Be-200 Multirole Amphibian

This is a large aircraft and being able to pull up and simply climb over something is not always possible.

Just because the sensors tell you there is a cliff ahead does not mean the pilot can do anything about it.

In one article it did mention the aircraft had just dropped water on a fire so perhaps the pilot was expecting to be able to climb out of the area with the reduced weight... but this sort of speculation is pointless.

They will work out what happened and hopefully changes and improvements will be made.

I also heard a version that the engines could have been damaged due to spills through smoke and ash. Therefore, there was a lack of thrust to rise above the mountain. But this is only one of the versions

That is a good point... jet engines work by sucking in fresh air and consuming some of the oxygen in the air it sucks in by burning fuel in it to generate thrust... if it flys through smoke or just air with very low concentrations of oxygen... a combination of altitude and fire you would lose power from the engines... and again you can't anticipate that or do anything about that as a pilot...

RIP.

They died saving lives and property as heroes.

If they get a lot of orders they can make a few extra before shutting down production so that they don't need to restart unless there is a rather big order later on.

marcellogo wrote:

Russian_Patriot_ wrote:Unofficial sources in Telegram report that the production program for 2022 includes 3 Be-200 aircraft, 2 of them for the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The program for 2023 - 4 planes.

A question: have they ever tried to make an AEW /AWACS version of a Beriev hydroplane?

Something smaller than Be-200 and that could be moored on a ship would solve a lot of problems with existing  STOBAR carriers.

It wouldn't be able to operate in the oceans. It need calm waters to take off.

But it could be used from lakes which is better than from airfields that can be destroyed. Unless if they are all far away from the front.

Ironically the current and next AWACS the Russians have are Beriev aircraft products, though they are based on the Il-76 (A-50/U) and Il-476 (A-100).

The A-40/A-42 was a bigger aircraft and would benefit from having PD-16 engines instead of the four it used... they could certainly expand the idea and make a much bigger amphibious aircraft that could operate with aircraft carriers, but unfortunately the body shaping to make them able to land on water ruins their low drag design for long flight endurance that you want with an AWACS aircraft.

I was thinking though that a MPA version of the aircraft could carry a variable depth sonar that could be lowered into the water from the water surface to communicate with SSBNs, or hunt enemy subs in deep and shallow waters.

I still think and airship would tick all the boxes for the perfect AWACS platform for the navy... ironically most see them as too fragile but actually a rather big airship could be made of modern light weight very strong materials and with clever design including purging the air between the internal gas bags with nitrogen would mean it would actually be very very safe... hydrogen only burns if there is oxygen present so with a nitrogen purged volume even an AMRAAM penetrating inside the airship and exploding inside will shred the gas bags and damage structure but an airship several 100 metres long it wont start a fire and all the gas bags it shreds can be compensated for by inflating more to balance the loss of lift.

Cover the top in solar panels and have a small gas turbine or diesel engine that generates heat (lift) but could generate and store power on board.

Hydrogen fuel cells could be used to create lifting hydrogen gas or water ballast and electricity can be used for propulsion with electric motors.

Nuclear batteries could power it 24/7, or you could tether it to a ship providing electrical power to the electric motors for station keeping and through the fuel cells to maintain lift and also to operate massive radar arrays... it could operate at altitudes of 30km so the risk of being shot down is reduced dramatically.

Operating over Russian ships means being defended by those ships as well... it could have a flat top and operate UAVs like MALEs and HALEs... you could operate a few around the world as mobile bases for these drones... they could land and charge their batteries via solar panel during the day... you could store weapons on the airship so a HALE in some region finds a target could fly to the nearest airship and land and be equipped with a suitable weapon to return and attack the target much faster than returning it to Russia or sending a new aircraft from Russia for the attack... it would massively improve the endurance of HALES and MALES if they didn't fly around with weapons all the time especially if one crashes.

I think the time for airships has come... they could use the trade winds to shift at high speeds to different places by climbing to the altitude the winds are moving and then just floating around the planet...