# Russian aircraft carrier



## sunny91 (Dec 8, 2007)

A vid take on the Aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov.

Sunny


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## Aggie08 (Dec 10, 2007)

Great vid, sunny! I'd heard that the Kuznetsov didn't have a catapult system. It seems like such a waste of an aircraft carrier- now the planes can't carry as much ordinance and fuel.


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## Matt308 (Dec 11, 2007)

That was honestly the strangest video I've seen in a long time. Beautiful aircraft.

Reminded me of the US Navy. Except the deck crew is moving at half speed. Both of them. The only thing missing in that video was the audible chirping of crickets. Nothing more than a big toy. Certainly they never do REAL sea trials with that thing.


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## ccheese (Dec 11, 2007)

I noticed a few "touch go's", and some landings. How come no take
off's ? I didn't see any yellow shirts (directors) red shirts, (ammo handlers) or
purple shirts (fuelers). Didn't see any plane guard DD's or rescue helo's
either.... 

Must be some "hooligan navy"....

Charles


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## Lucky13 (Dec 11, 2007)

I agree Matt308.....


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## comiso90 (Dec 11, 2007)

Really odd watching take offs with no cat.

No doubt they tell everyone that the glorious russian navy is so advanced that it doesn't need catapults.


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## Glider (Dec 11, 2007)

I would have expected them to use the ski jump. Its there for a reason I just couldn't work out what.


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## Matt308 (Dec 11, 2007)

Its for the first line Yak-38s.

By the way, did anyone catch the Su-25 on the flightdeck? That things carrier qualified? Now I've seen it all.


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## Aggie08 (Dec 12, 2007)

Good observation on the Frogfoot, Matt, I missed it the first time around. It is decidedly not a flattering addition to your flight deck.

According to Wikipedia, the Yak-38's have a hands-free landing system. That's pretty cool. "One interesting feature of the Yak-38 was hands-free landing. The aircraft could negotiate a telemetry/telecommand link with a computer system in the aircraft carrier which would allow it to be guided onto the deck with no interaction from the pilot." Yakovlev Yak-38 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Glider (Dec 12, 2007)

The Yak-38 did have an automatic ejector seat. Once on the landing run, if the aircraft tipped or rolled beyond certain paramaters the seat automatically fired. 
I think it was also the first seat to 'sense' if it wasn't going vertical and adapt accordingly.
Very advanced for the time


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## ccheese (Dec 12, 2007)

Glider said:


> I think it was also the first seat to 'sense' if it wasn't going vertical and adapt accordingly.




Interesting... I have seen a few aviators and their martin/baker's go
horizontal. If the velocity is right the chute still opens.

Charles


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## Matt308 (Dec 12, 2007)

Aggie08 said:


> Good observation on the Frogfoot, Matt, I missed it the first time around. It is decidedly not a flattering addition to your flight deck.
> 
> [/url]



Yeah, and with the aft gear seperation as short as it is, it must be like landing an F4F at 130knots.  Wouldn't want to try that at sea state 5.


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## Thorlifter (Dec 12, 2007)

Ok, you guys are better observers than I am, but I didn't see an elevator. Do they just park everything on the deck?


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## Matt308 (Dec 12, 2007)

That's a good question. There must be. Surely they don't do maintenance under tarps.


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## Glider (Dec 13, 2007)

Done some digging and found that she has been sold to the Indian Navy and is expected to enter service in 2008/9. That ski jump should be useful as the Indian navy has the Sea Harrier.
They bought her for the price of the refit, which sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

PS She has two lifts on the starboard side


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## Royzee617 (Dec 13, 2007)

More of my fave things - Russian planes and ships!


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## Aggie08 (Dec 14, 2007)

Are the Russkies getting a new one or did they just not want to bother with the one they've got?


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 20, 2007)

Here's something...

This shows what I believe is the inexperience that is probably typical in the Russian Navy. A broke wire shouldn't necessarily result in an aircraft going into the drink!


