Be-200 Multirole Amphibian

This is a large aircraft and being able to pull up and simply climb over something is not always possible.

Just because the sensors tell you there is a cliff ahead does not mean the pilot can do anything about it.

In one article it did mention the aircraft had just dropped water on a fire so perhaps the pilot was expecting to be able to climb out of the area with the reduced weight... but this sort of speculation is pointless.

They will work out what happened and hopefully changes and improvements will be made.

GarryB wrote:This is a large aircraft and being able to pull up and simply climb over something is not always possible.

Just because the sensors tell you there is a cliff ahead does not mean the pilot can do anything about it.

In one article it did mention the aircraft had just dropped water on a fire so perhaps the pilot was expecting to be able to climb out of the area with the reduced weight... but this sort of speculation is pointless.

They will work out what happened and hopefully changes and improvements will be made.

I also heard a version that the engines could have been damaged due to spills through smoke and ash. Therefore, there was a lack of thrust to rise above the mountain. But this is only one of the versions

By the decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin, all the servicemen who died on board the Be-200 aircraft were awarded the Orders of Courage.

Among the dead was Colonel Yevgeny Kuznetsov, one of the best pilots of the naval aviation of the Navy, he was a student of the legendary pilot Timur Apakidze.
In the past, the commander of an aviation regiment in the Northern Fleet, was also one of the leading pilots during the tests of the Be-200, in particular in the Arctic. Holder of two Orders of Courage, medals of the Order "For Services to the Fatherland".


RIP

I also heard a version that the engines could have been damaged due to spills through smoke and ash. Therefore, there was a lack of thrust to rise above the mountain. But this is only one of the versions

That is a good point... jet engines work by sucking in fresh air and consuming some of the oxygen in the air it sucks in by burning fuel in it to generate thrust... if it flys through smoke or just air with very low concentrations of oxygen... a combination of altitude and fire you would lose power from the engines... and again you can't anticipate that or do anything about that as a pilot...

RIP.

They died saving lives and property as heroes.

https://www.reuters.com/article/climate-wildfires-algeria-russia-idAFL1N2PO1MR

ALGIERS, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Algeria has started talks with Russia to acquire four firefighting Be-200 planes after destructive wildfires killed at least 65 people, including 28 members of the military, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.

Hopefully the first of a decent chunk of orders.
They've obviously proven to be good fire-bombers but there are so few of them they're not going to last very long with the kind of attrition rate that can be expected.


Though in writing that, maybe its better to keep up a low rate of production over a long time?
Actually getting some big orders, accelerating production & then shutting down the line when orders run out would be bad when they want some more a few years of attrition later.

With low-rate production, while numbers may not get large there can be a new order of a couple more new airframes every so often keeping the line open to make up for attrition.

If they get a lot of orders they can make a few extra before shutting down production so that they don't need to restart unless there is a rather big order later on.

Be-200ES aircraft successfully completed its mission to extinguish fires in Greece. 

The Russian amphibious aircraft Be-200ES, which extinguished natural fires in Greece under a contract with the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC, part of Rostec), successfully completed the mission in this country, the press service of the state corporation reported.

"The Greek side highly appreciated the assistance of Russian pilots and engineers, as well as the capabilities of the Be-200, especially in difficult conditions - for example, in mountainous areas and with high turbulence. The total flight time of the machine was about 200 hours, the aircraft performed more than 800 cycles of water intake and discharge and dropped more than 5,000 tons of water on the fire centers" – Viktor Kladov, Director for International Cooperation and Regional Policy of Rostec, is quoted in the message.

The amphibious aircraft extinguished fires, including in the area of Limnia on the island of Chios, Varibobi and Vilia - in western and eastern Attica.

Source: 

G.M. Beriev TANTK has been provided with a balanced load until 2026.

Chairman of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Valentina Matvienko visited the Taganrog Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex named after G.M. Beriev (part of the transport aviation division of PJSC "UAC" of the Rostec State Corporation) as part of a working visit to the Rostov Region. 

During a working meeting with the participation of Rostec Deputy General Director Alexander Nazarov, the head of PJSC UAC, Yuri Slyusar, spoke about the loading of the enterprise and the implementation of the instructions given following the meeting chaired by the Speaker of the Federation Council last year during a visit to the enterprise. At that time, the need to provide the plant with new orders for the supply of Be-200 in the interests of Russian departments, primarily the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, was discussed in detail. In addition, plans were discussed to create a special squadron of Russian amphibious aircraft that can be used to help fight forest fires in Russia, as well as in the framework of humanitarian missions in hot regions around the world.

"Over the past two seasons, Be-200 aircraft flew 3,600 hours in combat duty mode, made more than 3,000 water discharges, extinguished more than 2,300 fires. This is an extremely efficient and popular machine. Currently, two Be-200ChS amphibious aircraft are being built at TANTK to replenish the fleet of the EMERCOM of Russia. In addition, the production of two more vehicles has begun as part of the project to create a future special squadron. It is planned that it will consist of ten aircraft. In general, the already established production plans ensure a balanced load of TANTK until 2026. And taking into account the high interest in the aircraft on the foreign market, we hope that in the coming years, export orders can give the enterprise an additional load" – Yuri Slyusar said.

Beriev Tank Company is a leading Russian developer and manufacturer of amphibious aircraft. Since 2016, the company has been mass-producing Be-200 aircraft in the interests of Russian and foreign customers. A deep modernization of production facilities was carried out at the enterprise.

