict.
not unless he gets substantial financial assistance from somewhere.. wink wink.
Y-20 Baconyes its all nice and dandy
but the forecast of its economic future isn’t so nice.
expect cuts.
Y-20 BaconHow about that, after the last two years of conflict and tension in the area, and after the shoot down of the Phantom, despite the huge number of SyAF aircraft and helicopter sorties, no such incident happened in all that time, but here it is happening EXACTLY now, when there’s hope of an agreement to avoid a war against Syria. Can you smell it? I do. What the hell was the Mi-17 doing at 14,000ft anyway? And boy, that was quick reaction, entered turkish airspace (they say) at 14.25 and shot down at 14.27. Did those F-16 first intercepted the Mi-17 according to international standards, i.e. fly alongside it, identify themselves, order him to follow and wiggle their wings, then if not complying, fire warning shots, and THEN if the Mi-17 wasn’t complying, shoot it down? CAOC issue “radio warnings” huh? What make them think (if what they say is true) that Mi-17 didn’t had a defective radio f.e., or was on a different frequency?
Again, i smell it from here. Mark my words, this story is a sham. Either the Mi-17 was shot down in syrian airspace, or if it really strayed 2 (two!) kilometers into turkish airspace, they quickly shot it down as a “lesson”, “revenge” for the Phantom, or other obscure reasons, you name it, ignoring any internationally recognized procedures in such cases.
it flew into Turkish airspace, they can do whatever they want.
Y-20 Bacontop 5? easy
the latest variants of:
exocet
harpoon
kh-35
rbs-15
c-802
thats all you have really.. that is in terms of subsonic AShM’s launched by fighter sized aircraft.
NSM when its fully functional should spank all of them though.
out of those five I do like the rbs-15 the best, good range and punch.
i guess you could argue Exocet is the most “combat proven”
Y-20 Baconso what advantage does this jet have over an Su-25?
Y-20 BaconGrifo – Derby?
PS-05/A – AMRAAM
Meteor also works with PS-05/A, but it’s only mostly foreign.
hm yes you are right about Grifo and Derby.
PS-05 is mostly a IKEAnized Sea Vixen which in turn is designed for AMRAAM.
Meteor, i will wait until its actually in service but I think it will eventually get there.
Y-20 BaconNo pointing starting a new thread for this but just wanted to let people know that I have joined the team at Think Defence as a blogger. A link to my first article below,actually not aviation related but nevertheless just wanted people to know. Feel free to disagree with my opinions on that site but I hope to post more aviation related articles in the future.
http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2013/09/new-stock-witham-specialist-vehicles-ltd/
congrats! looking forward to your news.
perhaps one day you can graduate to blog on Grande Strategy 😉
Y-20 BaconCaptor, Grifo-F, J/APG-1, Foxhunter?
Captor – designed from beginning to use AMRAAM
Grifo-F – not integrated with AMRAAM although they advertise it could be done (with time and money) if a customer wants
J/APG-1 – No. Japanese are trying to fly AAM-4 on it but not AMRAAM. its currently using sidewinder variants.
Foxhunter – you could be right on this one.
Y-20 BaconUm, AMRAAM?
Blue Vixen was designed from the start to use AMRAAM, its not an example of a BVR AAM adapted to a foreign radar.
I cant think of any French radar using AMRAAM for example.
Y-20 BaconHow could there be 200 victories when there were only 4 Egyptian aircrafts in the air at the time of the attack?
maybe you need to read more of it on Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Air_Force#The_Six-Day_War
and since you’re at it, do some reading on other Israeli wars before downplaying things you don’t know about.
leave speculative stuff in PLAAF thread, thanks
Y-20 BaconI doubt IAPO and KnAAPO management would have agreed to that – diversifying their production into the civilian field was something they were very keen to achieve. It is possible that NAPO would have received a bigger share of SSJ production, but I see no scope for taking all of it away from KnAAPO (same with the MS-21 and IAPO). Most likely my scenario could not avoid at least drastically “right-sizing” NAPO, if not outright killing them – but as I said, such steps are probably looming anyway.
