Fórum Defesa Brasil

Degan escreveu::oops:

cicloneprojekt escreveu:A-50 IL 78 são dois sistemas que virão. É só questão de (pouco) tempo.
by 2009

A-50 AWACS / AIRCRAFT 976
* As with tankers, the Soviets were laggards in adopting "airborne warning and control system (AWACS)" aircraft -- platforms which carry wide-area surveillance radar and other electronics gear to detect enemy aircraft and other assets, then vector defensive assets against them. In the 1960s the USSR fielded an AWACS aircraft, the "Tu-126 Moss", based on the Tu-114 four-turboprop airliner, itself based on the "Tu-95 Bear" bomber.

In the 1970s the Soviets began development of an improved AWACS based on the Il-76. The result, the "A-50", was apparently introduced to service in 1984. It was developed in cooperation with the Beriev organization. It was assigned the NATO codename of "Mainstay".

The A-50 was organized around the Shmel (Bumblebee) surveillance system, the core of which was a pulse-Doppler radar with a rotating antenna dome on the back behind the wings, known as a "pogahnka (toadstool)" to crews. The Shmel system also included identification friend or foe (IFF) capabilities and a number of color workstations, with datalinks, including satellite links, providing communications with fighters and other assets, and a mission computer coordinating the whole. The aircraft was littered with other antennas, most prominently in the form of an antenna fairing on the back just forward of the wings, and a finlike antenna on the rear of each landing gear fairing.

The nose glazing of the Il-76 was deleted, with an extended antenna fairing under the nose and a single small window on each side; the tail turret structure was retained but used to accommodate electronic systems instead of cannon. The A-50 was fitted with an inflight refueling probe, but reports indicate that the interaction of the slipstream of a tanker with the A-50's radome created such nasty buffeting that inflight refueling was difficult and demanded special pilot qualification.



The A-50's Shmel radar was not in the same league as that of its Western counterpart, the Boeing E-3 Sentry, not having the same range or ability to track as many targets simultaneously; the Russians did claim the system has good "look down" capability, able to pick out low-flying targets in "ground clutter". Exercises demonstrated the ability of the A-50 to direct MiG-31 interceptors, Tu-22M-3 "Backfire" bombers, and submarines simultaneously.

Aside from the flight crew, the A-50 carried ten systems operators. The avionics kit was heavy and apparently the A-50 suffered badly from weight growth during its development. Its aircrew facilities were said to be cramped, noisy, and lacking in amenities, in particular lacking relief-crew bunks. The old Tu-126 Moss, derived from a large airliner, was much more comfortable, and an A-50 is apparently has not been a desired crew assignment.

During the 1991 Gulf War, two A-50s were kept on station over the Black Sea to observe Coalition air activities over Turkey and northern Iraq. The A-50 remains in service.

* The Soviets developed another Il-76 variant that looked something like the A-50 but was intended for an entirely different mission. The Soviets had long used modified Ilyushin Il-18 turboprops rigged with electronic gear to monitor the telemetry from missile and space launches. When these machines were finally retired, two Candid-Bs were converted to a similar configuration, with an antenna dome on the tail and various antennas littered over the airframe. These machines were simply known as "Aircraft 676" and "Aircraft 776".

Following this exercise, the Soviets decided to modify five Il-76MDs to a more capable tracking and telemetry configuration, also with a litter of antennas but this time including the Shmel "toadstool" radome. These machines were designated "Aircraft 976", or "SKIP" for "samolyotniy komahndno ismereetelniy poonkt (airborne measurement and control station)". They were also referred to as "Il-76SK", "Il-976", or "Be-976", the Beriev OKB having been involved in the conversion.

Although some sources incorrectly identified the Aircraft 976 aircraft as AWACS platforms, the similarity of these machines to the A-50 was somewhat superficial, effectively limited to the Shmel radome. They had nose glazing, cargo doors, and a tail turret station, though the cannon were yanked and replaced with an antenna dome. They were fitted with wingtip pods, like those of the Il-76PP Chipmunks, and also with a set of L-shaped antennas on each side of the tailfin. They did not have the vent in the tailfin extension. They appeared in Aeroflot colors though they were clearly not civil machines.



* The Iraqis modified a few Il-76s to AWACS configurations in the 1980s. The first was the "Baghdad-1", which was a clear improvisation, with a French Thomson-CSF Tigre surveillance radar installed in the cargo bay of a Candid-A and the radar antenna fitted in a fixed composite radome replacing the cargo doors. It was use operationally late in the Iran-Iraq War; there's no information on how well it worked, but it was dubious in appearance.

The second was the "Baghdad-2", which had the Tigre radar in a conventional dorsal radome like that of the A-50's Shmel radar. It was actually not really an AWACS, instead being strictly a radar picket aircraft; the Baghdad-1 had fighter control links, but the Baghdad-2 did not. There were long strakes along the rear fuselage to compensate aerodynamically for the radome. Two conversions of Candid-As were performed, to be named "Adnan-1" and "Adnan-2" after an Iraqi general who had been killed in an air accident, with the aircraft said to have performed operational service late in the 1991 Gulf War. Their ultimate fate is unclear.

* Although the Baghdad conversions were unsophisticated compared to the A-50, the Indian Air Force is now working to obtain three Il-76-based AWACS platforms that are well in advance of the A-50. These three machines will be fitted with the Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) Phalcon radar and control system. The Phalcon system is an L-band radar with a fixed phased-array antenna using electronic steering. It is regarded as state of the art, well superior to Soviet-Russian radar systems. The IAF Il-76 / Phalcon systems will be fitted with eight multifunction operator consoles with large-screen color flat-panel displays, and two electronic countermeasures / electronic intelligence operator stations.

All these machines are being upgraded from used Il-76 airframes. The first AWACS will be delivered from IAI in Israel in 2007, with introduction to service in 2008 and last delivery of the three in 2009. The IAF also has an option for two more platforms.

Bolovo escreveu:

cicloneprojekt escreveu:A-50 IL 78 são dois sistemas que virão. É só questão de (pouco) tempo.
by 2009

E quanto a novos aviões revo?

Pedro H Serafim escreveu:Se o Chavez falar a palavra Nuclear os EUA vem aqui e chutam a bunda dele tao forte que nunca mais a Venezuela consegue se levantar de novo e ainda montam uma base americana em territorio Venezuelano....
Eles estao quase montando uma base na Guiana.....

Dizem que dentro dos proximos anos o Chavez vai ter uns 50 su-30 mk2......
Nao sei se eu queria isso pro Brasil, acho melhor 24 Rafale e 36 M2000 modernizado do que esses su-30.... Tudo bem que é um aviao muito bom e tal, mas ja viram o interior dele? Parece a maquina de lavar aqui de casa....ta anos luz de um rafale ou f-16I...acho q tao enchendo muito a bola dos su-30 venezuelano.....Se fossem su-30 Indianos eu ficaria muito, mas muito mais preocupado....

Exercises demonstrated the ability of the A-50 to direct MiG-31 interceptors, Tu-22M-3 "Backfire" bombers, and submarines simultaneously.

Carlos Mathias escreveu:

Exercises demonstrated the ability of the A-50 to direct MiG-31 interceptors, Tu-22M-3 "Backfire" bombers, and submarines simultaneously.

Realmente, muito ruim.