Apologies

[ARM505]

I started the now closed thread asking for more info on a supposed missile shootdown (the plane shooting the missile!) Then I moaned about no fire extinguishers. Then I had a light hearted go at somebody bringing up the top gun 'hit the brakes and he'll fly right by'. I have no idea what people understood by what I was saying, but it seemed to wander off topic a tad, talking about beheadings. How on earth did we get there?!?

 

I'll go and rest now....

[ARM505]

On second thoughts, don't answer. I don't know how we got there, I'll just leave it at that.

[Weta43]

Don't know - didn't seem to be anything to do with what I took from your post.

Interesting article you found - Regardless of whether or not that guy actually shot down the stingers, the Su25's are tough little planes Eh? (& they fly a lot of missions)

[ARM505]

Yes, I thought it was very interesting, and I was hoping somebody would have some more input on that particular event or any more flying stories from the battles there. We tend to have more info on Western conflicts, it would be nice to hear some Russian pilot accounts of the fights they've had.

 

I figured out what happened in the thread though. I was discussing the Topgun reference, and somebody thought I was talking about the text of the scan I posted. Total miscommunication. Ah well, the vagaries of this medium of communication.

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

ah dude, dont worry about it, now you know what this forum can be like at times, i read that thread, and couldnt see any problem apart from the obvious post, but why it got closed and why the dude got 50% warning is beyond me, normally there is a warning when threads start to go the wrong way, neither happened.

 

I dont think what ForceFeedback said was, well lets just say, it wasnt the smartest nor was it the worst thing that ive seen on these boards, I dont know the dude personally, but i disagree that he should of had 50% warning from 0. maybe if he had a warning previously which i do not know. thats my opinion, and I dont see why you need to apologise for anything Arm505, as you did nothing wrong, well if you did, i am too retarded to notice it.

[Force_Feedback]

Sorry, I was too lazy to explain my opinion, which made it sound rude and racial (not racial, but anti-religious). It's that I get really mad when people start doing bad things in the name of a religion. But, this is not the forum to start such discussions, I agree.

My post was meant to show why pilots always kept a spare bullet or hand grenade when flying missions over Afghanistan, heck, even a relative of mine lost his feet in a Mig-25 (yes, he is/was an alcoholic, did some rehab, didn't work), but I'm not sure if it was due to cockpit damage or the ejection seat. He walks on prostethics and has a very good life. :p

However, the main purpose of my post was to make sure people realised that a member of our community personally knew the pilot mentioned, and I wanted to pay soem respect to the pilot from the article and him, instead of ranting on about Tunguskas and debating over a possible translation error.

Guess that makes me a pioneer here, I'm the first to receive 50%, hooray for me :p

[Hawg11]

I started the now closed thread asking for more info on a supposed missile shootdown (the plane shooting the missile!) Then I moaned about no fire extinguishers. Then I had a light hearted go at somebody bringing up the top gun 'hit the brakes and he'll fly right by'. I have no idea what people understood by what I was saying, but it seemed to wander off topic a tad, talking about beheadings. How on earth did we get there?!?

 

I'll go and rest now....

 

Well, it's weird how threads can take a different tangent than expected.

 

And see, I was all set to let the Top Gun thing go...Check your PM's from last nite.

 

Just think, if you hadn't been so concerned with keeping your thread "On Topic" in your reply back to me, it probably would still be active. That's some crazy Zen stuff right there. :) Go with flow young grasshopper. ;)

 

Cheers.

[SUBS17]

Some of the design improvements from Afghanistan included a steel plate between the engines which is why on a couple of occasions they managed to return to base after being hit by stingers and Aim9s. Even today Afghanistan is quite an unforgiving country and I have read about how they people treat prisoners during that time was quite bad. So its no wonder the pilots always tried to make it back, in one incident the pilot flew back with his aircraft on fire. He landed and got out of the aircraft and ran away thinking it would blow up. A couple of minutes later it was still sitting there spewing smoke everywhere but not anything else. So he walked back to it and shut the engines down. If you do a google search you might find the story online.

 

-Major Rubalov's Su-25 was hit in the engine which surged and flooded an engine bay with fuel, the cockpit was shattered, buster controls are gone and major's face covered with blood. None of the dials in the cockpit worked and his wingman guided him to the final approach. After belly landing, major rushed away from the Su-25 fearing that plane going to explode. After figuring that this is not going to happen, he got back to the aircraft and cut the engine.

 

-Another Su-25 was on fire which burned out most of the wiring and 95% of horizontal tail controls. In few moments before the landing, fire short cut the gear release wires and Su-25 made "conventional" landing.

 

-Lieutenant Golubtsov's Su-25 lost half of its rudder along with breaks. After landing his a/c ended up off runaway and rolled into adjacent mine field. He was forced to wait in the cockpit till mine squad cleared his way out.

 

-One Su-25 brought a missile in the engine which failed to detonate. (SAM?)