600 includes (known) export potential and assumes a total Russian requirement of about the same number as Su-30SM, Su-35S and Su-34 orders combined, so the total wouldn’t change much – the price tag even more so, though.
apparently they also make An-38s
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/vietnam-in-talks-on-an-38-deal-with-napo-140023/
however again you are pointing out the core problem of Russian aviation industry and that they need an entity to prevent these factories from going rogue and competing with each other, to cooperating with each other and better split work than making their own variants of stuff.
Y-20 BaconReplacing all of the Russian orders for new Flanker variants with just one (well, probably a single/double seater combo on the same basic airframe) would have taken the total order book for that unified aircraft from slightly more than 300 Su-30MKI/MKM/MKA/SM to almost 600. I doubt IAPO could have handled that alone even if they wanted to, a work split between them and KnAAPO (as with the original Su-27) would have been practically inevitable. It is possible that NAPO would have been left out in the cold if they could not be given a piece of the pie (or work on another project – An-70? Bigger SSJ share? There are possibilities), but even then it seems inescapable that Russia cannot sustain ALL of their Soviet era aerospace production capacity in the long run – a more modest number of healthy plants would be preferable to a huge number that the state keeps having to prop up.
Not true. Acquisition cost would probably reduce somewhat, because an individual Su-34 is going to cost more than one Su-35S or Su-30SM.
There’d be a huge difference in development cost, however. As it is, from 1997 – when the Su-30MKI was launched – to date Russia funded development of 3 Flanker variants exclusively (Su-27M, Su-34, Su-35S) and contributed to a fourth (Su-30SM). My proposal would have been to dramatically increase the Russian contribution to the Su-30MKI/SM from the moment it was born to ensure it better met Russian requirements and cancel the first three immediately. If we assume Russia would have needed to chip in with about the same amount of money that it took to completely develop the Su-35S (a rather generous assumption) that would still have saved them all of the money ever spent on both the Su-27M and Su-34 since 1997 – and even allowing for sunk cost prior to that date this is bound to be an impressive sum.
Part of the money saved should then have been invested in upgrading the strategic bomber force more comprehensively (whether by drawing on work performed for the Su-34 or Su-35S/Su-30SM components doesn’t really matter). This would probably have given them about the same number of modern tactical aircraft and long-range strike capability but earlier and for less money.
had IAPO and KNAAPO been focused on making one flanker variant and there were no Su-34 orders, NAPO most likely would’ve taken charge more of commercial aircraft production.
In any case its Russia’s lost for holding on for so long to Soviet era production systems and management.
600 Su-30SMs made from 2000 and up sounds a lot better than just a hand full of SMs, 35S, 34s, MKs painted in varying un-standardized grey patterns.
Y-20 BaconI agree… but the question stands – is that necessarily a problem? On one hand you have to distribute the production volume among more factories, on the other side you keep the workforce level high (a perishable skill, IMO).
As with the state pouring money into different variants, I don’t see any problem in acquisition cost as they would have to buy those numbers, anyway. The only difference could be operating cost – I am not sure what is the %-age of interchangeable parts between a Su-30M2 and Su-30SM but it is surely pretty high.
Those plants most likely don’t have any product development capacity in the first place. Russia has a completely different system, with all pros and cons.
Yes indeed pros and cons. Would’ve been best during the cold war period.
But Russia is largely peaceful aside from the Caucasus.
Y-20 Bacon1. Most of the Arab aircrafts were destroy while sitting on the ground during 1967 war in a sneak attack. Any average pilot can do that.
.
way to downplay the 200+ air to air victories by the Israelis during that war.
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_264.shtml
good job Baghdad Bob
Y-20 BaconSu-30MKI/SM, Su-35S and Su-34 come all from different factories, IAPO, KnAAPO and NAPO. Setting everything on a single card (MKI) would have greatly strenghtened the position of the within Russian MoD rather inpopular Irkut plant at the cost of the much preferred KnAAPO and almost certainly effectively killed all skilled workforce at Novosibirsk.
which reflects the bigger problem of factories producing their own rogue variants and the state pouring money in buying different versions of the same aircraft in order to keep its workforce employed.
you don’t see Boeing’s Long Beach plant and Macon plant making their own C-17 variants.
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