Sorry about breaking my promise, but there are some real gems in JSR’s reply…
Optimum altitude is going to be as near as makes no difference the same for both the Il-476 and Il-96. Whether you make them fly at sea level or 10000m is not going to make one iota of difference, the effect of altitude will be same for either of them and the Il-96 will *always* do it 30 to 40% more efficiently. Same with the effect of the radome, which would actually be further away from the wing and hence outside the most critical part of its potential flow field.
Also, how do other air forces use their AWACS differently? You’re certainly not going to find anybody who flies it at low altitudes where both endurance and radar horizon are worse (not that, as pointed out above, this would actually make a difference anyway).
You are just grasping at straws, at the end of the day the aerodynamics of the Il-476 are quite simply every bit as outdated as you’d expect them to be on a 40 year old design.
Most of airlines are 40 year old design with minimal improvements in material. see 737-200 and 737-700 wedge tail AWACS. The rest is just avionics and engines.
And you don’t have any data of putting several ton aerodome on IL-96 and than its efficieny and speed. Who knows the materials used in IL-96 are not suitable for big aerodome at reasonable cost.
It is almost certain that most of them were never given the choice of anything else, so that’s not saying much at all.
I am sure they were given choice but with large price of modification of IL-96. otherwise why they keep producing IL-96 but not offering for AWACS/Tanker. Remember India cancel Tanker order due to high price of A330MRT.
Which ever way you look at it, the project is two years behind schedule at this point, that is a FACT. As of 2009, it was supposed to fly in 2010 and enter service this year – it still hasn’t flown and Zelin went on record last year as saying he expects service entry in 2014.
Again, don’t believe me, feel free to google all of these dates and stop inventing rubbish.
A400M is 20 year behind. That is 1980s idea that supposed to go early 1990s in production. And your complaining about 2 year delay when it is much cheaper and superior product.
Debatable. As I said the Il-76 was indeed the best choice back when the platforms for the Il-78 and A-50 were selected 35 years ago, but it no longer is today. It can still do the job, but it isn’t nearly as good at it as the Il-96 would be and probably isn’t even cheaper, so while it’s an effective solution to the problem it is also an extremely inefficient one.
Why would you deliberately choose the inferior alternative of the two?
It is still the right choice that’s why it is still most numerous airlifter in operations.
http://www.breakbulk.com/air/volga-dnepr-expands-il-76-fleet
Russia’s Volga-Dnepr Airlines has added a fourth modernized IL-76TD-90VD cargo aircraft to its fleet. The plane is designed to carry cargoes up to 50 tons, filling a need in the international cargo market.
“The demand for modernized IL-76TD-90VD services is due to its ability to operate globally without restrictions and because older versions of the aircraft are gradually being taken off the market,” Dennis Gliznoutsa, vice president for Volga-Dnepr sales, said in a statement.
Built by the Tashkent Chkalov Aviation Factory, the new freighter successfully completed its first commercial flight on December 31 from Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport to Bahrain before returning to Moscow. The new aircraft was delivered from Tashkent to Ulyanovsk, Russia, in November.
The air carrier plans to take delivery of a fifth IL-76 in May 2012.
Photo shows new IL-76, courtesy of Volga-Dnepr.
No connection between the equipment which a foreign airline operates into your country and what is available to your military.
Reading comprehension, dude!
China can observe the long term reliability and efficiency of the A330 and 777 until they’re blue in the face, they’ll still never be able to develop an AWACS or tanker based on these airframes without manufacturer cooperation.
There is direct connection.
C-17 will never succeed to same extent without Boeing commercial big offices around the world. China is customer of IL-76 military. There is no reason for not offering them IL-96 modifications. When it is clearly in production. Infact the new IL-96-400T will spend most of time flying to China
Exactly. While I would no longer agree with that assessment of Chinese capabilities today, it was certainly true at the time. So they were locked into the Il-76 because they were dependent on the cooperation of Ilyushin (who had already decided against the Il-96).