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## Konigstiger205 (Dec 20, 2007)

Honestly I don't have much love (none at all) for the Russians mostly because of the Soviet Union but they usually make pretty solid and reliable things...not good looking but they do their job...of course they also have their ups and downs like any other country...


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## Glider (Dec 20, 2007)

Nice advert for the ejector seat but your right, it shouldn't have gone into the water.
Thinking about it, on this video and the previous one I didn't see any guard helicopter. For the pilots sake I hope I am wrong !!


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 20, 2007)

Glider said:


> Nice advert for the ejector seat but your right, it shouldn't have gone into the water.
> Thinking about it, on this video and the previous one I didn't see any guard helicopter. For the pilots sake I hope I am wrong !!


Now that you mention it, very true!


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## HoHun (Dec 20, 2007)

Hi Flyboyj,

>This shows what I believe is the inexperience that is probably typical in the Russian Navy. A broke wire shouldn't necessarily result in an aircraft going into the drink!

How could it have been prevented? If the wire had broken at the inital impact, I'd guess the pilot could have boltered, but as it broke when most of his speed was killed already, that would seem impossible to me. (Of course, I have no clue when it comes to modern-day carrier operations, so I apologize if I'm missing the obvious.)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## Glider (Dec 20, 2007)

HoHun said:


> Hi Flyboyj,
> 
> >This shows what I believe is the inexperience that is probably typical in the Russian Navy. A broke wire shouldn't necessarily result in an aircraft going into the drink!
> 
> ...



Assuming that they follow normal practice the aircraft goes to maximum power on landing so that if the wire is missed the aircraft can go around. Before the landing the hydraulic drums attached to the wires are set for the landing weight of the aircraft, so the deceleration is controlled. 
If the wire is set for a much larger weight than the aircraft, then the airframe can suffer damage as the aircraft is slowed down at too fast a rate. 
If the wire is set at too low for the aircraft weight, then the cable can suffer damage. Looking at the video it looks as if the wire was set a little too low. The cable seems to have been extended past the normal limit, the plane was slowed almost to a stop, then the cable either failed or ran out of extension, probably the latter and the aircraft went over the side.


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 20, 2007)

HoHun said:


> Hi Flyboyj,
> 
> >This shows what I believe is the inexperience that is probably typical in the Russian Navy. A broke wire shouldn't necessarily result in an aircraft going into the drink!
> 
> ...




Upon landing on a carrier you throttle up at the flare just in case you break a wire - this is continually practiced - in the clip it sounds like the guy did thin too late and you have the end result.


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## Ramirezzz (Dec 29, 2007)

Aggie08 said:


> Great vid, sunny! I'd heard that the Kuznetsov didn't have a catapult system. It seems like such a waste of an aircraft carrier- now the planes can't carry as much ordinance and fuel.



They don't need it either - russian aicraft carrier(s) have a different philosophy than the american , more like british ones- they play strictly defensive role in a navy strategy, their main task is to provide a air cover for russian submarines operating with them ,they aren't a strike force like american a/carriers. So they don't carry any aircrafts with a huge bomb load - just a normal "air-to-air" or "air-to-surface" configuration .
Then , its main weapon ,Su-33 has a brilliant takeoff acceleration, so it compensated somehow the absence of the catapult even with full load.
BTW , the normal takeoff weight of the Su-33 is about 25t, its pretty much even for an american carrier.



Matt308 said:


> Its for the first line Yak-38s.


No Yak-38s were ever deployed on "Admiral Kuznezov".Actually , they're long retired. The ramp is used for Su-33 takeoffs with a normal payload.



Matt308 said:


> By the way, did anyone catch the Su-25 on the flightdeck? That things carrier qualified? Now I've seen it all.


That's right, thats Su-25UTG - mainly for a training purposes.