The Be-200ES is the world's only amphibious jet aircraft. It can take 12 tons of water on board. The aircraft has a high performance in terms of the number of water discharges in one hour. For one refueling, the aircraft is able to drop up to 270 tons of water on the fire center.

Source: 

Unofficial sources in Telegram report that the production program for 2022 includes 3 Be-200 aircraft, 2 of them for the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The program for 2023 - 4 planes.

Russian_Patriot_ wrote:Unofficial sources in Telegram report that the production program for 2022 includes 3 Be-200 aircraft, 2 of them for the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The program for 2023 - 4 planes.

A question: have they ever tried to make an AEW /AWACS version of a Beriev hydroplane?

Something smaller than Be-200 and that could be moored on a ship would solve a lot of problems with existing STOBAR carriers.

marcellogo wrote:

Russian_Patriot_ wrote:Unofficial sources in Telegram report that the production program for 2022 includes 3 Be-200 aircraft, 2 of them for the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The program for 2023 - 4 planes.

A question: have they ever tried to make an AEW /AWACS version of a Beriev hydroplane?

Something smaller than Be-200 and that could be moored on a ship would solve a lot of problems with existing  STOBAR carriers.

It wouldn't be able to operate in the oceans. It need calm waters to take off.

But it could be used from lakes which is better than from airfields that can be destroyed. Unless if they are all far away from the front.

A question: have they ever tried to make an AEW /AWACS version of a Beriev hydroplane?

Something smaller than Be-200 and that could be moored on a ship would solve a lot of problems with existing  STOBAR carriers.

Don't think so. There was only the AN-71 and a wooden mock-up of the Yak44. There is a model of a Yak44 like aircraft on one of the new carrier models but with jet engines. I have a small drawing of a Su-33UB with a center line side looking radar that could have been proposed? Some time ago there was also a model displayed of an AWACS UAV.

Isos wrote:

It wouldn't be able to operate in the oceans. It need calm waters to take off.

But it could be used from lakes  which is better than from airfields that can be destroyed. Unless if they are all far away from the front.

Thank for reply but I will make a research the same as I didn't think seawortiness would be so scarce also considering that such an airplane, differently from a firefighting one would operate without any significant load (beside radar itself, obviously).
Also because in this case problem would be in take off only as it would surely be possible for an amphibious plane to land on a carrier.

Ironically the current and next AWACS the Russians have are Beriev aircraft products, though they are based on the Il-76 (A-50/U) and Il-476 (A-100).

The A-40/A-42 was a bigger aircraft and would benefit from having PD-16 engines instead of the four it used... they could certainly expand the idea and make a much bigger amphibious aircraft that could operate with aircraft carriers, but unfortunately the body shaping to make them able to land on water ruins their low drag design for long flight endurance that you want with an AWACS aircraft.

I was thinking though that a MPA version of the aircraft could carry a variable depth sonar that could be lowered into the water from the water surface to communicate with SSBNs, or hunt enemy subs in deep and shallow waters.

I still think and airship would tick all the boxes for the perfect AWACS platform for the navy... ironically most see them as too fragile but actually a rather big airship could be made of modern light weight very strong materials and with clever design including purging the air between the internal gas bags with nitrogen would mean it would actually be very very safe... hydrogen only burns if there is oxygen present so with a nitrogen purged volume even an AMRAAM penetrating inside the airship and exploding inside will shred the gas bags and damage structure but an airship several 100 metres long it wont start a fire and all the gas bags it shreds can be compensated for by inflating more to balance the loss of lift.

Cover the top in solar panels and have a small gas turbine or diesel engine that generates heat (lift) but could generate and store power on board.

Hydrogen fuel cells could be used to create lifting hydrogen gas or water ballast and electricity can be used for propulsion with electric motors.

Nuclear batteries could power it 24/7, or you could tether it to a ship providing electrical power to the electric motors for station keeping and through the fuel cells to maintain lift and also to operate massive radar arrays... it could operate at altitudes of 30km so the risk of being shot down is reduced dramatically.

Operating over Russian ships means being defended by those ships as well... it could have a flat top and operate UAVs like MALEs and HALEs... you could operate a few around the world as mobile bases for these drones... they could land and charge their batteries via solar panel during the day... you could store weapons on the airship so a HALE in some region finds a target could fly to the nearest airship and land and be equipped with a suitable weapon to return and attack the target much faster than returning it to Russia or sending a new aircraft from Russia for the attack... it would massively improve the endurance of HALES and MALES if they didn't fly around with weapons all the time especially if one crashes.

I think the time for airships has come... they could use the trade winds to shift at high speeds to different places by climbing to the altitude the winds are moving and then just floating around the planet...

Taganrog Aircraft Factory has started construction of two Be-200 amphibious aircraft. 

The Taganrog Aircraft Factory has begun construction of two Be-200 amphibious aircraft of the future special squadron for extinguishing fires in the Russian Federation and abroad, the head of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) Yuri Slyusar said.

"The production of two vehicles (Be-200) has begun as part of the project to create a future special squadron. It is planned that it will consist of ten aircraft" – said Slyusar, who was quoted in the press service.

According to Slyusar, now the Beriev Taganrog Aviation Scientific and Technical Complex (TANTK) is building two more Be-200 aircraft to replenish the fleet of the EMERCOM of Russia, and in general the plant is loaded with orders until 2026.

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