Posted on 04/20/2013 1:38:21 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Flying the Flanker
A few years ago, Tactical Air Support was, for a brief period, an operator of a pair of privately-owed Soviet-built Sukhoi Su-27 Flankers. The company's senior vice president and chief operating officer Gerry Gallop, who previously served as a US Navy instructor pilot at TOPGUN and who has flown the F-4 Phantom II, F-14A and B, F-15, F-16, the F/A-18 series and the A-4, a recalls some of his initial transition flights in the Flanker.
One sortie that stands out in Gallops' mind was a combination functional check flight and navigational training sortie over the Ukraine. "I had no idea I was going to be supersonic for 25 minutes," he says.
"We climbed up to 20,000ft at 0.9 Mach and did some checks on the engines and then the next thing we were going to do was climb to 35,000ft and be at 1.35 Mach for the Mach lever checks, very similar the [Pratt & Whitney] TF30 [on the F-14A Tomcat]--you're going to bring the throttle back to idle when you're supersonic and it's going to make sure the RPM stays high up enough to prevent an engine stall," Gallop says. "We finish up at 20,000ft and I'm expecting to climb at 0.9 to 35,000 and accelerate to 1.35 Mach... Oh no... We just plug in the blowers, pull the nose up, accelerate to 1.35 in the climb, level at 35,000ft, check the engines, blowers back in, accelerate to 1.55, climbed it up to 47,000ft, and then we just brought it back to min burner."
"We brought it back to min burner, but I'm cruising at 1.3 Mach," Gallop says. The two-seat Flanker was clean, Gallop says, and it was demilitarized--which means it weighed about 3000lbs less than the typical stock Su-27, but nonetheless, the jet was impressively fast especially at high altitude.
Slowing the Flanker down after almost 25 minutes of supersonic flight also showed interesting results. "I take it out of burner and I'm just at mil power and the speed dropped down to--I was still supersonic," he says. "By the time we got done, 25 minutes supersonic, I looked at the gas and go 'you know I could turn around fly back the way I came supersonic and still have a normal amount of gas left to land'," Gallop says. "I had more fuel when I was done that profile than a single centerline Hornet had on the ramp."
The Flanker holds 9,400Kg (20,700lbs) of fuel, which is similar to an F-14 with two external tanks, Gallop says. "I'm up there clipping off 13 nautical miles a minute and I'm burning 110kg per minute," he continues. "I took off with 9,400 and I'm burning 110kg per minute at Mach 1.3, so you look at that and go 'I can be supersonic a long time and you look at how many miles you can fly at that speed.'"
Part of the reason the Flanker performs so well at those speeds is because the jet was optimized to perform in the transonic and low supersonic regime--between Mach 1.05 and Mach 1.2--but it will easily run to Mach 2+, Gallop says. "The thing can hold like 10 missiles, so you start hanging all those pylons and all those missiles on there and you're not going to be a Mach 2 machine," he says. "You not going to be doing Mach 1.3 in min burner, I guarantee it, but it just gives you an idea of how much power [the jet has]."
This was an old original model Su-27--one can only imagine what a brand new Su-35S coming off the production line can do with its twin Saturn 117S engines, which produce 31,900 lbs thrust each. The original Saturn AF-31F produce 27,560 lbs thrust each.
I think I would have an air-gasm every time I flew one of these.
It’s a great plane, and I think U.S. aviators and pilots would make a big mistake in underestimating its capabilities.
Gotta admit it’s a great looking machine.
Bookmarked...
The Flanker series is, IMHO, simply the best family of combat aircraft to have come out of the USSR and post-Soviet Russia. Beautiful planes, too.
BTW, dunno if this was ever posted here at FR, but some years ago I ran across an article about a once-secret program called Constant Peg. Essentially, it was U.S. pilots flying/training with “acquired” Soviet MiG’s during the Cold War. Pretty interesting stuff:
http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2007/April%202007/0407peg.aspx
Based on that article, I sure as heck would rather fly in a Flanker than a Flogger!
Sukhoi, I heard that the latest batch of 42 ordered for the IAF are the Su-35’s with the centreline Brahmos capability. How true is this?
Russian Fighters for American Airforce/Navy: The only prudent solution!
The country that is buying 35s is China ...they placed an order for (I believe 24??) from Russia. I believe India will upgrade the 30MKI rather than switch to the 35, and anyways after the 35 the 30MKI is the most advanced Flanker variant, and unlike the single seater 35, the two seater 30MKI fits perfectly to India's doctrine. I think the Indians are more than ok concentrating on the 30MKI, and on the incoming Rafale and the PakFa. With those three platforms they will be very well armed. No real need for any sort of 35 (whether we are talking about the SU-35 or the persistent rumors of the F-35 in Indian colors).
LOL ....I wish I could delete that thread. I posted it over ten years ago (how time flies) and I was ...erm ...a tad exuberant. I haven’t seen it in years.
Over beers years ago, a compadre in aerospace lamented, why we doing the F-22, why don't we just buy the 27's and or 29's and stick the Pratt F100 series engines in them and be done with it! Oh that is sooo heretic :-0...
Thanks
If the new Super Sukhois are primarily for the anti-ship role, do they still need AESA? I believe the AESA will gradually be retrofitted onto the older batches. What upgraded engines will the last 40+ use?
I think his GIB didn’t like the way he was driving.
The US Air Force found out about the Flanker’s capabilities first hand during an exercise with the Indians and their Su-30MKI’s. It was a wake up call.
sukhoi-30 aircraft ping
So it was super-cruise before super-cruise was cool.
I think the British Lightning made supercruise cool more than 50 years ago!!
Most of the talk of the new ‘batch’ seems to suggest an upgraded MKI variant as opposed to a SU-35. I think the Brahmos capability will not be for an anti-ship role alone, but also land-attack against reinforced targets and the like.
The folks at Mikoyan-Gurevich and at Sukhoi have been producing some beautiful aircraft....not to mention performance.
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