The Airplane Thread

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by Llarry

Given the amazingly long mission durations that the B-2s sometimes fly, I suppose 12 MHz HF capability makes sense, but surely they also have satcom available...

Yes, as well as a VLF radio that can talk with submerged Ohio-class submarines. I suspect that they deploy a *very* long wire antenna for the VLF radio, but don't know what they are using to shield it from nuclear EMP damaging the internal electronics from that long wire being towed behind.....

[M-technik-3]

What I find crazy is the mission duration's and lack of an augmented crew. The spend a serious amount of time on GO pills.

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by M-technik-3

What I find crazy is the mission duration's and lack of an augmented crew. The spend a serious amount of time on GO pills.

Agreed. We ran three pilots to be legal for a 24 hour duty day (26 under wartime rules), and we had two flight engineers and a bunk room.

The pilots had to be a minimum of an Aircraft Commander, First Pilot and Copilot, although in the Reserves, you frequently flew with combinations of much higher crew qualifications.

I did some of the "stop and go" tests "back in the day" that were focused on allowing the crew to do long duty days followed by short crew rests. No thank you-- retrograde amnesia from the "stops" is just.... weird.

R.

[vreihen16]

From what I read, the B-2 pilots train for what to eat before each long-duration mission to avoid stinking up the single chemical toilet that they somehow managed to squeeze in behind the seats. One pilot they interviewed said that a turkey sandwich was their choice, which sounds odd because eating turkey makes people sleepy.

I wonder if Uncle Sam sprung for the heated/cooled/massage pilot and co-pilot seat options when they bought those planes?????

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by M-technik-3

What I find crazy is the mission duration's and lack of an augmented crew. The spend a serious amount of time on GO pills.

I never have understood why the B-2 didn't have an extra ejection seat for a relief crewmember.

[Llarry]

I may have posted this photo before, but I just think it is a great photo of an awesome aircraft: Tupolev Tu-95 (NATO "Bear") bomber.

I think I'd get a nosebleed just making the long climb up to the fuselage!

[Llarry]

Speaking of Tupolev's unique swept-wing turboprop-powered heavy bomber, here's a quick introduction.

The Tu-95 first flew in 1952. In many ways it was a counterpart to Boeing's B-52 heavy bomber of similar vintage but Tupolev's choice of extremely powerful (almost 15,000 hp each!) turboprops differentiated it from the Boeing. Initially the Tu-95's mission was the dropping of conventional or nuclear bombs from internal bomb bays, but as the years passed it was adapted to other uses, including the carriage of cruise missiles.

Over 500 were built and various versions were flown by Soviet long-range aviation and the Soviet Navy. Naval versions were used for maritime reconnaissance (MR), targeting of Western naval units by ship and submarine-launched cruise missiles and signals intelligence. The only sales outside the USSR were to India, which operated an MR/anti-submarine version (now retired) for some years.

The Tu-95 was also adapted as a passenger aircraft, the Tu-114 (NATO "Cleat") and that version was adapted to serve as the Soviet's first airborne early warning aircraft, the Tu-126 (NATO "Moss"). The numbers were small: just 32 Tu-114s and about a dozen Tu-126s. These are both long retired.

The Soviet Navy also adopted an MR/ASW version that was designated Tu-142 (NATO "Bear F"). About 33 of these remain in service with the Russian Navy.

The Russian Air Force still operates almost 50 of the Tu-95 missile-carrying version although recent attacks by Ukraine have eliminated a number of these from service.

Like the B-52, it appears that the Tu-95/142 is destined for a service life of well over 75 years.

As many navy veterans can attest, the Bear is an extremely loud aircraft; the propellor tips exceed the speed of sound. I suspect the noise adds to crew fatigue as they must put up with it for many hours straight.

[Llarry]

The fiscal year 2026 U.S. defense budget was submitted to Congress on June 25th. Some of the numbers seem disappointing to me; the budget requests only 43 new Navy and Marine Corps aircraft //snip// with this slow pace of procurement the cost per aircraft goes way up.

This situation reminds me of an anecdote about the budget for Coast Guard aircraft in the 1920s. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but the story goes that the wife of a (Coast Guard officer? Congressman?) was said to have suggested that instead of the relatively high cost of buying batches of aircraft, "Why not have just one airplane and let the pilots take turns flying it?"

