THE GLORY OF "STEALTHIES" FADES BECAUSE OF THEM

Red Star. January 28, 2005. Anatoly Dokuchaev

ВThe tenth volume of the unique Encyclopedia "Russia’s Arms and Technologies. The XXI Century Encyclopedia" has been published. The volume is entitled "Aircraft Armament and Avionics". It should be noted that this book is the second one of the books covering the Russian Air Force armament. The project is a common work made by competent experts of the Russian defense industry, scientists, historians as well as journalists of the Publishing House "Arms and Technologies". The Encyclopedia is being published under general supervision of the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.

On March 28, 1999 the public saw wreckage of a stealth fighter Lockheed-Martin F-117A "Nighthawk" flaming in the air. This historical fact advertised not only the skill of the Yugoslavian pilot who detected the praised "invisible" aircraft, but also the beautiful MiG-29 fighter and the air-to-air missile with remarkable potentialities, which surmounted the F-117 protection system.

Now we can be familiar not only with avionics and the missile, which terminated the stealth era, but also with its brothers and sisters, as they say. Thanks to the new volume of the unique project implemented by the Publishing House "Arms and Technologies". It describes modern and prospective models of Russian military aircraft armament and avionics, discovers potentialities of defense industry enterprises in design, manufacture and export of these kinds of weapons and airborne radio-electronic equipment.

At the present time Russian battle aircraft systems are being improved intensively. The armament, avionics and equipment of existing systems are being modernized. Fifth generation aircraft are being designed. This fact adds authority to the volume published. As it is known, the design of a prospective front-line aircraft has the highest priority. With respect to avionics and armament the plane should concentrate new technologies, first of all information ones, which allow the crew to use a wide range of weapons, modernized and newly created, at new level of automation. Having multiple information links with other combat facilities belonging to a common combat control system, and with external control systems, the plane will have own on-board information sources operating in all electromagnetic spectral ranges. For the first time in Russian practice a concept of an open architecture applied to the on-board integrated equipment will be implemented in a full scale. The equipment will be connected to a common "brain" – the on-board information and control system. New designs in the sphere of aircraft armament will improve the aircraft intellect, which has influence on armament autonomy, accuracy and number of channels used.

There are being designed models of high-precision aircraft weapons for twenty-four-hour operations, new systems for control and information support using new technologies and sensors. The further development in avionics is directed towards functional, hardware and software integration of separate subsystems based on advanced modern digital equipment.

"New requirements on avionics and armament find practical implementation in the aviation component in the State Program of Armament of Russia for the Period till 2010." – stresses General of the Army Vladimir Mikhailov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force. – "This program envisages a wide spectrum of work on the upgrading of the existing fleet of aircraft. The basis of upgrading are measures aimed at the perfection of the onboard equipment and improvement of the performance of onboard avionics and the development of new airborne weapons, including precision weapons."

It should be stressed that modern aircraft armament facilities are the most science-intensive parts of aircraft systems and they evolve rapidly. The combat potential and the competitive ability of native four- and fifth-generation aircraft systems mostly depend on the implementation of programs to create the aircraft facilities mentioned above. It has crucial influence on Russia’s ability to remain an aviation power.

The book systematically describes guided air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles (including anti-ship and anti-radar ones), guided bombs, homing heads, heliborne anti-tank and air defense systems.

In particular, the reader can find information about air-to-air missiles including the long-range missile R-33E, which is a part of MiG-31 armament and has the operating range up to 120 km in the front hemisphere; the middle-range missile R-27 used by the fighters Su-27, Su-30, Su-30MK, Su-32, Su-33, Su-35, and MiG-29S; the short-range missile R-73K, designed for hitting air targets at close distances from any direction and under any weather conditions.

The book contains interesting information about the air-to-surface cruise missile Kh-55 arming the strategic missile carriers TU-160 and Tu-95MS. Its range is 2500 km, and it carries a 250 kt nuclear warhead. It is used for destroying enemy’s targets in far regions and in the rear of continental theatres of war. The advanced version of the Kh-55 – the Kh-55SM is described as well. The cruise missile Kh-22 arming the missile carrier and bomber Tu-22M3 has the range of 400 km. The Kh-22 (and its modifications Kh-22N, Kh-22NA, Kh-22MP) was designed for destroying radar-visible targets on the open sea and near the coastal line, as well as separate ground targets.