Glider said:


> Done some digging and found that she has been sold to the Indian Navy and is expected to enter service in 2008/9. That ski jump should be useful as the Indian navy has the Sea Harrier.
> They bought her for the price of the refit, which sounds like a pretty good deal to me.



obviously you confused it with another russian aircraft carrier - "Admiral Gorshkov". It had indeed Forgers on board and it was indeed sold to India. They want now to modify it for MiG-29 use with removing off all weaponry and systems on deck to have a flight deck -only carrier just like "Kuznezov".



Aggie08 said:


> Are the Russkies getting a new one or did they just not want to bother with the one they've got?



they plan actually to build 10 more 8)  



FLYBOYJ said:


> Here's something...
> 
> This shows what I believe is the inexperience that is probably typical in the Russian Navy. A broke wire shouldn't necessarily result in an aircraft going into the drink!



The pilot ( BTW Russian Navy Colonel) couldn't prevent it from falling off the flight deck, he already applied the full power at the flare - the wire broke just a little bit too late. Then he recieved the order from the Flight Operations Officer to eject.
AFAIK there nobody was shot or sent to Siberia to a labour camp after investigation 8)  




Glider said:


> Nice advert for the ejector seat but your right, it shouldn't have gone into the water.
> Thinking about it, on this video and the previous one I didn't see any guard helicopter. For the pilots sake I hope I am wrong !!


don't worry, he was rescued by the Ka-27 helicopter (Yes, my Lord, do you really think that on beast with at least 70000 t displacement there isn't a single helicopter on board? Actually ,there is not only a single, but 24 of them on board  ).


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## Matt308 (Dec 29, 2007)

Ramirezzz said:


> No Yak-38s were ever deployed on "Admiral Kuznezov".Actually , they're long retired. .




That was my sarcastic point that apparently didn't make the translation. I'm sticking with the "big toy" position. 24 helicopters and two deck crew.


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## Ramirezzz (Dec 29, 2007)

Matt308 said:


> That was my sarcastic point that apparently didn't make the translation. I'm sticking with the "big toy" position. 24 helicopters and two deck crew.



 lol that's true , some jokes loose their meaning if translated into foreign mentality


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 29, 2007)

Ramirezzz said:


> The pilot ( BTW Russian Navy Colonel) couldn't prevent it from falling off the flight deck, he already applied the full power at the flare - the wire broke just a little bit too late. Then he recieved the order from the Flight Operations Officer to eject.
> AFAIK there nobody was shot or sent to Siberia to a labour camp after investigation 8)


I'm not going to compare apples to oranges here but a broke wire on a US carrier would not mean an aircraft going off the deck, but then again I could respect the short ramp deck of the Russian carrier, just the nature of the beast. All in all I still feel the Russian Navy has a long way to go before its carrier capability matures into a force to be reckoned with.....


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## HoHun (Dec 29, 2007)

Hi Flyboyj,

>but a broke wire on a US carrier would not mean an aircraft going off the deck, but then again I could respect the short ramp deck of the Russian carrier, just the nature of the beast. 

Ah, I think that was the bit I did not understand before - the angle deck of a US carrier is so long that if the wire breaks, there is enough room to accelerate to take-off speed even from a near standstill? I hadn't appreciated this difference in size before ... but I'm not entirely sure I've got it right this time either.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## Glider (Dec 29, 2007)

From a standing start the aircraft US or Russian wouldn't have time to acclerate to take off speed. If it had been a simple cable break, it would have happened when the plane first touched down as its then, that the stresses are at their maximum. 
In this case it looks as if the cable took the load, slowed the plane down and then something broke. It looks to me as if the arrester had been set for a slightly lighter aircraft weight, not enought to break the cable so the aircraft slowed, but enough so that the extra weight of the aircraft extended the cable past its maximum limit and then something broke.

Either way I agree with FJ that the Soviet Navy have a lot to learn, but I have no doubt that in the end they will get to a solution that works for them. Some of the changes are likely to be structural not physical. On the old Ark Royal we once had some Russian officers on board and the one thing that struck then was the trust put in the Petty Officers and other senior ratings. On Russian ships officers would undertake these tasks.