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Yes, as well as a VLF radio that can talk with submerged Ohio-class submarines. I suspect that they deploy a *very* long wire antenna for the VLF radio, but don't know what they are using to shield it from nuclear EMP damaging the internal electronics from that long wire being towed behind.....

Are you certain about the VLF capability? That is a daunting task for an aircraft, which is why the E-6B and the future E-130J exist. Their trailing wire VLF antennas are many thousands of feet long.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by Llarry

Are certain about the VLF capability?

If we can trust Wikipedia, it appears that the function was contracted and later cut:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northr...r_developments

In 2013, the USAF contracted for the Defensive Management System Modernization (DMS-M) program to replace the antenna system and other electronics to increase the B-2's frequency awareness.[73] The Common Very Low Frequency Receiver upgrade allows the B-2s to use the same very low frequency transmissions as the Ohio-class submarines so as to continue in the nuclear mission until the Mobile User Objective System is fielded.[citation needed] In 2014, the USAF outlined a series of upgrades including nuclear warfighting, a new integrated processing unit, the ability to carry cruise missiles, and threat warning improvements.[74] Due to ongoing software challenges, DMS-M was canceled by 2020, and the existing work was repurposed for cockpit upgrades.[75]

I assume that the HF radio also uses a long-wire antenna (what's "deployed" in the screen below), but that's probably only 12 yards long and not the monster needed for VLF:




.

[Llarry]

German aeronautical engineer Anton Flettner invented a new type of helicopter in the 1930s that eliminated the rare but often disastrous failure that came when the tail rotor of a more conventional helicopter failed. The clever arrangement placed two rotors side-by-side and intermeshing, eliminating the torque effect. The Flettner Fl 265 and later Fl 282 were flown in the 1930s and 1940s, but did not go into production due to Allied bombing.

Flettner emigrated to the USA after World War II and became the chief designer of the Kaman Corporation. The Kaman prototype first flew in 1953 and was later adopted by the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. The initial versions were powered by air-cooled six-cylinder engines, but subsequent models used much more powerful radials with 600 hp. The Navy and Marines bought training, observation and utility versions, but their purchases were dwarfed by those of the Air Force, who went big with gas turbine-powered HH-43B and HH-43F versions. In the first half of the Vietnam War, USAF crews performed heroic rescue missions of downed aircrew until the small H-43 was replaced by the much larger HH-3 Jolly Green and HH-53 Super Jolly rescue helicopters.

While the H-43 Huskie has disappeared from the skies, a descendant -- the Kaman K-MAX -- lives on today still using Flettner's intermeshing rotor concept. The K-MAX has been used for military resupply, logging and other lifting tasks.

[Llarry]

The Sukhoi OKB (design bureau) responded to the development of the U.S. F-15 Eagle in the early 1970s with an impressive large fighter meant to contest the F-15 in any potential face-off. The prototype was the T-10, which was ordered into large-scale production as the Su-27 (NATO "Flanker") and entered service with air defense and Frontal Aviation forces in 1985.

The Su-27 was slightly larger than its American counterpart and offered similar Mach 2-plus performance. It also had substantially more fuel capacity, although the competition was closer when the F-15 used conformal fuel tanks. The -27s configuration somewhat resembled the F-14 Tomcat, with widely spaced engines flanking a "tunnel" in between them. With its larger size and greater fuel load, the Flanker needed more engine and got it: Twin Saturn AL-31F afterburning turbofans had substantially more thrust than the early F-15s.

Early Su-27s, like F-15s, concentrated on air superiority and interception fighter missions. As time went on, ground attack weapons capability was added.

The Flanker proved to be an export success as well. Upon the breakup of the USSR, a number of republics retained the Su-27s that were stationed there. China obtained several dozen starting in 1990. As is usually and predictably the case, the Chinese then started building their own Flankers, designated J-11.

Forty years after service introduction, the Su-27 numbers are dropping, but a number of used Soviet/Russian examples have been supplied to other nations: Angola, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Vietnam.

The Su-27 Flanker was just the opening bid in the development of the Flanker family of combat aircraft. Counting Chinese production, over 1,100 were built. But many more derivatives have followed, and I'll cover them in another post.

[Llarry]

Russian aircraft firm Mil already makes the world's heavy-lift champ helicopter, the Mi-26 (NATO "Halo") which has a maximum takeoff weight of over 120,000 pounds.