So basically you admit that First IL-76 was modified by Vega that went to Israel in 1990s and all other KJ-2000 are Russian products. There is no Chinese modification involved. So what makes you think they can do it now.
Overall it probably will be worse than the Il-476 initially, simply because they likely won’t have an engine in the class of the PS-90A for some time. But the airframe? It is hard to see how they could do worse, frankly – the Il-476 is just a 40-year old Il-76 with some structural strengthening. Any modifications, however small, beyond that on the Chinese clone will suffice to put it ahead once they get a decent engine on it. That is not to say that their transport will be a world-beater, it just goes to show how disappointingly far behind the curve the Il-476 actually is.
It not just engine. It is new aerodynamic with new materials. Otherwise how on earth you can increase flight cycles.
737-700 is also 50 year old basic design but it is still suitable for AWACS.
The Il-96 fuselage cross section is 60% larger by area :rolleyes: Hell, its small cross section is a big part of the reason why the Il-476 is inferior to the An-70 in the transport role!
Area is not the same thing as width. IL-76 is pretty wide for its size.
None of this has mattered for other air forces and chances are none of it truly matters for Russia either. They ended up with the Il-76 as the basis for the A-50 not because of rough field and STOL performance but because it happened to be the most suitable airframe available *at the time* by everyone else’s criteria, such as endurance. As with the Tu-126 which went before, I don’t think STOL and unprepared field capabilities were strongly valued by the Soviet military for this role, it just happened that the most appropriate platform was pretty good at them. These special features were a by-product which Western observers have come to retroactively rationalise as deliberate when it really was more of a coincidence IMHO, although I’m willing to be corrected.
Besides, it is always dangerous to develop kit which is too specialised for the requirements of one user only if that home market is no longer large enough to sustain you on its own. This is precisely the kind of attitude that killed the British aircraft and warship industry so comprehensively, as compared to their much more successful French counterparts. As the UK armed forces shrunk to the point where export sales became not a luxury but a necessity, the military top brass continued to insist on weird special capabilities of dubious operational value. Not only was the end result optimised for things nobody else cared about at the expense of core performance attributes, the challenges of meeting these white elephant specs frequently priced it out of the export market too.
The A-50 enjoyed some success because one customer (China) did not have access to anything else while the only alternatives available to other (India) were very risky or inferior by *conventional* standards. Look for example at how unimpressed their military top brass is with the Il-76 platform in the tanker competition, as opposed to the A330MRTT (which is an even more fragile thing than the Il-96, compare wheel size and number!). If Ilyushin had seen the writing on the wall with TAPO and offered to co-fund Phalcon deployment on the Il-96 I’m willing to bet that, 1) India would have gone for it and, 2) Ilyushin would be so much better off for it today.
Just because you can write long paragraphs does not make you an expert.
A330MRT makes sense for India as India can be hub for A330 maintainance as most Indian airlines will buy this thing for long time to come. And you have to look at corruption angle. Indian airforce pilots may want to get trained on this one as after retirement A330 with private airlines is big incentive.
IL-476 case is different. It will be the most numerous aircraft for Ruaf and private firms. So long run it will be cheaper for them to buy it in hundreds and create that unique ability in niche market in terms of pilot training and maintainance. see Volga and Air India profits comparision.
UK/France comparion is irrelevant.. The debt load on economic system is way beyond they can manage. They simply cannot afford create nich categories.
Even for mass produced A350. Significant portion is now coming from US and soon China. They simply cant manage mass produced stuff let alone creating nich categories.
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2011/10/first-spirit-a350-parts-to-hea.html
UPDATE 10/24: The first panels from Spirit were delivered on Sunday. Operating as Polet Flight 4478, the An-124 departed from Kinston enroute to Bangor on Saturday for a fuel stop before crossing the Atlantic for St. Nazaire
The An-124 will likely be a rare sight in Kinston as Spirit plans to typically deliver its fuselage panels by boat to France, while its wing spars, also built in North Carolina, will be dispatched to Prestwick, Scotland on their way to Broughton in the UK. The shipment will include the 65 ft-long upper crown panel, twin side panels that include door three, and lower shells, weighing nearly 9,000lbs.