Anti-radar missiles (Kh-27, Kh-25MP, Kh-31P, Kh-58E, and others), and anti-ship missiles (Kh-15S, Kh-31A, Kh-35E, supersonic cruise missile "Yakhont", and others) are described as well. Heliborne missile systems are represented by 9 anti-tank and 4 anti-air systems.

There are described in detail unguided bombs (from the high-explosive bomb FAB-9000 M-54 to the concrete-piercing bomb BETAB-500ShP), unguided aircraft missiles (S-8, S-13, S-24B, S-25) and release slips for their launching, as well as aircraft cannons.

A significant part of the book covers on-board radio-electronic aircraft equipment. It includes sighting-navigation and pilotage-navigation systems; on-board radars; optoelectronic systems and facilities; equipment for reconnaissance, long-range detection and observation, radio-electronic warfare, and communications; on-board computers and digital equipment; facilities for information display, recording and interpretation.

Thus, we can look at sighting-navigation systems of the Su-30MK and MiG-29SMT aircraft, on-board radio-electronic equipment of modified helicopters Mi-24PN, Mi-28N, and Ka-52. Radio-electronic systems for patrol aircraft are represented by the search and sighting system "Morskoy zmey" ("Sea Dragon"). The book describes in detail on-board radiolocation systems (the families "Zhuk" ("Scarab"), "Kopyo" ("Lance"), "Smerch-A" ("Tornado-A"), the control system "Bars" ("Ounce"), the system "Arbalet" ("Arbalest"), and others). Thus, the multi-function on-board Doppler radar "Zhuk-E" is a very important component of fighters. It deals with air, ground and water-surface targets, controls over high-precision weapons and maps the surface with high resolution. It is able to detect 10 – 24 targets simultaneously, to follow position of 2 – 8 targets, and supports a missile attack in the mode "shoot-and-forget".

Those who are interested with on-board systems for reconnaissance, long-range detection, radio-electronic warfare, and communications will not be deprived. It is the first time when information about these systems has been published. There are described, for example, the observation system "Open Sky"; the unmanned system VR-3D for tactical air reconnaissance; a system for reconnaissance and battle field observation in real time with the small-sized unmanned aircraft "Pchela-1" ("Bee-1"); the A-50 system for long-range detection; and other facilities.

In total, the volume contains information about 530(!) models of aircraft armament and avionics. Separate sections cover modernization programs for certain models of military planes and helicopters, as well as training systems.

Of course, the section containing information about main defense enterprises of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (68 enterprises) designing and manufacturing aircraft armament and avionics, adds value to the new book. The well known companies like the State Scientific-Industrial Enterprise "Bazalt", the Design Bureau of Machine-building, the A. E. Nudelman Precise Engineering Design Bureau, the State Machine-building Bureau "Raduga" named after A. Ya. Bereznyak, the Corporation "Fazotron" – Scientific-Research Institute of Radio Design, the A.S Yakovlev Experimental Design Bureau, and others are among them.

Nikolai Spassky, the Director General and Editor-in-Chief of the Publishing House "Arms and Technologies", stressed that the book is oriented towards experts in modern aircraft manufacturing, aircraft armament and equipment; representatives of companies and enterprises manufacturing armament and military equipment. Models of military equipment are designated according to the Common Classifier of Supply Items for Russian Armed Forces, compatible with similar foreign classifiers by its parameters.

The volume becomes more "solid" due to comprehensive articles "Aircraft armament and avionics as key components of technological efficiency of Russia’s Air Force" written by General of the Army Vladimir Mikhailov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force; and "Priority tasks in the field of creation of aircraft armament" by Lieutenant General Alexander Zelin, the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force.

It should be noted that the new publication contains 780 pages with text in Russian and English and illustrations. By the way, such a wide scope has been supported by Vneshtorgbank, which is the general sponsor of this unique publication. But the volume is valuable not because of its size. All we have a possibility to "sense" the technological advance in the sphere of avionics and aircraft armament, which seems to be the main prerequisite for increasing efficiency of native aircraft systems, their further integration into the common national defense system, and increasing the share of the Russian defense industry in the world weapons market.