In the 1970s, Mil explored a unique three-rotor/six engine heavy lift helicopter, the Mi-32. The Mi-32, which remained a concept and never flew, would have had a max takeoff weight of 140 tonnes and a lifting capability of 60 tonnes.

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by Llarry

The Su-27 Flanker was just the opening bid in the development of the Flanker family of combat aircraft. Counting Chinese production, over 1,100 were built. But many more derivatives have followed, and I'll cover them in another post.

Many more SU-27 derivatives have followed and I'm having trouble keeping track of the many versions. Partially as a means to boost sales, Sukhoi has designated advanced versions as Su-33, Su-34 and Su-35; I'll try to get to them all.

An early addition to the lineup was the Su-27UB two-seat training version -- see photo.

Sukhoi also began development of a carrier-based version quite early after the air force versions entered service; I'll cover these as well.

[Llarry]

The Su-27 Flanker was adapted to Russian Navy use in the 1990s aboard aircraft carriers. Unlike Western designs, the Russian carriers did not incorporate catapults but use ski jumps -- and a lot of engine power -- to takeoff from the ship. Initially known as the Su-27K, the naval Flanker was designated Su-33 upon service entry in the mid/late 1990s. By comparison with the air force versions, the -33 had strengthened overall structure and landing gear and incorporated folding of wings and elevons (the latter feature unique to the Su-33 as far as I know) to reduce the footprint when parked on deck. The Su-33 also featured canards for a total of three lifting (canard, main wing and tail) surfaces.

Due to Russian budget limitations, fewer than 50 Su-33 Flanker-D carrier fighters were produced. Attempts to market the aircraft to China and India were unsuccessful. Only about 19 Su-33s remain in service and Russia is planning to replace or supplement the large and heavy Flanker with the lighter and more compact MiG-29K Fulcrum shipboard fighter.

The Chinese navy has also developed the Flanker into a shipboard aircraft; I will post details separately.

[Llarry]

I suppose I could've approached the SU-27/etc. story as "Flanker Friday" but my short-term memory isn't what it used to be and I've built up a good head of steam, so here goes the next chapter...

While the basic Su-27 had some ground attack capabilities, the Sukhoi OKB and the Russian air force wanted a real multi-role fighter analogous to the F-15E Strike Eagle. They started with the two-seat Su-27UB combat trainer and enhanced its combat capabilities with a two-seat Su-27PU version. The result was the Su-30, which has been produced with several variations. Among those are the canards first seen on the Su-33 (which enhance maneuverability but reduce max speed slightly) and three-dimensional thrust vectoring of the AL-31 engines for enhanced maneuverability.

Production aircraft were designated Su-30SM, which first flew in 2012 and became fully operational in 2018. Export models were sold to Malaysia, Algeria, China, Myanmar, Venezuela, Uganda, Indonesia, Angola, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus and India. All -30s are two-seat multirole fighters. Well over 600 Su-30s -- both Russian and export -- have been produced so far. Some of the export customers operate relatively small numbers of the -30, though the Indian Air Force is the largest user of the type.

Russian Su-30SMs have been used extensively in the war with Ukraine and Sukhoi has embarked on a modernization effort for the -30SMs.

[Llarry]

The latest attack version of the Flanker -- the SU-34 -- is so revised that it has a new NATO codename: "Fullback". The forward fuselage is totally revised, with an armor shell around side-by-side crew seating and crew entry/exit via a floor hatch. To compensate for the extra weight up front, the tail stinger is longer, increasing overall length of the airplane. The maximum takeoff weight is also increased substantially to just under 100,000 pounds. Power is provided by up-rated AL-31F engines. Despite the power increase, max speed drops to about Mach 1.8.

As typical in the post-Soviet era, development and production have gone slowly. First flight came in 1990 and service introduction followed some 24 years later. Over 150 Su-34s are in service and the plan is for the Fullback to replace the Sukhoi Su-24 Fencer and the Tupolev Tu-22M bomber. The only foreign customer that I am aware of is Algeria, though some sources deny that a sale has been made.

In 2022 a modernized Su-34M version began deliveries. At the present rate, it will take many years to replace the Su-24 and Tu-22M.

I have not addressed the weapons carried by Flankers and Fullbacks but the latter planes have 12 hardpoints on fuselage and wings and can carry an impressive load of weapons.