What I find interesting is that the vessel doesn't use a catapult. Without one you are severely limited in how you can operate your carrier, a limitation that they will want to overcome


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## Ramirezzz (Dec 29, 2007)

> From a standing start the aircraft US or Russian wouldn't have time to acclerate to take off speed. If it had been a simple cable break, it would have happened when the plane first touched down as its then, that the stresses are at their maximum.
> In this case it looks as if the cable took the load, slowed the plane down and then something broke. It looks to me as if the arrester had been set for a slightly lighter aircraft weight, not enought to break the cable so the aircraft slowed, but enough so that the extra weight of the aircraft extended the cable past its maximum limit and then something broke.


That's what I'm talking about - if the supposed wire brake occured earlier, the aircraft could achieve the t/o speed before falling off the deck . Here you have something completely different, we have cable overextended and its break which followed which followed immediately thereafter - no aircraft in the world could made it under such circumstances.

Either way I agree with you both - Russians don't have so much experience in a/c operations like RN or USN , the Soviet naval strategy never saw them as a main strike element just like USN does.
The question now is - does Russia really need to build more a/c than a single one already in service? But this is radther a question of doctrine, not of experience. 



> On the old Ark Royal we once had some Russian officers on board and the one thing that struck then was the trust put in the Petty Officers and other senior ratings. On Russian ships officers would undertake these tasks.


The same happens in the army and in the AF - the number of the officers per soldier is greater then in other armed forces. I don't know why - maybe because of a draft ,but then again ,Germans have draft and don't have so many officers in their army.


> What I find interesting is that the vessel doesn't use a catapult. Without one you are severely limited in how you can operate your carrier, a limitation that they will want to overcome


I think that depends which doctrine you persuade - for the russian a/c the main task remains the air defence of the fleet and subs operations and the anti-surface missions. You can use fighters and helicopters for that purposes without overloading them - you can see this as a limitation, and maybe it is , but if it fits in your strategy,then why not?
Another interesting fact about "Kuznezov" is that there was an AWACS aircraft developed for the deployment on it:
An-71, Antonov 'Madcap'


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## Matt308 (Dec 29, 2007)

Good post Ramirezzz. Never had read about the An-71. Reminds me of the US STOL effort in the late 70s between Boeing and McD.


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## Glider (Dec 30, 2007)

She sure is an odd bird, thats for sure and a new one on me. 

Re the benefits of a catapult, the main and most obvious one is that you can launch and recover aircraft at the same time, without one you cannot. Thats a benefit that would apply to any mission be it ASW, Air Defence or strike. 
I would expect the Soviet Navy to develop one before too long, its all part of the learning curve. 
Do you know if the Indian Navy are helping Russia with this as they are working closely together these days and the Indian Navy have experience of carrier operations?


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## HoHun (Dec 30, 2007)

Hi Ramirezzz,

>Another interesting fact about "Kuznezov" is that there was an AWACS aircraft developed for the deployment on it:

Highly interesting, thanks! I had wondered about the AWACS ... RAF test pilot Mike Crosley mentioned that the worst limitation the British faced in the Falklands was that their carriers (and emergency Harrier platforms) was the lack of a genuine AWACS aircraft, giving them very little advance warning of strikes against their fleet. What they had instead were Sea King helicopters carrying a small radome that was more of a stopgap than of a solution. The lack of AWACS capability was a crippling defect of the "jump jet" carriers in Crosley's opinion.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## Graeme (Dec 30, 2007)

Ramirezzz said:


> Another interesting fact about "Kuznezov" is that there was an AWACS aircraft developed for the deployment on it:



As was the Yak-44E?


