Too little, too late. Map analysis is showing the initial indications of a breakthrough by the Russians. And you can expect them to throw everything they have at Ukraine now. To take advantage of the munitions shortages in Ukraine right now.
If theyâre smart.
Never discount the Russian ability to completely â â â â something up and throw away opportunities.
Thatâs not per plane, is it?
If a plane flies a mission, and isnât damaged, how many hours until itâs ready to fly again?
The Russian army of today isnât the armchair bound, desk flying general led force of 2 years ago. They have assessed the battlefield, adapted their tactics and conducted a year long attrition campaign all along the front. Ukraine helped them degrade some of Ukraineâs best formations by refusing to make timely withdraws from hopeless situations, on undefendable positions, all for pride. And now the Russian Air Force tactical airpower is definitely in the fight, something that wasnât true the first 21 months of the war. The Russians arenât superman, but they are now a force led by experienced combat veterans, who have settled on the tactics that work in this type of war.
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Depends on the bird. Stuff like the B-2 (which to be fair all of them were built in the 90s) has something north of 75 hours of maintenance per flight hour.
As the planes get older, maintenance time increases.
Iâm really speaking of their political leadership.
Vlad seems focused on battlefield success. He isnât personally directing the fighting, but rather much like Lincoln, firing the McClellans and looking for Grantâs on the battlefield. And no he isnât morally Lincoln by any measure. The Russians have settled into their type of battle strategy, slow, grinding pressure, that never ends. They have a window right now between the current status of the Ukrainian forces and facing them in 4 months when Ukraine has fresh arms and better logistics.
I would say best course of action is to neither underestimate them militarily nor underestimate their long running capability to snatch defeat from the jaws victory. Theyâve done that in every single war since the Cold War ended except for Chechnya 1. And they won that only by incinerating Grozny and killing more Russian citizens than the Chechens did.
Iâm just assessing their battlefield situation now versus 18 months ago. Momentum is clearly in their favor along the front.
I agree they are doing much better overall. The early months were embarrassing. Theyâve come a long way from that â â â â show. Theyâre actually making progress now. At great costs to their own men but hey the Russians have never found a price thatâs too high to pay for the motherland.
What sort of things do you have to do to the plane after a flight to get it ready for the next? Seems like a ton of maintenance.
Some parts have very short wear lifetimes and have to replaced immediately for safery. Like on helicopters you have bearings that have to replaced every flight. Older stealth aircraft like the B-2 have a special skin coating that literally has to be torn off and reapplied on the fuselage and wings every flight to guarantee its radar return numbers. Engines have to be fully examined, all fuel connections checked and verified for safety. Plus thereâs a ton more. I went to college with a guy who worked on planes in the Air Force and he told me the details of what all goes in it. Itâs a lot more than people think it is. Oh yeah and the airframe has to be measured to make sure itâs in design spec in case some jock of a pilot over-Ged it. Which pilots are taught not to do that or theyâll suffer the wrath of the crew chief. They donât like extra unnecessary work.
Basically airplanes are a little bit like race cars. Some stuff will last on them but a bunch of stuff has to be replaced between races for safety and to ensure it works properly. If you donât maintain them properly you run into a Russia circa 2009 problem where older MiG-29s were literally suffering from airframe fatigue cracking and crashing.
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Thatâs wild. Thx
Itâs that soft costs Iâve mentioned in other threads before. And itâs what makes the US the best military in the world because we have the worldâs best logistics with the best trained maintainers.
A lot of countries have to restrict flight hours on their aircraft because they donât do the maintenance properly every flight. Basically in Russia when you go up in the air as a pilot youâre not sure if the plane was really good to go or not. Although they have gotten better because of the Ukraine War has forced them to be better and spend more money. Itâs expensive to do the soft costs stuff.
Itâs why everyone who was saying âwe donât need to replace the F-16 just keep flying themâ were not seeing the full picture. As they age they get harder and more expensive to maintain. Eventually parts go out of production and they have to canabalize other aircraft to make other ones flight worthy. We had to replace it at some point.
One cool thing about combat jets that I really admire is that most of them are designed to be easily maintained. A crew of four dudes can do an engine swap on a F-18 Super Hornet in less than 40 minutes because the aircraft was designed in way that it makes that process easy. I think itâs maybe 6 big bolts holding an engine inside the engine bay and all the fuel line connections are quick disconnects that just twist snap in place and the electricals are tied into like one hardness connection. Itâs the exact opposite of production cars, where they are designed to make production easier and cheaper but as a consequence repair procedures are often a nightmare on them.
Like doing a motor swap on an F-250 sucks. Got to pull the cab off of the frame, thereâs a billion wiring connections, youâve got like 10 different size bolts that have to come out and then put back in so you need a crap of sockets and wrenches, and itâs usually made of rust.
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Yes per plane, that takes into account fueling after a mission, daily inspection, turnaround inspection, and any maintenance issues. It is an âaverageâ, some birds needed little maintenance, others always seemd to be down. Engine change for example, a good crew could remove/replace, take it out to the trim ramp to fine tune the fuel control, and have it ready for a test hop in 8 hours. To pull the engine on the A4 Skyhawk (the one I worked on) required every shop, hydraulics, metal shop, avionics, seat shop to disconnect/reconnect their stuff, also had to pull the tail off. Then you clean out the engine bay, fix other things that can only be done with the engine out
etc. Then you have hydraulic issues, metal shop, seat shop, avionics, etc. It is not âland, refuel, launchâ. Takes a lot more for a mission.
Yep, the jet I was a plane captain on (crew chief) first flew in the 50âs, the birds we had were newer, in fact we had the last A4M built in my last squadron.
It was called the âeaster eggâ because it has the flag of every nation that flew it painted on the fuselage.
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I read some real horror stories about F-14. Apparently only the American people as a whole actually liked it (and half of that was due to Top Gun) but the maintenance crews despised them and even the pilots and RIOs had a love hate relationship with it.
Apparently the Hornet family as a whole (both Legacy and Super) were far more loved by the Navy than the Tomcat was due to the fact one article I read by old crew chief stated âthe Tomcat frequently required us to achieve acts of God just to get the damn thing in the air reliably.â
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Quite accurate, the Marine Corps was looking to add the Tomcat before the Hornet but due to the 30+ maint. hour to flight hour they bailed. The hornet is a maintainers dream, as you stated earlier, engine swaps are gravy, few panels, a few connections and engine out compared to the A4 which as I stated earlier required pulling the tail, actually literally splitting it in half to pull an engine.
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Thatâs so cool
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