britgliderpilot Posted January 29, 2007 Posted January 29, 2007 It's not something I've ever heard much about, and for some reason I've become interested in it. Most Russian military aircraft (including the Ka50, of course) are famously fitted with ejector seats that can safely extract them from crippled aircraft anywhere from supersonic speeds at 50k feet, to stalled upside-down at an airshow. . . . . . . but what happens then? It's all very well ejecting from your Sukhoi and landing safely, but if you land in the middle of the tundra miles from anywhere, it's not really been THAT successful yet. What were arrangements for retrieving downed pilots, either in wartime or on training missions? Were arrangements in place in Afghanistan? How about more recently in Chechnya? Anyone know anything on this subject? http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v121/britgliderpilot/BS2Britgliderpilot-1.jpg
EvilBivol-1 Posted January 29, 2007 Posted January 29, 2007 I was just reading (parts of) an excellent book on the Soviet-Afghan war. Will try to scan the army aviation section for you later tonight. As a quick answer, yes, of course SAR operations were conducted and were, in general terms, similar to the American experience in Vietnam. A typical set up would be Hips for extraction and Hinds for cover, with anticipated ambush. - EB [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Nothing is easy. Everything takes much longer. The Parable of Jane's A-10 Forum Rules
MBot Posted January 29, 2007 Posted January 29, 2007 Realy good question. The west puts strong interest in rescueing pilots with various specialised (C-)SAR helicopters, spec-ops personel, support aircraft like the A-1 and A-10 and well trained rescue routines including FAC aircraft. With the russian having such great ejection seats to keep the crews safe, one would assume they put equal efforts to also rescue those crews. Would love to learn more about that.
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