Posted on 08/09/2011 5:48:42 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Russia to develop new AWACS plane
A-50 Mainstay AWACS aircraft
© RIA Novosti. Skryinikov
Russia hopes to develop a new airborne warning and control system (AWACS) plane by 2016, Air Force chief Col. Gen Alexander Zelin said on Tuesday.
“We are expecting to receive the A-100 aircraft built on the basis of the Il-476 transport plane with the PS-90 engine and extended flight range,” Zelin told reporters in Moscow.
The new AWACS plane will have an advanced active phase array capable of detecting and tracking airborne and land-based targets.
“We will have the carrier [Il-476] by 2013-2014 and should be able to build this plane by 2016,” Zelin said.
The Russian Air Force has around 20 A-50 Mainstay AWACS planes, based on the Ilyushin Il-76 transport.
The A-50 is equipped with the large Liana surveillance radar with its antenna in an over-fuselage rotodome and can control up to ten fighter aircraft for either air-to-air intercept or air-to-ground attack missions.
Gee, I wonder where that design came from?/s/
Form follows function................
Wow, 10 whole aircraft!? ;-) That's got to be mis-information. No-one would fly that monster to control a paltry 10 aircraft... Sheesh, if you're going to throw mis-information at us, at least make it believable!
Like the Russian/Soviet space shuttle? (identical) Like the TU-160 blackjack? (B-1 lookalike) Like their various larger but unbuilt aircraft carrier designs? Like the TU-204 (757 clone), B-29 copy, even the IL-76 Candid looks amazingly like the C141 Starlifter.
A lot of what Russians do is impressive, but they aren’t very innovative.
I forgot to mention the C-5/AN-124 similarities...
BTW, this thing was involved in might be the top technologically advanced assassination ever.
In 1996 Russian military were chasing Chechen President Dudaev and they couldn’t find him but they got intel he was planning a long phone talk with Soros’s aide on April 21, 1996.
They sent an A-50 and two fighter-bombers to circle around Chechnya that night. Operators on A-50 didn’t know exact number he was using but had his voice signature and spent some time intercepting every call below to check if it fits the sample.
An interesting detail. They had warheads on their missiles disabled as part of a bad joke.
People who witnessed the headshot like this are still crapping bricks reminding this incident. It still took a DNA test to separate Dudaev and a few guys who were unlucky to be too close at the moment.
That's the number of mission control console operators
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