paralay
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I have not seen any news about the fourth crew member
Hand held SAM wouldnt be able to reach a Backfires cruising altitude. The flat spin is indicative of asymmetric thrust so the loss of an engine, however pilots should have been able to compensate if it was a mechanical failure, engine failures were common in the pre-modernisation TU-22 due to poor construction quality of engines and airframes.
And it was at cruising altitude...while approaching an airbase in Stavropol...with wings extended?
Also Tu-22M isn't a "modernization", it's an entirely new aircraft, named only for bureaucratic reasons to try to sell a brand new product as a "improved" version of an older one. Tu-22 is less than irrelevant to the conversation.
I'm wondering what's more embarrassing, the probable shoot-down by an outdated anti-aircraft system, or the crash caused by a wrench being forgotten, or the ground crew once again not doing a clean job?
I'm wondering what's more embarrassing, the probable shoot-down by an outdated anti-aircraft system, or the crash caused by a wrench being forgotten, or the ground crew once again not doing a clean job?
is it due to an unsuccessful missile ejection, or something? The bombers usually stay away from Ukranian AD's reach and launch salvos of CMs, and i can't image their fighters going on a suicide mission inside Russia and not get intercepted instantly.
Even in the most ideal conditions the S200 still doesn't have the reach; and even if we bite, how are they suppose to guide the missile anyway? I get that they need to present more victories to their audience as as the situation gets more and more dire but this sort of crap just delegitimizes some of the Ukranian war effort and propaganda. The same applies to targeting civilian targets inside Russia, no matter how evil the enemy is.Probably an engine fire, IMO. The ZSU claims responsibility but given the speed of the aircraft and the position of the damage it is hard to imagine this was an S200 hit.
I'm not sure really. An S-200 hit is certainly a stretch given the question of how they guide it and also how they hide it, since it's 35ft long. There's the possibility that these Tu-22M3Ms had got too used to flying the exact same path and that was noted, as was the case with the F-117 in Serbia. That would somewhat mitigate some of the need for guidance. However still a stretch.Probably an engine fire, IMO. The ZSU claims responsibility but given the speed of the aircraft and the position of the damage it is hard to imagine this was an S200 hit.
There were only 9 vanilla Tu-22 built before they moved on to the Tu-22M, with several iterations M1-M4 but when we are talking about modernised Tu-22M we are talking about the current version in service, modernised M3 the Russians call the Tu-22M3M.
Tu-22M2 (NATO Backfire-B) which had a totally redesigned rear fuselage and different wings to the earlier Tu-22 of which 211 were built. Hence me saying only 9 vanilla were produced.
The problem is that you keep saying Tu-22 when you mean Tu-22M. Those are two totally different things.
As a historical note, there was a period when NATO referred to Backfire as Tu-26. It was a totally incorrect designation but avoided some confusion. I think it was one of the START treaty discussions when the Russians outed it as the Tu-22M and confused the heck out of Western observers for a while.
It wasnt NATO, Tu-26 was a rumoured internal Soviet designation but no ones ever been able to evidence it.
That's been evidence for the last 2 years, how else do you get MANPADS in position to ambush helicopters?Suspect lax Russian operational security meant crews have been flying the same routes night after night, giving the Ukrainians the precise when and where for the missile to be to maximise the probability of a hit.
? That's about 1.2km/sec. If your INS is so bad it's drifting that much over a 4min20sec flight, you need to take your INS designers out and shoot them.and who will provide correction to the INS drift ? It's still a long flight even with 4300 km speed of the 5V28 missile.
Maybe I guess. Engine explodes, takes out other engine and rudder, zero yaw control, flat spin, crash.Given how tightly packed the aircraft is.. well 1 engine failure can easily cascaded to another subsystem. That's for Russians to figure