Su-33 inner wing pylons

[titanium]

I read somewhere that the inner wing pylons are not used by the in service Su-33 aircraft on the Kuznetsov.

As well, any photos/videos I see of the Su-33 operations in Syria show the aircrasft with no inner wing pylons.

 

Anyone know why? It would be nice to be able to remove those pylons for authenticity sake.

[Alfa]

I read somewhere that the inner wing pylons are not used by the in service Su-33 aircraft on the Kuznetsov.

As well, any photos/videos I see of the Su-33 operations in Syria show the aircrasft with no inner wing pylons.

 

Anyone know why? It would be nice to be able to remove those pylons for authenticity sake.

 

Yes its because the SUV-33(weapon's control system) was adopted straight from the Su-27(which only has 10 stations). You can also see that the pylon readiness panel(below the HUD control) is the same as on the Su-27 and only has 10 lamps.

 

The only modifications made had to do with the navigation system(which is part of the SUV) and integration of an enhanced version of the EOS.

 

In regards to the removal of pylons; all pylons are removable on the real aircraft - except for the wingtip ones, which need to be there for aerodynamic purposes(they are removed only when fitting ECM pods in their place). "Pylons" consist of two parts - a wing adapter unit and a weapon specific launcher/rack. Sometimes you will see aircraft without ordinance flying with both attached, sometimes with only the adapter and sometimes with neither.

 

So being able to remove the inner wing pylons does not necessarily add much to authenticity - but leaving them empty would :)

Edited October 28, 2017 by Alfa

[titanium]

In game, the 2 outermost wingtip pylons used for the r-73/ecm pods share the outermost lamps. This is not realistic?

 

So the mechanical connection for the inner most pylons are there but there is no way for the fire control system to fire munitions?

[Alfa]

In game, the 2 outermost wingtip pylons used for the r-73/ecm pods share the outermost lamps. This is not realistic?

 

It depends on what you mean by "the 2 outermost wingtip pylons" - there is only one wingtip pylon on each wing, which in turn is removed when carrying ECM pods instead.

 

So the mechanical connection for the inner most pylons are there but there is no way for the fire control system to fire munitions?

 

Correct - at least that used to be the case. In the attached image, you can see an Su-33 in "clean" config, with the attachement points plugged, but there doesn't appear to be any at the position of the most inner stations.....so maybe they have removed those connection points entirely in recent years :hmm: