AWACS/Command post aircrafts of RuAF

Hole wrote:A-50 doesn´t have a cargo ramp.
And why spend millions to remove electronics from a plane if there are more than enough Il-76 parked at airfields which could be brought back for much less money?

Ramps could be added; it won't cost $Ms to remove avionics; they r a lot more expensive to operate than smaller prop. planes, even for China; only a fraction of IL-76s in storage can be made flight worthy, & other planes must be cannibalized to do it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KJ-2000#Development

They could save more $ by making a twin engine variant & use it to haul 20-30T until (& if) the IL-276 comes, & possibly longer.

Ives wrote:Plus, Sentry is sorta old af, and new system should definetely show better results.

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true, but IMHO Isos was talking bout metrics to measure "betterness" . RCS depends on band used, so stealth can be detected by hundreds on kilometers in L but tens in X , right?

US might not to be interested so much in stealth as Russians are. Simply Russians dont and unlikely will use so many stealth aircrafts. But AFAIK A-100 has ability to be also EW node.

They could make the A-50s into anything they wanted... they could remove most of the electronics for the radar and just put in 40-50 computer console positions and use it as an airborne command and control aircraft for UAVs a long way from Russia.

You could send one to Syria and it could operate near the middle of the country well within the air defence network and with full radar coverage from other platforms and it could direct large numbers of UAVs with direct line of sight data links... in fact it could control air and ground based UAVs and even support operations of land and air Unmanned vehicles in urban combat... orbiting at a safe high altitude orbiting around the area.

You could attach 30-40 under wing recon and targeting pods that each console user could use to look at a specific area below the aircraft and lase specific targets and follow individual ground based robot vehicles...

Or you could put wing mounted weapon pylons and use it as a bomber... have a large internal mechanism to hold bombs and open up a hole in the floor like the have on some helos for winching up people from the ground except use it to release bombs straight downwards from a large rack system inside the fuselage.

Lots of things you could use them for... but the obvious would be to update them with new engines and the new electronics of the A-100 system.

Of course in 5 years time the new photonics radars might either make them obsolete, because a fighter sized radar could see further and better, or make them (large AWACS platforms) even more effective with a full super high resolution 360 degree view of the battlespace.

GarryB wrote:Of course in 5 years time the new photonics radars might either make them obsolete, because a fighter sized radar could see further and better, or make them (large AWACS platforms) even more effective with a full super high resolution 360 degree view of the battlespace.

photonic radars is more into future than 5 years IMHO. As for large AWACS it is gonna continuously evolve. A-100 can become more battle mgmt post + EW for large area then radar itself.

GarryB wrote:They could make the A-50s into anything they wanted... they could remove most of the electronics for the radar and just put in 40-50 computer console positions and use it as an airborne command and control aircraft for UAVs a long way from Russia.

You could send one to Syria and it could operate near the middle of the country well within the air defence network and with full radar coverage from other platforms and it could direct large numbers of UAVs with direct line of sight data links... in fact it could control air and ground based UAVs and even support operations of land and air Unmanned vehicles in urban combat... orbiting at a safe high altitude orbiting around the area.

You could attach 30-40 under wing recon and targeting pods that each console user could use to look at a specific area below the aircraft and lase specific targets and follow individual ground based robot vehicles...

Or you could put wing mounted weapon pylons and use it as a bomber... have a large internal mechanism to hold bombs and open up a hole in the floor like the have on some helos for winching up people from the ground except use it to release bombs straight downwards from a large rack system inside the fuselage.

Lots of things you could use them for... but the obvious would be to update them with new engines and the new electronics of the A-100 system.

Of course in 5 years time the new photonics radars might either make them obsolete, because a fighter sized radar could see further and better, or make them (large AWACS platforms) even more effective with a full super high resolution 360 degree view of the battlespace.

Israeli did good job in transforming their civil planes into military ones. It's a cheap and fast way of getting a system that works fine without the need of producing it in serial production.

I would keep some A-50U for the naval aviation. 2 in the north and 2 in the pacific and some specialized in finding ships with a reduced crew, less equipment but more fuel for longer range patrol. It has a much better radar than il-38 for that role and why not with hardpoints for kh-35. Some able to launch biger missiles through a bay would be good too.

Arrow wrote:

Russia is a leader in the development of photonic radars?

in hypersonic tech is 10-15 years Russia is ahead of any western country. As for rofar who else is working on them for military purposes? perhaps China and the former USA as well. Who else? never heard, maybe in your country?

Isos wrote:

Israeli did good job in transforming their civil planes into military ones. It's a cheap and fast way of getting a system that works fine without the need of producing it in serial production.

I would keep some A-50U for the naval aviation. 2 in the north and 2 in the pacific and some specialized in finding ships with a reduced crew, less equipment but more fuel for longer range patrol. It has a much better radar than il-38 for that role and why not with hardpoints for kh-35. Some able to launch biger missiles through a bay would be good too.

Il-38 is gonna be replaced by A-40 flying boats. A-50 might be not bad idea but you need to introduce many changes there.

Il-38 is gonna be replaced by A-40 flying boats. A-50 might be not bad idea but you need to introduce many changes there.

Not really. The radar can already detect ships. Remove all the command posts and antennas that are not needed and add a data link with the navy communication tools.

It could work with 2 or 3 operators with modern radars processing computers. I mean for the anti ship version.

The awacs version to assists the su30 would be the same.