[Llarry]

The most modern of the Russian Sukhoi Flanker family is the Su-27M or Su-35, sometimes informally referred to as the Super Flanker. The -27M Flanker E first flew in 1988 but only a dozen were built -- primarily as export sales demonstration aircraft. The Su-35S Flanker M first flew in 2008 and has been produced and exported in numbers.

Like all members of the Sukhoi Flanker family, the -27M and -35S use fly-by-wire controls. They are considered Gen 4.5 fighters with only minor consideration given to stealth. The radar was significantly upgraded in these versions and thrust vectoring is standard. While the Su-27M had canards, the later Su-35S does not.

Although the Su-35S was intended as an export model, the initial order came from Russia. Algerian and Chinese orders followed and the total built is over 150 to date. Negotiations over PRC purchases were protracted, as the Russians were perfectly aware that China often bought small batches of imported aircraft and then reverse-engineered for large-scale domestic production. On the other hand, the Russians were perpetually cash-poor, and it was difficult to turn down sales despite the future implications. While the Chinese have been good customers, future orders are unlikely.

I'll cover the Chinese Flankers in the next post.

[Llarry]

Hopefully, I've not caused anyone to fall asleep or become nauseated by all this Flanker talk... the good news is that this is the final installment of the series.

The Chinese got their start with purchases from Russia. As is typically the case, purchases were followed by license production, then by reverse-engineered Chinese copies. Sukhoi and Russia, in need of cash, understood what went on but chose to look away.

Chinese production of the basic J-11 Flanker fighter began in 1998 of the J-11 Flanker B-Plus and Flanker L is now well over 450 aircraft. Land-based J-11s are in service with both the PLA Air Force and the Naval Air Force. As development and production continued, Shenyang substituted Chinese components replacing copies of Russian equipment. The one weakness of the Chinese aircraft industry has been high-performance engines; they have made strenuous efforts to overcome this deficiency, and recent Flankers have been observed with Chinese WS-10 engines. Production of the J-11 appears to have ceased around 2018. (See J-16 below)

While no purchases of ship-based aircraft were included in any agreements with Russia, Shenyang obtained a single example of a carrier-capable Flanker from Ukraine in 2001 and used that to reverse-engineer a carrier fighter that is designated J-15T (NATO "Flanker X2" or "Flanker K") and first flew in 2009. Since then, they have produced 80-plus multi-role carrier fighters to equip their two ex-Russian ski jump-equipped aircraft carriers. Shenyang has also spun off an electronic warfare version into a two-seat J-15D aircraft and have developed an aerial refueling pod that can be used by one Flanker to refuel another. Any guesses as to how closely the pod resembles the pod used by the U.S. Navy? With the imminent entry into service of the first catapult-equipped PRC aircraft carrier, the J-15 numbers will probably grow until the next-gen advanced carrier fighter becomes operational.

In common with the other Flanker variants, the internal fuel capacity of the J-15 and other Chinese versions is excellent.

While the J-11 is primarily a air superiority fighter and has limited ground attack capabilities, Shenyang introduced a two-seat multi-role Flanker in the 2010s that was designated J-16 (Flanker N) and have built over 350 since 2017. Like the carrier-based J-15 EW version, Shenyang has also developed and built a J-16D EW/jamming aircraft for the PLA Air Force.

Newer designs have emerged in China and have entered service, but it appears that the J-15 and J-16 continue being built. In the heavyweight fighter category, the Flanker overall takes the honors as most produced, with about 2,200 built so far. (The F-15 lags behind at 1,600+)

[Llarry]

Now that the thunderous noise from Flankers has faded, here's an Oregon Air National Guard F-15C in interesting colors.

ORANG's 173rd Fighter Wing in Klamath Falls flies out of Kingsley Field, which also serves as the municipal airport.

The field is named after the pilot of a bomber on the famous raid on the Ploesti oil fields in 1944. The bomber was hit by flak and lagged behind, thereby becoming an easy target for German fighters. The pilot, 2nd Lt Kingsley, lowered his landing gear in a gesture of surrender and ordered the crew to bail out. The tail gunner was unable to find his parachute and Kingsley gave the gunner his own. All the crew but one bailed out and Kingsley's body was found in the wreckage. He was awarded the nation's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor and ultimately the field at Klamath Falls was named in his honor as well.

This F-15C features markings seen on the bomber that fateful day (as well as some over-the-top invasion stripes from D-day).

I think the latest is that the 173rd, which serves as the F-15C training unit, is scheduled to get F-35A Battle Penguins.