Little known fact (courtesy of Twower) is that Transas of Russia has something like a 45% world market share in the maritime ECDIS business and they equip a lot of US Coast Guard ships and the ENTIRE German Navy with maps and navigation systems. This is an area where Russia actually leads the way.

Transas also won a huge order to modernize the bridges of hundreds of Japanese merchantmen like a year ago. Transas is one of the few legit Russian high-tech success stories since the Cold War ended. Russia may not build too many merchantmen today, but their nav systems can be found on the bridges of half the new ones built today.

Transas has also rather famously branched off into avionics too with their KBO family of avionic suites. And of course, they are trying to make a go of it in the UAV business as well with the Dozor family — basically the only decent models in Russia today.

It was indeed 2 helicopters, probably Mi-24’s or the new Mi-28’s based in the region. They havent disclosed the type involved. One helo splattered 6 fighters in the first volley and that scattered roughly a dozen more who got picked off by the second.

http://newsru.com/russia/29mar2011/umarov.html

Dezhurny Regim means general search mode. On paper Furke is a decent set for a corvette sized installation. Have they worked out the rough sea problems with the installation on the lead ship or is it still buggy as hell in rough waters because of the weak superstructure?

Thats not a simulator he’s in but a centrifuge. The “sidestick” is just an emergency brake for the centrifuge. While they spin him his hand has to constantly be on the stick holding down a button, when he starts to lose consciousness his hand lets go of the button and the stick and the thing automatically stops. This guy testing the flight suit is some sort of uberman who stays awake through 8g’s. Most people are out cold somewhere around 6.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ryanair-may-spend-billions-on-cheap-chinese-jets-2527367.html

Ryanair looking at MS-21’s or C919 as possible 737 replacements?

Its unlikely that the electrical system of a Su-30 can power an Irbis radar without serious changes. These Su-30’s were purchased for training purposes only. They are not meant for actual combat therefore the radar is irrelevant.

Russian refineries until 2009 made jet fuel to the old GOS-10227 standard. They could not and did not manufacture jet fuel to the ASTM of DEF STAN standards used in the US and EU. Russian jet fuel had a higher sulfur content, and had other impurities that rendered it smokier by default. Stick it in a fancy Western engine and you will still get smoke. That’s why even the Flankers were smokey. The RD-33 does have a combustor problem, but all Russian jets smoked and they smoked because of the fuel they were getting. Any technical deficiencies only added to the problem.

Since most domestic flights are still made on Tu-154’s and 134’s it was no problem but with the growing number of Airbus and Boeing jets in their fleets they went and harmonized their jet fuel standard as of Jan 2009. Feeding that impure stuff to those high tolerance Western jets was never a good idea.

Its unclear to me whether the air force is even taking delivery of fuel made to the new standard. To save money they may still be buying stuff refined to the old standard — wouldnt be very surprising. In any case, their stockpiles of the old stuff should only have run dry within the last 6 months or so.

The more serious problem is that the Russians have lost their ability to even refine aviation gasoline! None has been made in Russia since 2004. They import their aviation gasoline for turboprops and the like from European refiners. Russian petro chemical companies are basically ATM machines for mobsters, ministers and oligarchs (3 words that mean the same thing) they are very reluctant to invest their money in anything new and in anything in Russia so the worlds #2 oil producer finds itself essentially unable to refine aviation gasoline today.