Isos wrote:Not really. The radar can already detect ships. Remove all the command posts and antennas that are not needed and add a data link with the navy communication tools.

It could work with 2 or 3 operators with modern radars processing computers. I mean for the anti ship version.

The awacs version to assists the su30 would be the same.

true, nonetheless Il-38 is anti-sub aircraft and if A-50 was to be one then they need to rebuild it

Il-38 has also a big radar on the top to look for ships. But it has a small range. Something like 90km against aircraft.

Anti sub would be very hard to implement. I was thinking about only an anti ship detector. Antisub can be done by il-38 and future aircraft designed for that.

But giving some A-50 to the naval avition would be a great move since they lack AWACS. Above water they would detect any fighter/missile trying to go inside russia since there is no mountains to hide behind. The s-400 waiting on the beach would be used at max range pretty easily.

IMO, more Tu-95/-142s could be converted to ASW duties for le$$.

Israeli did good job in transforming their civil planes into military ones. It's a cheap and fast way of getting a system that works fine without the need of producing it in serial production.

Everyone did that... C-130, Il-38, Il-20, Il-22, etc etc.

Il-38 has also a big radar on the top to look for ships. But it has a small range. Something like 90km against aircraft.

Anti sub would be very hard to implement. I was thinking about only an anti ship detector. Antisub can be done by il-38 and future aircraft designed for that.

I suspect in the longer term space based sensors will be used for tracking surface shipping...

But giving some A-50 to the naval avition would be a great move since they lack AWACS. Above water they would detect any fighter/missile trying to go inside russia since there is no mountains to hide behind. The s-400 waiting on the beach would be used at max range pretty easily.

Carrier based AWACS would be even more portable and useful...

Isos wrote:Il-38 has also a big radar on the top to look for ships. But it has a small range. Something like 90km against aircraft.

Anti sub would be very hard to implement. I was thinking about only an anti ship detector. Antisub can be done by il-38 and future aircraft designed for that.

But giving some A-50 to the naval avition would be a great move since they lack AWACS. Above water they would detect any fighter/missile trying to go inside russia since there is no mountains to hide behind. The s-400 waiting on the beach would be used at max range pretty easily.

The radar of the Il-38 is under the belly. The thing on top of the Il-38N and Il-38SD is an ESM system.

But of course you need the carriers for them first.

Of course you do, but it is like the argument about lend lease during WWII, when the Soviets had tens of thousands of trucks sent to them via lend lease... they are hardly going to commit a lot of factory floor space to building the number of trucks they would need, they could then focus more on things they did not have sufficient numbers of.

If they are planning to build carriers, then there is an expectation that it would carry either an AEW (Ka-35) or AWACS platform that operates from the carrier... the two main features of a carrier for the navy is providing aircraft for attack or defence (fighter/bomber/interceptor) and for early warning and control of fighters/bombers/interceptors so that didn't need to come from the ships...

You could develop a naval platform with a radar like the Tu-142 and Il-38 did, but unlike the radar in an AWACS platform those radar were more optimised for searching for ships or parts of a submarine sticking out of the water... ie periscope or conning tower...

A carrier borne AWACS platform could do all of the above, and would be valuable in increasing the reaction time to threats without requiring any enormous leap in terms of technology or capacity... well nothing they are not already working on.

Russia’s Aerospace Force gets sixth upgraded A-50U radar surveillance aircraft

More:
http://tass.com/defense/1051028

And the seventh one is expected for 2021... taking it easy

New A-100 is already tested. Programmes will be running along each other.

George1 wrote:Russia’s Aerospace Force gets sixth upgraded A-50U radar surveillance aircraft

More:
http://tass.com/defense/1051028

6th A-50U Nº42 RF-50610


Now there ar 6 A-50U in service: Nº33 , 37 , 41 , 42 , 45 , 47
Also there are 3 A-50 completing the AWACS squadron of Ivanovo: Nº43 , 50 , 51 , to be modernized in next years
Also Nº52 was used for A-100LL prototype

They don't paint them in dark grey/black like the first one ? It was a much better color, much more agressive.

White is better over Arctic region.

7th A-50 aircraft to the A-50U level will be handed over to the customer in 2021

 As part of the Russian Aerospace Forces, all combat aircraft of the A-50 series are part of the aviation unit deployed at the Ivanovo-Severny airfield, which since 2010 has been called the aviation group of the combat use of long-range radar detection aircraft of the 610th center of combat use and retraining of flight crews (aviation personnel - transport aviation) of the 4th State Center for Aviation Personnel Training and Military Testing.

The unit now has 13 A-50 airplanes and six A-50U airplanes, not counting several A-50 airplanes in storage.

Russian Air Force (VKS) possesses a total of 22 A-50 aircraft, including those stored.

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3590325.html

Well that video a while back showing a Flanker scaring away an F-15 proved it to me... the light (white/blue) coloured Flanker practically disappeared in the clouds and sky, while the dark F-15 grey made it easily visible at a similar distance... that dark grey colour is just shit when it comes to camo.

Update: https://iz.ru/845694/sergei-samarin/vid-sverkhu-vks-rossii-nuzhdaiutsia-v-obnovlenii-parka-letaiushchikh-radarov

15B Rubles now = $228,315,180.00.

They'll be lucky even if a dozen can be sold abroad. India is mentioned, as only she can pay at least $230M or its equivalent per plane.