 

-Rutskoi's Su-25 was hit by AAA (ZGU) when a missile (Blowpipe) hit right engine (head on - it "turned off" the engine though the intake). Second AAA finally managed to shot it down. This is a second Frogfoot he flew (not the preproduction T-8-15 Blue 15 which was damaged twice). Rutskoi spent some time as Pakistani POW and was shortly exchanged.

 

http://www.aviation.ru/Su/25/Su-25.html

[Weta43]

You can see why the Russians hold these planes and their pilots in such high regard

[Force_Feedback]

You can see why the Russians hold these planes and their pilots in such high regard

 

Well, considering the thing is relatively simple in maintenance and is very tough, and... it can fly on ordinary diesel (which isn't that sensational, as kerosine is basically diesel with a higher combustion point), and, its Mig-21 based engines smoke (which is bad for the performance, as the design is obsolete, but the smoke makes up for it by its coolness). I guess it's the same story as with the B-52, they had lots of engines, and the "new" design wasn't ready on time and was too expensive, so they put those sturdy mig-21 stages in the su-25.

[ARM505]

Yes, that book that the scan came from said that initially flares had worked very effectively against the Redeye missile (And SA-7? Were some captured and used against the Russians?), but in the first three days following the deployment of the Stinger, four Su-25's were shot down. The addition of the armour plate and effective fire extinguishers resulted in a dramatic reduction in losses. In fact, this book said that no more Su-25's were actually shot down by Stingers once the mods were made, although there were several planes that did actually make it back to base, but were write-offs. The book goes on to say that 23 Su25's were lost if Afghanistan (roughly 10% of Soviet fixed wing losses in the conflict, one loss to 2800 combat flight hours)

 

Thats why I complained about lacking fire extinguishers in the previous post. In the past few days I've been making up some Afghanistan type scenarios with the Grach, and Stingers featured prominently. It's so easy for one to clip you and get an engine fire going, and then it's tickets for you. If the fire doesn't go out, and most don't, you have to eject within seconds. Sometimes you can fly with a fire for ages, but normally not. And in any case, you just don't know - so IRL, when you would try and preserve your own life, you would be forced to eject. Which is what I do.

 

And regarding that pilot from the scanned section, I was just asking about the missile shootdowns - the following section, describing how he won the Hero of the Soviet Union award - well, let me just say that he earned it. Absolutely no disrespect was ever intended towards that person.

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

speaking bout stingers, my buddy made a mission,with a crapload of stingers, we were both in 25t, 10-15000 feet and bang, me gets whacked, not once not twice but 3 times by same nub, no warning no smoke trails nada, i be astounded. my buddy who was on my wing said he never saw anything either the first time and that as he was slightly behind me, it looked as tho one of my engines just caught fire and blew up. needles to say, stinger guy got vikh'rd to death, then strafed and then bombed just to make sure he didnt get back up :p

[Guest IguanaKing]

Well, considering the thing is relatively simple in maintenance and is very tough, and... it can fly on ordinary diesel (which isn't that sensational, as kerosine is basically diesel with a higher combustion point),

 

As can ANY jet engine, its nothing new or exclusive. It isn't ideal though since it has a tendancy to wear an engine out a lot quicker. You'd be amazed at the huge array of fuel types a jet engine can run on. The problem is...the engine itself is so costly, its almost never done. ;)

[Weta43]

While for the purposes of the missile writing off a plane or removing it from service for an extended period of time is pretty much ass good as a kill, it's a pretty good record that after the bulkhead was fitted they didn't have a single plane not make it home after a stinger strike & it must be comforting for the pilots to know this (I haven't had a lot of success putting out fires in the 25 ingame unless high enough to turn the engine off, throttle back & dive for a while, which doesn't sound like the article above.)

I also read in this forum from posters who I was inclined to believe that the Su25 was particularly suited to running on a variety of fuels - perhaps engineered to suffer less damage while doing so.

[Guest IguanaKing]

Its all relative I guess. The comparison and whether the Su-25s engines were designed to do that better would have to assume that the TBO issues have been improved upon. Russian engines have been known to have a much shorter TBO than Western engines due to the alloys used.

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

i dunno about you lot, but every single time i have an engine fire in the 25t, i turn off the engine immediatly and the fire goes out seconds later, there is the VERY ODD occasion where the fire may flare back up, and if it does then you know you have to bail, but to me, that happens less than 2 times out of 10 engine fires.

 

I fly 25t only, no other aircraft in this game is worthy of me flying :p

 

but if you turn the engine thats on fire off asap, then you have very very good chances of getting back home on one engine.

 

it could be different for the vanilla 25, as the only Ac i fly is 25t, and thats what i am going by.

 

I reading weta's post saying something about height, Ive had fires like 100 feet of the deck many times and still managed to put out engine and fire goes out, i have to dump weapons aswell but thats what i suppose would happen in reallife as the Ac wouldnt have power to lift it very well with so much weight.

 

I have all engine controls start/kill engines, binded to the bottom buttons on my x52 stick, so within seconds of a fire the engine be shutdown.

[Prophet_169th]

I have had very good success with turning just 1 engine off, if on fire, and the fire going out. I shut down the engine, and dump ammuniton.

