AWACS/Command post aircrafts of RuAF

I suspect their A-50s have been rather more useful than they anticipated and that they realise they probably not only want more of them in upgraded form, but that they will want A-100s in larger numbers and that another system that is smaller and cheaper and easier to make and deploy would be useful.

They have likely learned a thing or two which will likely be further added to the A-100 design to make it better when it is ready for production, but in the mean time part of the A-100 upgrade is being based on the newer Il-476 aircraft with improved engines and aerodynamics and equipment and systems, which means as the Il-476s enter service older Il-76 will become available perhaps for an A-50U upgrade, but as the Il-476 will be in demand not just for cargo roles but also inflight refuelling and AWACS roles then adding factories to make them to increase production makes sense... even more so when you consider those factories could also make the Il-276 replacement for the An-12 as well, which will also be made in significant numbers.

I suspect new types of radar are on the verge of being ready for serious testing too.

They were talking about an Il-114 as a light AWACS type and such an aircraft might be rather useful because of its long flight range potential with added internal fuel tanks being called the Il-140.

The Ka-31 is much better than useless... it was chosen by the Russian Army for high resolution radar coverage of the battle space out to about 200km, and depending on the performance of the radar should be good for spotting artillery and drones and low flying aircraft... remember it is intended to detect low flying threats to ships and also periscopes of submarines....

They are likely working on a Yak-44 replacement but I think the Il-114 might be too big for carrier operations... it would simply take up too much space onboard.

My thoughts would be that whatever they are designing for their carrier will need lots of power to get airborne but once in the air would not need to be fast so I rather suspect it will have contrarotating turbopropfan engines and cat assistance to get airborne.

Transferring the radar and electronics and systems to the Il-114 would be a good way to get testing done and get something into service quickly, that would probably sell rather well on the international market that would not be so expensive to operate, while at the same time help boost available funding and development for a carrier based version.

I wonder if a fixed AESA radar might be developed where there is a round flat antenna but inside is a triangle of AESA facets that don't rotate and scan electronically. The empty space in the centre could store fuel for cooling the radar array which could be saved to when the aircraft is replaced on station and the cooling fuel in the antenna could power the engines during landing when the radar is turned off. It could pump fuel through the fuel system so the fuel in the radar antenna does not get too hot, and the AESA components don't get too hot either.

Of course I think an airship is the better solution in the longer term for a range of reasons I have explained a few times now.

BTW they are working on A-50s all the time so a new A-50 is not really a surprise.

The real bottleneck seems to be Il-476 production and I think making more factories would speed that up as the demand for transports and inflight refuelling aircraft and AWACS platforms is significant, but also the need for a replacement for the An-12 means factories making Il-276s could be set up in a way that they could make either type. There were an enormous number of different An-12 variants in use for a wide range of different roles... all of which will need replacing so the number of Il-276s might actually be rather high. If they mount the jet engines above the wing like with the An-72 and Il-212 then FOD risks on rough airstrips and also its ability for STOL operations will be massively improved too.

Very good point and the power advantage of the Il-212 would make it even better for takeoffs and landings.

As an inflight refuelling aircraft for a carrier aircraft and a light cargo aircraft the Il-212 would also be useful.

Why not just convert the MC-21 and/or the SJ-100 into AWACS platforms? Is rough field performance really critical on this kind of platform?

In the longer term such platforms would probably be quite a good idea, but for now it actually makes sense to produce them as airliners and I would say even after the needs of Russian airlines have been met that over time exports of the aircraft will be in demand and also over time the Tupolevs (204/214s) might be relegated to cargo transport and military replacement of obsolete existing types like the Il-20/22, the Tu-154M, the Il-62, the Il-38 etc etc, so airlines might buy even most MS-21s and SJs to fill those gaps.

Generally if you want an AWACS numbers plane you want smaller and lighter and cheaper so you can operate them in larger numbers without them being too expensive.

The best example is probably the Hawkeye US naval aircraft.

This might sound crazy but imagine a high bypass engine like a PD-8 fitted with an afterburner that is only used for takeoff to help get the aircraft airborne from short takeoff runs with out without a catapult.