Strictly speaking, MESMA is on French submarines, but if you say so… :rolleyes:
What ever is in semantics. It is much smaller AWACS than 4 engine A-50.
Er… what? Pound for pound the Il-96 is some 30 to 40% more efficient with the SAME engines – according to Ilyushin’s own data. This is an indisputable fact, the Il-476 has atrocious aerodynamics by today’s standards.
Again, no need to take my word for it, just ask Ilyushin themselves. Or do you know better than them?
Becarefull with statistics. As ranges are calculated at optimal altitude and long range flight like 10,000km. Different airforces uses AWACS differently. And no body knows the effect of that big rodome on aerodynamics.
They are free to choose from what is offered, and as I said it is actually understandable why Ilyushin did not offer the Il-96 back then (as this was quite a long time ago).
IL-96 is in continuous production since 1990s. unlike IL-76 that needed to be tested and beefed up with PS-90 engines and new cockpit for A-50EI. The amount of work on A-50EI was far greater than producing a standard IL-96.
And then you will have to (re-)certify the modifications for the new radome. Modifying the Il-96 should be even easier. BTW, how is it that a well-funded, straightforward modification of an existing aircraft like the Il-476 can suffer such *massive* delays (2 years and counting, soon it’ll have caught up with the all-new A400M)?
That’s why I am saying IL-476 is so superior for its AWACS role that all customers like Ruaf/PLAAF/IAF waited for its modifications and not experiment with anything else.
IL-476 did not suffer massive delays. It started after 2006 and will enter service around 2013 at fraction of development cost of A400M.
So?
Are you trying to say there was a different aircraft available at that time which would have been more suitable? If so, why did the Soviets not use the more appropriate platform?
IL-76 is suitable for its role as AWACS and tanker.
No, it’s because there is actually no connection whatsoever between what civilian equipment a foreign airline operates into your territory and what is available to your military.
Frankly I’m amazed that you can bring yourself to type this kind of rubbish with every indication that you actually believe it.
No connection between Civillian and Military? So how come this A330MRT and all KC tankers started from Civillian aircraft. Military want to observe the long term reliability and efficiency of Civillian aircraft. Chinese find IL-76 more suitable. They are the largest export customers of D-30 engines. And Chinese tried to put the largest export order for IL-76/IL-78M. why did India chose IL-78M in first place. When transport company can afford IL-96. there shouldnot be problem for Airforce if this thing is saving so much fuel.
They couldn’t, because somebody in Russia decided they didn’t want to build an Il-96 AWACS.
So now your claiming that Russia put that big antenna on Chinese AWACS?. Chinese are simply incompetent to modify a big aircraft. Russia made decision for them.
so why you made a claim that new Chinese transport is going to be better than IL-476. how you came to this conclusion..
You cannot be serious.
I doubt they care, why would they want such a relic from 40 years ago anyway?
This is going to be my last post on this subject, JSR is now completely incoherent and clearly has no points to make that aren’t already covered by the 8 verifiable items mentioned in my previous post. If anybody is interested in the cold, hard facts on this issue rather than JSR’s preposterous inventions, that’s the place to look.
I am completely coherent. Infact I have proven beyond doubt the choices of three air forces for A-50 AWACS. These are cold facts based on real world testing. Not some paper specifications. A-50 has big X-section and strong airframe and that’s what matters for giant AWACS.
How exactly do you propose those completely ludicrous numbers will be achieved? Current orders stand at about 40 transports for the VVS, let’s be *extremely* generous and assume the A-50/Il-78 fleet will be replaced by A-100s one for one and we get at most another 60. Then there might be a handful (say 20) of orders by commercial customers and maybe 60 (including tanker/AEW)from foreign air forces that can’t access anything else and if the An-70 dies the VVS might get 40 more. This is already a HOPELESSLY unrealistic scenario and it gives us, with frivolous levels of optimism, 220 airframes in total.
