Gunfighters and Indians - Workups for Red Flag - Day 3
Wednesday brought about a day to give the planes a brief break from flying and let the maintainers have a go at them. A common saying in any air force across the world is that it’s the maintainers jets and the pilots just “borrow” them. So it was time to fix the wire ups and get them ready for the night time mission. So today’s post is dedicated to the 156 maintenance personnel that keep those beautiful SU-30 MK-I flying.
The business end of the SU-30; the impressive thrust vectoring nozzles.
The SU-30 starring down an F-15 from Nellis AFB.
The loading of the chaffs and flares.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:07 am
Great pics! It looks like the Su30’s borrowed the ACMI pods from the Americans. These pods must become standard with IAF as well. They look really smart in the second last pic on this page as well. Thanks and please upload more!
July 31st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Very nice photos. Incidentally these are Su - 30 MKI’s as in (M - Montana, K - Kansas, I - Iowa)
Here the “I” in MKI stands for India. This version of the sukhoi’s is the most advanced Sukhoi 30 flying, and is the only large scale produced fighter in its class to have thrust vectoring.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:20 am
Technically the most advanced Sukhoi flying is the SU-35 in which the canards have been removed, the air frame was improved, 2 NPO Saturn/Ufa MPO Item 117S engines were installed for supercruise in clean form, and the newer IRBIS N-011M Bars passive electronically scanned array radar will be standard. One other thing, the SU-30MKI is not the only mass produced fighter with vectored thrust, you are forgetting the F-22 Raptor!
RSF
August 2nd, 2008 at 12:30 am
The F-22 is mass produced? A little oopsie there…
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:16 am
RSF
My Bad…
You’re correct of course.
I’ve heard that the indians have “removed” the N 011 Bars from these aircraft in Nellis because of security issues. How do they find their way about if they’re blind?
August 6th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
There are over 100 F-22’s in service now. Anyways, this is a rare moment in history that these two air forces get together for such an event. Pretty amazing.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:15 am
Guys,
Nice pics here & interesting discussion..the radar is there, check out the pic with nose open.Those are HAL guys in the brown uniform (Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd), they have gone to Phase 3 production of the radar.