The turbofan gradually took over from the raw turbojet because the low bypass turbofan moved more air and the extra air moved by the front fan that bypassed going through the turbojet was still oxygen rich so you could inject rather more fuel into the after burner and get rather more thrust from a turbofan engine than from your average turbojet...

Just a thought.

I am thinking the Il-212 would be a good platform with excess power for its size and weight but still not too big to put on a carrier while carrying likely a useful 10-12 ton payload. Engines above the wings would make them rather safer if not safe on the deck of an aircraft carrier and the height wont be a huge issue because Kamov coaxial helicopters are very tall too so height shouldn't be a problem.

An Il-276 with upper wing mounted engines is probably too big for the job.

10-12 tons of modern electronics should make it rather capable and a wing optimised for altitude and long cruise time would not be incompatible with a transport role of getting airborne from short rough airstrips.

Taking the design a bit further and actually giving it thrust vectoring as well as the upper surface blowing effect could further improve performance too... but a catapult will likely still be necessary for carrier use.

Keep in mind they are also working on other recon/AWACS platforms with the M-17/M-55 high altitude aircraft with pods of different types from 30km to 50km altitude.

Now I suspect the 50km altitude platform will likely an airship and if that is the case then such a platform would be ideal for all sorts of situations including but not limited to battlefield surveillance and naval operations.

The antenna size possible in an airship perhaps 100m long would be amazing and simply having a 5km cable antenna for ultra low frequency communications hanging from the airship (would be retractable of course) means communicating with SSBNs at operational depths which would be very useful.

When the Tu-142 uses its system with a 3km long antenna the aircraft has to fly at speeds dangerously close to stall speed to keep the antenna straight for it to be effective. Easy to just lower the cable antenna from an airship and communicate away.

Equally a radar antenna built into the structure of the airship that could be bigger than the huge ones the ground forces use, where using the radar would generate heat which is a good thing for an airship in terms of lifting capacity would also be a good thing too.

Some sort of nuclear power system as used in Perevest would be handy to ensure there was always power to run the electronics and also to readily convert lifting hydrogen to water ballast and back would make the airship rather independent. It could drop down to sea level altitudes and use a dehumidifier to collect up more water/hydrogen as needed and perhaps solar panels to collect free energy to keep batteries topped up and as an alternative back up power source.

Electric motors to move around the place and fuel cell technology too... and of course fire resistant composites and carbon fibre materials to make up a light very strong structure and various kevlar based materials to make the exterior resistant to damage, with most of the inside filled with inert nitrogen which is plentiful and cheap (70% of the atmosphere)... you could light up dozens of road flares inside and they would not set the hydrogen on fire (without oxygen there it would not burn).

A-100 should be serialized from long time ago tbh, instead keeping the bandaid A-50U. There might be no time or resources to start a new AEW. The other asset that might be needed is something like Tu-214R.

A-100 is on same platform as A-50/U.

It's the internals are different.

Il-76 is more than sufficient for the roll. It's line is entirely Russian.

Why can China do so much more from the AN-26 basic pattern and OAK not?

The An-26 is obsolete and will be withdrawn from Russian service once the Il-212 is up and running, so it would make no sense to design a new aircraft on an airframe that is being withdrawn and scrapped.

The Il-212 is an Il-112 with way more power in the form of two PD-8 turbofan engines so a comparison would be that the An-26 has a 5 ton payload and so would the Il-112, but the Il-212 has probably two or three times the payload potential due to more powerful engines.

As such the Il-212 might be a good candidate to also be a carrier based AWACS platform and also inflight refuelling aircraft and light cargo aircraft for carrier use too.

The previous models suggested (for the role of carrier based AWACS, though probably at the time they were likely only AEW) were the An-71 and the Yak-44... the former being a modified version of the An-72 which is very comparable to the Il-212 with the same engine arrangement but the Il-212 will have more engine power than the An-72 had. The Yak-44 was similar to the Hawkeye in design, but again the Soviet design has more engine power.... I seem to remember it was something like 2.5 times more and propellers like the An-70 do make use of that extra power.

correction: it's based on An-12/Y-8/9.

Well that would make rather more sense as a 20 ton payload capacity aircraft can carry a lot of electronics and also a little higher fuel fraction for the different role.

Is a re-import from China to OAK possible? That would make a lot of things easier. It's just the pride that gets in the way.

Not pride at all... common sense.

