Su-33s on the Admiral Kuznetsov

The Admiral Kuznetsov is a Russian "heavy-aircraft carrying missile cruiser". Basically a missile cruiser with a flight deck. In 1995, they tested the Su-33 Flanker-D on board, and at the time the Varyag was sold to China, they had a total of 24 of the Su-33s in service.

The Russian navy is preparing to enter the largest exercises they have held in decades, including the Admiral Kuznetsov. The Aviationist has a video on the page that shows Su-33s operating off the deck. There are some great camera angles, including a belly mounted camera, and another one in the ski-jump at the bow. One of the belly shots shows another Su-33 landing, while the one with the camera goes overhead. It clearly shows five Flankers on deck, including the one landing, for a total of at least 6 carried on the ship.



theaviationist.com...

Thanks for posting; I always thought that bird was beautiful as many other Russian designs.

Do those come in a full size version too?

The Red Banner isn't quite what it used to be, is it?

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Russia has only just recently announced they want to build a full deck carrier with a steam catapult. It would be about the size of the other carriers around the world, in the 50K ton range. They say by 2027 they'll have two battle groups based around the new carriers, but they aren't going to start building them until 2020.

Interestingly, there is talk of modifying the Admiral Kuznetsov and making it nuclear powered, which would make it only the 13th nuclear powered carrier (12th now).

reply to post by Zaphod58

Well now those developments would take the humor right out of it, wouldn't they? Hmmm... They are coming right along in development. They and China both are doing quite well in the specific areas they've chosen to focus.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


They still wouldn't come close to a Nimitz/Ford class, but they'd be more effective than their current "carrier". They're both making progress, but both have a long way to go before they can challenge anyone in carrier ops.

I just love the SU47 Berkut.
Why would they stick with manned birds? 5th Gen is dead.
We are going with energy weapons soon that choice may be a bit pricey.

reply to post by cavtrooper7


Fifth gen is a long long way from dead. UCAVs are useless for air to air combat because of lag time. Until they find a way to overcome that problem we will always need manned fighters. As for energy weapons, the current energy weapons need a very large platform to carry them. Every one that I've heard of requires at least a C-130 sized airframe or larger.

reply to post by Zaphod58

I would think gamers are solving what comes down to a 3-D game problem for pure math. Until recently it wouldn't be possible for the computer speeds required, but to the computer? Real world or 3-dimensional game world ...not that much difference with the near 100% real physics models being used today.

So, outside of the pure human instinct (and common sense, but when has that stopped a military) what would stop drones from engaging in air-air combat? They'd be radically superior for the lack of any limitation in fear or self preservation if given 100% autonomous control to just play it out. Err.... Not a comforting thought, actually.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Yes but don't our F18s have the envelope over the 33s?

Drones will never be built to the stealth and manuverability specifications of a plane like the Raptor. To defeat 5th gen planes the per unit cost of drones would be too high. And you are giving them levels of technology that are too risky if they were to fall into enemies hands like they have been doing a lot lately. For that level of investment put a man in it who is not so easily 'hacked' with electronic transmissions. Drones will continue to be used doing what they're best at - killing helpless Pashtun villagers.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Because there's currently a 1 second lag time between control input, and the control signal reaching the UCAV. In air to air combat that's an eternity, and will result in the UCAV "dying". As for autonomous control, you can't do it. The only way to have an autonomous air to air UCAV is with an AI that is beyond what we currently have. It would have to be Skynet to be able to figure out all the alternatives to every action.

reply to post by cavtrooper7


It's a pretty close thing. The Rhino and the Flanker are pretty similar to each other, but I think the Rhino beats out the Flanker slightly.

As I recall from my Harpoon playing days the Kuz was terrifyingly armed against air threats and a very scary surface to surface platform. The CIWS system is also very impressive.

I wonder if the Russians have got her (oops, I mean "him") back to full fighting condition.

If you watched that video carefully you would notice the Aircraft in it had Russian Winter Land Camo painted on them which means those aircraft as well as pilots have not been on any real Military Naval Station other than on land.

Those pilots trained specifically for that video and Russia does not have many experience Carrier Pilots at all.

Split Infinity

Hi zaphod another great thread mate. Now I have to apologise to you and mods if they read this comment but I've to use this thread to contact you as my U2Us isn't working on my phone but seeing as you have a excellent knowledge in air craft but do you know anything about this plane

Pilatus PC-12 .. I read a thread about it earlier today and view some of its flight paths which are odd. If you have the time and any infomation maybe you can shed some light on this thread
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Thank you for your time and apologies again to the mods and yourself for disrupting this thread

reply to post by ThePeaceMaker


No worries, I gave an answer in that thread for you. Might not apply to that specific flight, but applies to the mission.

Thanks again mate oh and on topic I love the video of the Flankers are these the MIGs with thrust vectoring ? I remember seeing this fly at airshows at places such as USAF/RAF Mildenhall and RAF Waddington in the UK

reply to post by ThePeaceMaker


They've flown an Su-33UB with thrust vectoring, but it doesn't come standard on the aircraft. It would be really useful to have though with the ski jump carrier and no catapult.

Thanks for the reply in the other thread by the way.

That's what I was looking for when I was watching the video, I thought it would be useful having the vectoring on carrier launches