 

Both engines though......... not so good.

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

I have had very good success with turning just 1 engine off, if on fire, and the fire going out. I shut down the engine, and dump ammuniton.

 

Both engines though......... not so good.

 

yup, thats what happens to me, 1 engine on fire, nearly always goes out when you shutdown that engine.

 

both engines on fire, dont bother shutting them down unless u want to see if you can still land it on the grass, normally with both engines on fire, i just eject, but with one, i would never eject unless the fire never went out.

 

also at times when both do catch fire, I will still try and land the thing on the grass or a road after i have shut the engines down, and dump ammo, and i basically end up gliding to earth, nothing better than getting shot up and having to do all that while still under fire and managing to land and walk away. uber leet feeling :D

[britgliderpilot]

Its all relative I guess. The comparison and whether the Su-25s engines were designed to do that better would have to assume that the TBO issues have been improved upon. Russian engines have been known to have a much shorter TBO than Western engines due to the alloys used.

 

Something I recall reading somewhere was that the Su25 had heaters in the fuel tanks - something like a cracking plant for the kind of oil you'd pour in.

 

Will check up on that . . . .

[Force_Feedback]

Something I recall reading somewhere was that the Su25 had heaters in the fuel tanks - something like a cracking plant for the kind of oil you'd pour in.

 

Will check up on that . . . .

 

Will it also reform Saudi crude into kerosine? :p

 

 

In the su-25t, if your engine(s) is hit, all you have to do to put out the fire is shutting down the engine, or, when both were ablaze, try to glide back (I'm a leaf, soaring in the sky -Serenity).

On the vanilla Su-25 this doesn't work, as both engines remain on fire, even after you shut them down, they relight (closed throttle) again, and, the nut I am, I always try to glide back to base, but only my charred remains reach it, or some field.

That's why I don't fly combat missions with the standard su-25, but aerobatics instead, as it is twice the jet plane the su-25t is, 4x less the whale ;)

It surely would be great to have those argon (or other ozone-unfriendly gas) bottles to increase your chances of survival, or have the opportunity to fly for a while with a burning engine, risking the possibility of a "titanium fire".

[Weta43]

Maybe it is a 25 / 5T thing. I know I've had fires go out when I shut down an engine, my memory of it is I had to shut down the engine AND cut the throttle ( which is where the hight thing comes in) BUT over the last week or so I've been making a campaign for the 25 and collected quite a few stingers. I', pretty sure I've never got a fire to go out all week.

Given the info about never having one go down to a stinger after the bulkhead & extinguishers were added - even when they came home on fire, maybe ED could tone down the rate at which fire damages the plane to stop them exploding in fireballs quite so often.

[ARM505]

Or just give us the fire extinguishers the actual plane has! I can understand that if the plane's on fire then it might disintegrate/explode - I'd just like to have what is actually on board the real plane.

[Weta43]

Yes we should have fire extinguishers, AND the planes shouldn't explode EVERY time they are on fire & it doesn't go out.

The damage model seems to consider a fire damages your plane at a certain rate & that rate is too high going from the doc that started this thread

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

exactly, we need extinguishers, just look at concorde, as sad as it maybe, it was on fire bigtime, with all that 1000s of pounds of fuel, it still didnt blow up til it crashed.

 

no armour there!!!

 

btw, am all for ejection seats in passenger planes aswell.

[Force_Feedback]

exactly, we need extinguishers, just look at concorde, as sad as it maybe, it was on fire bigtime, with all that 1000s of pounds of fuel, it still didnt blow up til it crashed.

 

no armour there!!!

 

Its wing and control surfaces dis start to melt, resulting in severe loss of control and a very flexible wing...

 

btw, am all for ejection seats in passenger planes aswell.

 

Let's see, the most light "ejection seat" is 17kg (Zvezda SKS-94), without a liferaft, I suppose they could add a liferaft under the seat pan for that, but, let's do some lite math. 20kg * 180 passengers (NG B-737) = 3700kg, but, since they can't eject through the roof, a hatch jettisoning system has to be developed, let's say that it brings an additional 5000kg into play (10 hatches, for the pax, and one for the pilots). That's 8700kg lost due to "dead" weight. Then come the maintenance costs, the catapult needs maintenence once in a while, and seats need to be cleaned of vomit/deffocation/coffee.

And, finally, there isn't enough time for the sequence to cycle, lets say 6 seats in a row, of which 2 are ejected, with a directional separation of 14 rows (so 4 pax eject at once). 180/4=45*3 (3 ejections per row)= 135 *0.5seconds=68 seconds for the sequence, minus the pilots, who will go last.

Oh, the weight is only possible when using non-rocket powered ejection seats, but when using some light MB seat (with a rocket, so you can clear the huge tail, and, when in a bad position ruin your back) which is about 50kg a piece, so the seat weight penalty would be 53*180=9540kg added to that guidance rails (900kg)...

OK, impossible, but maybe when they invent transporter beams, but the again, by then planes will be obsolete.

 

^^^ don't take my reply too serious, it was just to show that it's an impossible task.