Actually 400 is the low end of the number. Mobile strike forces are now most important part of Russian reforms. 25 AWACS/100 Tankers (there will be no single or medium size aircraft left in VVS. Ever thing is getting bigger fuel tanks). One tanker at most can refuel 6 aircrafts. And 250 transport is minimum. And that number is without any export or Civil operator. 100 minimum number for MTA. MTA/IL-476 is supporting each other. They are essentially two aircrafts into One.
Actual sales are unlikely to be anywhere near that, especially if the An-70 survives, since in that case the only customers for the Il-476 will be the Russian government and entities *heavily* dependent on the latter. Everyone else will go for the An-70, A400M, C-17, KC-767, A330MRTT and Western AWACS solutions – my best guess is, counting ALL variants, about 100 and that’s certainly not the worst case scenario either.
Western AWACS? The only large AWACS is A-50EI western or KJ-2000 from China or A-50U upgrades in Russia. The rest are all small or older upgrades to E-3.
How An-70 going to survive over long term. There is PD series engines coming up that will be shared among all UAC aircrafts. At this point An-70 is not part of that family.
C-17 will be getting more and more expensive. Boeing will not produce it once yearly production goes below 8. I have even more doubts about A400M. EADS simply don’t have money. They have blown it all on A380/A350. They will have to raise the price of A400M much more due to lower production rates.
This is because some misguided group of people obviously WANTS it to have stable production (for reasons best known to themselves), not because that is really in the best interests of the Russian aerospace industry as a whole. Had they WANTED the Il-96 to have stable production instead then that is exactly what would have happened, but one can only conclude that this did not offer the same personal benefit as the Il-476 to the people in charge of making the decision.
IL-476 is required and IL-96 replacement is civil aircraft. So they cannot wait for IL-96 replacement to do modification work.
Irrelevant for AWACS. The Il-76 as the basis for the A-50 came about not because of rough field capabilities, but mainly because it had the best endurance of all suitable platforms available to the Soviets AT THE TIME. Same story with India and China, they could not care less about its ability to use unprepared fields, but in absence of acccess to a more appropriate choices they are stuck with it as the lowest common denominator too. Ever since the arrival of the Il-96, none of this remains true for Russia, however.
So India does not have access to Boeing/Airbus aircraft?. Because IL-76 was cheaper and engineering work was already done in modification. Rough field performance is most critical. A-100 need to be parked at same place where rest of VVS will be parked during exerices or strike. It simply cannot use Civillian airports.
Will have to be re-done, because a major structural member (namely the wing box) very close to the antenna mounting point has been redesigned and the antenna itself will also be new. If any, the savings over converting the Il-96 from scratch would likely be so small as to pale into insignificance compared to the dramatic performance advantages over the Il-476.
The antenna on A-50EI is much larger and thicker than A-50U. so how that was done in 1990s?. because it is doable quickly and cheaply. The airframe is very versatile. How big is antenna relative to size of airframe.
Again, not because there is anything wrong with it but more likely than not because somebody in a leading position has a vested interest in backing the Il-476 instead. Whoever they are, they’re DAMAGING the prospects of Ilyushin with this decision, not helping them. The company is now staking its entire future on a single airframe which from the word go will be hopelessly outclassed by foreign competitors in each of its many roles, severely reducing its export appeal.
How many transports in pix.
http://oplatsen.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/ryskttpflyg.jpg
IL-476 will remain in production for next 40 years. When all those C-17/A400M/An-70 production lines will be closed. This is the only airlifter that matters.
It’s sad really, from a 1998 perspective the Il-96 had potentially a very bright future (way beyond even the present date), but difficult circumstances and very poor decisions have combined to thoroughly sideline it at this point.
IL-96 is fully supported and is in production. It is just it does not meet the requirements for VVS or PLAAF. The two potentially large clients that can turn its fortune and create stable production.. Infact this IL-96 is on regular flights to China. Why not Chinese create AWACS/Tanker based on this platform.
