Yak-130: News

GarryB wrote:The main problem for Russia is that countries with lots of money to spend are not around in large numbers and those that do exist already have existing suppliers.

Russia lost most of its Soviet Market for weapons when the Soviet Union broke up and lost half of its European market when the Warsaw Pact broke up.

With the end of the Cold War Russia was left with a clientèle of countries used to politically motivated sales based on loans that were rarely if ever paid back... no way to run a business.

More importantly the products they used to sell tended to be simple and robust but also rather cheap.

It made them easy to use easy to maintain and effective in situations where more complicated things tended to fail... it also made them cheap for poorer countries.

New Russian hardware is actually rather sophisticated and even the factories to make the new hardware are sophisticated and capable but also more expensive.

Not every country can justify spending on an unproven potential aircraft like a fighter version of the Yak-130... we can speculate on here about how useful such an aircraft might be but that costs us nothing.

If most countries had any real brains exports of Su-25 would be like the exports of MiG-21s.... and they are not.

The Su-25 would be a much more practical aircraft for the vast majority of smaller airforces around the world that might buy Russian aircraft but instead they go for shiny fast MiGs and now Sukhoi Flanker based aircraft.

A brand new Su-25 with new ceramic armour and composite materials... increased onboard fuel, the longer barrel twin 30mm cannon from the Hind (GSh-30-2K with higher muzzle velocity and slightly lower rate of fire) and new engines based perhaps on RD-33s without the ABs would be rather more interesting in my opinion.

Especially if it had the sensors and optics and radar developed for the new attack helos currently in service and entering service soon.

Wider wings with more hard points able to carry multiple weapons (like an 8 weapon Hermes pylon like the current Vikhr setup), and a wider fuselage with belly points for weapons and targeting pods.

GarryB wrote:The Su-25 is a CAS aircraft that is designed to operate over a front line... lighter more expensive types just wont cut it.

The US tried to replace the A-10 with an A-16 and now an A-35 but they will simply fail.

A MiG-29SMT with bombs is never going to be flying supersonically on an attack mission so the fact that an Su-25 will also be subsonic means that it is not too slow for the mission... which includes finding the target and then attacking it.

Many aircraft companies tout their LIFTS as replacements for CAS aircraft but tests are performed and they fail.

Operating from airstrips near the front line is critical if you want to spend most of your flight time in the right airspace. Operating there and not being able to take some small arms fire means you cant cut it.

The Solution is not faster or lighter armoured...

eehnie wrote:The war in Ukraine shows clearly which can be the future of the combat concept of the Su-25 and the A-10.

kopyo-21 wrote:

eehnie wrote:The war in Ukraine shows clearly which can be the future of the combat concept of the Su-25 and the A-10.

A lot of Ukrainian heavily armored Su-25 were shot down by manpads and anti air guns in combat so for sure light attack aircrafts like Yak-130 will be not able to survive there.

GarryB wrote:

Yak-130 could already made attacks outside from the range of MANPADs with using TV guided KAB-500Kr bomb and by using satellite navigation complex GLONASS in similar way as SVP-24 for precision attacks. Upgraded Yak-130 will be as well equipped with SOLT targeting complex and with data link to work in network and will have wingtip ESM pods.

The fact is that anything you can put on an Yak-130 to make it a CAS aircraft you can already put on the Su-25 and the latter aircraft actually has armour in case it manages to get within small arms fire of the enemy.

In other words anything that you can put on to the Yak you can put on the Su but also the Su-25SM3 already has the self defence equipment like President-S to stop MANPADS... adding the system they use to detect optics on the ground would also be a huge step towards stopping laser beam riding missiles.

At the end of the day replacing the CAS aircraft with light LIFT trainers and drones is flawed.

It wont be cheaper if they are too vulnerable to do their job. If it is a suicide mission then will will always cost an aircraft... using guided munitions and stand off sensors then you are better using medium aircraft like MiG-35 with targeting pods... or even better large heavy aircraft like Bears and Backfires that can loiter for hours with a heavy load of a range of weapons ready to deploy when the target pops its head up...

The thing is that big heavy aircraft are expensive and there are not that many of them and the ordinance they deploy is not cheap either.

A Su-25 can operate from a nearby air strip out in the wop wops and deliver direct fire against enemy positions using cheap rockets and bombs and guns.

medo wrote:Yak-130 as trainer is good enough as it is. No need for changes. But Yak-130 is on other hand excellent basis for light combat planes, which would be  single seaters, what also mean more fuel for more powerful engine(s). There is a market for such lighter jets as not everyone want larger fighters as MiG-29/35, Rafale, F/A-18 or F-16. In light class there are South Korean FA-50, Indian Tejas, Pakistani JF-17 and super expensive Gripen from Sweden. There are a lot of light fighters MiG-21 and F-5 to be replaced around the World. This doesn't mean, that a combat jet based on Yak-130 will replace MiG-35 or Su-25 in RuAF, but could be produced specially for export. Maybe even some ex-USSR republics could buy them as Armenia or some of Stans.

kopyo-21 wrote:

medo wrote:Yak-130 as trainer is good enough as it is. No need for changes. But Yak-130 is on other hand excellent basis for light combat planes, which would be  single seaters, what also mean more fuel for more powerful engine(s). There is a market for such lighter jets as not everyone want larger fighters as MiG-29/35, Rafale, F/A-18 or F-16. In light class there are South Korean FA-50, Indian Tejas, Pakistani JF-17 and super expensive Gripen from Sweden. There are a lot of light fighters MiG-21 and F-5 to be replaced around the World. This doesn't mean, that a combat jet based on Yak-130 will replace MiG-35 or Su-25 in RuAF, but could be produced specially for export. Maybe even some ex-USSR republics could buy them as Armenia or some of Stans.

Current Yak-130's one fligh hour for training is ~USD 8,000 and not quite cheap. Equipping it with new more powerfull engines, reforce the airframe, new sightings, etc, will cost much more that.