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## Ramirezzz (Dec 30, 2007)

Glider said:


> She sure is an odd bird, thats for sure and a new one on me.
> 
> Re the benefits of a catapult, the main and most obvious one is that you can launch and recover aircraft at the same time, without one you cannot. Thats a benefit that would apply to any mission be it ASW, Air Defence or strike.
> I would expect the Soviet Navy to develop one before too long, its all part of the learning curve.



they actually developed one:
I did some small research and discovered that the full scale aircraft carrier "Ulyanovsk" which was laid down in 1988 had a catapult so it could perform very much the same variety of missions than the american CNVs do. It was completed up to 40% but was scrapped due to lack of funding in 1991. 
Here's the only information I found in English:
Soviet aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Project 1153 OREL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ul'yanovsk Class - Project 1143.7




HoHun said:


> Hi Ramirezzz,
> 
> >Another interesting fact about "Kuznezov" is that there was an AWACS aircraft developed for the deployment on it:
> 
> ...


you're absolutely right ,and the development of an-71 begun just after Falkland War - the Soviets realized, that without AVACS the carrier would be no more than an expensive toy. But then again ,the an-71 proved itself to be too heavy and too big - it didn't fit into the flight deck elevator and it could start from the ramp of "Kuznezov" only with more powerful enginges (so HERE you have another real drawback when you're using the a/c without catapult  )



Graeme said:


> As was the Yak-44E?


yes, indeed,that was a competitor of the An-71 but its development was cancelled due to lack of funding in early 90s
http://www.airwar.ru/image/idop/spy/yak44/yak44-s2.jpg


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## Glider (Dec 30, 2007)

HoHun said:


> Hi Ramirezzz,
> 
> >Highly interesting, thanks! I had wondered about the AWACS ... RAF test pilot Mike Crosley mentioned that the worst limitation the British faced in the Falklands was that their carriers (and emergency Harrier platforms) was the lack of a genuine AWACS aircraft, giving them very little advance warning of strikes against their fleet. What they had instead were Sea King helicopters carrying a small radome that was more of a stopgap than of a solution. The lack of AWACS capability was a crippling defect of the "jump jet" carriers in Crosley's opinion.
> 
> ...



During the Falklands the British didn't have the Sea King AWACS, it was developed during the war and deployed after fighting was over. The Sea King solution has proved to be very effective and the only viable option on a small carrier the size of the Illustrious.

What interests me is what happens when we eventually get the two new carriers, with luck we will buy a couple of Hawkeye's and do the job properly.


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## Matt308 (Dec 30, 2007)

Graeme said:


> As was the Yak-44E?



Now that's a direct reverse engineering job, if I ever saw one. Major parts are probably stamped Grumman.


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## mkloby (Dec 30, 2007)

Ramirezzz said:


> The same happens in the army and in the AF - the number of the officers per soldier is greater then in other armed forces. I don't know why - maybe because of a draft ,but then again ,Germans have draft and don't have so many officers in their army.



Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but what does a draft of recruits have to do with an high number of officers? Please tell me officers are not drafted.


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## HoHun (Dec 30, 2007)

Hi Glider,

>During the Falklands the British didn't have the Sea King AWACS, it was developed during the war and deployed after fighting was over. The Sea King solution has proved to be very effective and the only viable option on a small carrier the size of the Illustrious.

Thanks for the correction - I'm somewhat out of my element in carrier warfare 

>What interests me is what happens when we eventually get the two new carriers, with luck we will buy a couple of Hawkeye's and do the job properly.

I was fascinating by the innovative carrier layout described in Eric Brown's "Wings on my Sleeve" - which was canceled back then in favour of the "jump jet" carriers.

What kind of carriers will the new British ones be?

With regard to the Sea King, what are its disadvantages in comparison to the Hawkeye (since you suggest they are the better solution)?

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)


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## Glider (Dec 30, 2007)

Re the ships this should help
Future Carrier : Future Ships : Surface Fleet : Operations and Support : Royal Navy

Re the advantages of the aircraft there overwhelming, The aircraft carries a much bigger radar, to a much higher altitude for a longer time and carries a better command and control suite. Its no contest.


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