Why they created KJ-2000. And what prevents them from creating AWACS based on IL-96.
It seems PLAAF like there IL-76. That they constantly ordering engines for them and will buy even second hand. Polet got all 4 in about 5 years time and they want more of these as China-EU flights are profitable
http://www.ruaviation.com/news/2011/3/2/187/
Polet Airlines’ representative office opens in Beijing
Polet Airlines carries out two flights to Beijing and two flights to Shanghai every day carrying equipment, consumer goods and electronics. The company carried 32 182,399 tons of cargo in 2010 using Il-96-400Т aircraft.
With out any wet taks on Su-35S, the mission range should be the same on both Mig-31 and Su-35S.
It all depends on what cruising speed and altitude.Mig-31 Combat radius: 720 km (450 mi) at Mach 2.35
If you reduce the Mig-31 speed to transonic or subsonic the range obviously increase..
Same deal with climb rate, upon take-off the Mig-31 is a slow super heavy truck.
But at supersonic speed the climb rate should be like second to none..
I have read MIG-31 climb rate is only 208 m/sec. obviously far less than Su-35. TWR is very important . All i am pointing out that aircraft may have higher top speed but inferior in all other parameters like Acceleration/climb rate. since PAK-FA is much sleeker and have superior engines to Su-35. It may sustained higher top speeds. and it is confirmed by Ruaf that its top speed is superior to F-22/J-20. so it is reasonable to deduce that PAK-FA is much closer to MIG-31.
F-22 is more similar in concept to MIG-31(even same big afterburner flame) but if You add TVC to MIG-31 it will dance like F-22.
http://en.rian.ru/mlitary_news/20120213/171286237.html
“After a comparative analysis of the fighter’s characteristics with the U.S. F-22 Raptor and Chinese J-20 stealth aircraft, we can conclude that PAK FA exceeds the foreign analogues in maximum speed, flight range, maximum takeoff weight and the maximum overload value,” Zelin added.
This is ridiculous. Are you trying to say that the F-22 needs afterburner to take off while the T-50 doesn’t ? All on the basis of photographs?:confused:
Do you even know the basic performance parameters of the F-22? do some reading on the plane. Most combat aircraft can take off without afterburner if they are lightly loaded enough.
Stealth aircrafts are heavier and draggier than others. so no one is going to lightly load for fuel. Most airshow routines should be heavy fuel loaded as afterburner is generously applied. I havent seen this big flame from side of T-50 yet.
when ur standing right to aircraft at night. u will see the flame. but once ur in the air T-50 afterburner is much smaller. most of the time u will not see it unless ur directly line of sight of engines. u have to be very close to see the afterburner. certainly not from miles. Powerfull IRST will be able to see it from some miles but not from great distance.
Think of it as the difference between the F-16 and the Japanese F-2. Its very clear.
Actually F-2 is the biggest failure of Japanese industry as they failed to modify F-16 for 21st century. They should have created Japanese JSF from F-16 design. since it entered 20 years later. what were they doing for 20 years?
It neither has internal bays nor it can suercruise with same 20 year old engines.
JSR, i don’t think the unpainted T-50 is taking off, but landing …and i’m having doubts about 51 aswell…
I seem to have plenty of pics with T-50 taking off without AB.
Here’s one with AB aswell.
(c)Marina Lystseva
Unless you see directly into the engines. the flame is pretty much contained for T-50. F-22 has that big flame u can see it from the sides.
You’re right, it doesn’t do it for extended lengths of time but it does do it (M1.8 SC) i cannot see PAK-Flankers doing that with the old 4th gen engines it’ll be running on.
I dont see any big flame coming out during takeoff of PAK-FA. engines are sufficient for the task. PAK-FA is even faster than F-22 as design very flat. with long length. there will be sufficient fuel for extended supercruise. No one is going to use F-22 engines in any other fighter upgrades. they are simply outdated now. F-22 seem heavy aircraft that need afterburner at low altitude.
Sign In