Eventually they are going to produce their own replacement for the An-12, and when they do it just makes sense to make extra into all the different variants of An-12 they operated in the various roles, from the model with a stinger out the rear with a cockpit position that can be rotated through 360 degrees that was used for testing ejection seats and escape equipment, through to all the EW and other types they operated.

Buying a Chinese copy of an ancient Soviet design is hardly using Russian aeronautical knowhow efficiently.

Plus they have been talking about recon platforms operating up to altitudes of 50km which would not be practical with a conventional aircraft.

They might consider using a Chinese plane but as the A-100 shows the time it takes to integrate all the electronics and EW equipment and systems it wont be ready for quite some time anyway.... plenty of time to develop a new An-12 replacement, whether it is the Il-276 or the Tu-330 or as I would prefer... both.

I don't really believe in a Tu-214 AWACS/AEW. This would be ideal but no longer possible because civil use is more necessary.

The time it would take to put the avionics of such an aircraft together and test it properly they might have a few aircraft spare... in five years time they could have spare production capacity to make a few prototype AWACS platforms for testing in the air... and then a couple of years after than capacity to start building them at a rate of 6-10 per year.

Of course a smaller model based on the Il-212 might allow it to be carrier capable and the funding costs can be shared between the Navy budget and the Air Force budget and of course the Army budget because they might want it for ground target tracking and perhaps also monitoring friendly and enemy drones... perhaps even controlling some.

Considering all other priorities for Ilyushin, il-212, il-114, work on possible production restart of An-124, and work on il-96, possibly the il-276 work was frozen.

If we take the fact that it was between the Tu-330 and the Il-276 and the reasons behind each bid... namely the Tu-330 shares about 70% of its parts and design with the Tu-214/204 which is now in serial production so it makes sense, and that the Il-276 is an Il-476 with shorter wings and two engines and a shorter fuselage but otherwise the same aircraft that is also in serial production, and you add that production facilities for the Tupolevs are working as fast as they can to produce airliners for Russian airlines that it would be the Il-276 that makes sense for one of the factories making Il-476s to make a couple of Il-276 prototypes for testing, and then they can revert back to making Il-476s again while the prototype Il-276s are tested and modified to create a serial model to put into serial production.

Even before it is ready for serial production making a new factory to build them makes sense because it could be designed to make either or, so it could start with three or four production lines with two making Il-276s and the other two making the in demand Il-476s... the Il-276s should be cheaper and easier to make as they are smaller and lighter and have fewer engines but are otherwise the same as their bigger stablemate.

Once the design is in serial production I would say international interest might allow licence production in other countries... I would guess India might want to make both as a licence contract makes planes more expensive but not more expensive than the C-17s they have now.

Iran might want to make Il-476s too, but they are making An-140s which they might be able to adapt to use the same avionics and systems as the Il-276 so they have commonality with Il-476s and of course a better product.

Personally I think a carrier based Il-212 AWACS model makes more sense than an Il-276 version, because being carrier based it would be more versatile and they need one anyway, so sharing the costs makes sense. Could ask other countries to join the project too.

But if China could help Russia (re)start production of a Y-9 / modernised An-12, why not?

The specialists needed to put that back into production would be better used to adapt the Il-276 and have a Russian aircraft.

I think in 5 years the Tu-330 will start to make more sense and they can look at making those as well.

I really like the idea of the Tu-214 aew.

There are a lot of obsolete types in use in the Russian AF and military that could be replaced by the Tu-214 family of aircraft and it certainly would not hurt to have a Tu-214 sized AWACS model... especially if they can get creative with the radar antenna and have fuselage mounted antenna and perhaps a forward looking nose antenna and a rear looking antenna in the tail. so essentially it does not add drag and can be electronically scanned rather than mechanically scanned.

The problem would be how long it takes to test these systems... look at how long the A-100 took. They are thorough, but that is a good thing and a necessary thing... rushing in something that turns out to be crap till the third tranche fixes the biggest problems shouldn't be how they make stuff now.

I would also like to see an AEW version of the il-212, similar to the proposed AEW version of the An-72 posted above.

I can't remember who handled that upgrade for the An-72, was it Beriev like with the A-50 or was it actually Antonov that designed the An-71?

I guess all the electronics will be different now anyway...