Su-57 convertible

[Hair Warrior]

Daredevil Russian pilot flies 1,300mph fighter jet with NO ROOF on his cockpit

ASTONISHING footage has emerged showing a Russian pilot flying the Kremlin’s new Su-57 stealth fighter jet without a ROOF on his cockpit. The daredevil flier is seen at the controls of the 1,300mph…

www.thesun.co.uk

 

[ChuckMK23]

Can't imagine it launching that way - I'm sure there is an expensive canopy sitting on the ground somewhere in pieces. Breezy and chilly ride home!

 

[Pags]

The article is terrible, but it sounds like they did it on purpose for a test event.

 

[Notanaviator]

“Da, Comrade.... it was totally on purpose. It was an... um... test. What were we testing? To see what it would be like to fly it without the canopy in case that ever happens. It was successful. We did it. It was a successful test. Yes, Boris did a great job and in no way accidentally punched off the canopy. Da, I will congratulate him but he is currently sleeping it of- I mean in the debrief. Of the test. It was a test.”

 

[nittany03]

The article is terrible, but it sounds like they did it on purpose for a test event.

I'd hope so . . . I once met a Hornet guy who'd had something similar happen in the winter Fallon instrument approach conga line. As I recall, he ended up permanently med down.

 

[MIDNJAC]

I'd hope so . . . I once met a Hornet guy who'd had something similar happen in the winter Fallon instrument approach conga line. As I recall, he ended up permanently med down.

Interesting. Those canopies don't blow on their own, and Hornet guys don't have anyone else to blame

 

[nittany03]

Interesting. Those canopies don't blow on their own, and Hornet guys don't have anyone else to blame

I can't remember the details now; it's been like 4+ years since I talked to the guy . . .

 

[Treetop Flyer]

Interesting. Those canopies don't blow on their own, and Hornet guys don't have anyone else to blame

IT JUST BLEW!

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

Just test. Below 3 km, slower than 800 km/h. Routine test for all new fighter jets with ejection seats. GLIC, a testing installation near city of Astrakhan, is funny place. One of its test pilots, former Yak-38 VSTOL driver of Pacific Fleet, told me how they strafed a mock T-72 tank from Su-34 with 30-mm gun, elaborating methods to hit the engine compartment. It turned out that it is better to fire being descending on the loop, thus allowing several shells to dig the soil and after this several next ones hit the mark. Since it is extremely doubtful that in fact medium bomber Su-34 will ever strife the ground in CAS fashion, I think no line squadrons will get such training, but GLIC people want to know what airplane can do and what cannot, and sometimes it resembles some activity just for fun?

 

[ChuckMK23]

Just test. Below 3 km, slower than 800 km/h. Routine test for all new fighter jets with ejection seats. GLIC, a testing installation near city of Astrakhan, is funny place. One of its test pilots, former Yak-38 VSTOL driver of Pacific Fleet, told me how they strafed a mock T-72 tank from Su-34 with 30-mm gun, elaborating methods to hit the engine compartment. It turned out that it is better to fire being descending on the loop, thus allowing several shells to dig the soil and after this several next ones hit the mark. Since it is extremely doubtful that in fact medium bomber Su-34 will ever strife the ground in CAS fashion, I think no line squadrons will get such training, but GLIC people want to know what airplane can do and what cannot, and sometimes it resembles some activity just for fun?

@Max the Mad Russian as usual really good insightful context. Actually makes sense that the design bureau engineers would call for such a test - was it the same for SU25? SU27? Mi-29? Russian/Soviet engineering culture is fascinating. This is the same culture that engineers fail-safe explosive bolts on the rotor blades of a helicopter so ejection seats can be utilized for the pilots!

 

[Griz882]

Daredevil Russian pilot flies 1,300mph fighter jet with NO ROOF on his cockpit

ASTONISHING footage has emerged showing a Russian pilot flying the Kremlin’s new Su-57 stealth fighter jet without a ROOF on his cockpit. The daredevil flier is seen at the controls of the 1,300mph…

www.thesun.co.uk

Pfffffttt...the Navy did this years ago and our guy was able to give a “thumbs up.”


All kidding aside, this is an amazing story.

 

[jmcquate]

SWO Admiral thought the black and yellow thing between his legs was a hand hold.

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

was it the same for SU25? SU27? MiG-29?

As far as I know yes. Look, Soviet engineering culture never allowed command guys interfere with engineering line, everywhere in military. Of course there are pros and cons in here but what about testing the new airplane design it is amazing how independent the chief designers of some teams were here in Soviet time. Say, Anatoliy Tupolev, the father-founder of TU line, often - in fact always - using extremely dirty and harsh Russian, openly neglected the demands of Air Force generals, proverbally telling them: "You silly light blue gremlins WILL fly what WE will make for you and NOT what you want to fly". Once one O-8 claimed the window in the floor of a cabine just to improve the vision from cockpit during landing (if I'm not mistake for Tu-128 interceptor prototype), to which Tupolev answered: "When your pilots somehow obtain the eyes right on their ass, then we'll make that fuckin' window!" Given all that, Air Force created some test centers like this GLIC to cope with serial airplanes, fresh from assembly lines, to make them better and to see what else could the average pilot do with them in the air and ground crews to maintain them in all possible circumstances: polar bases, mountain bases, desert bases with usual for USSR poor logistics train. Again, in hard times the pilot/WSO traditionally should do all possible to land the airplane in one piece - and if they do that, alerted GLIC crowd should be there within hours to investigate the case. If the plane crashes, the sad Russian saying is that "it is better for crew to share this fate, since careers will be inevitably dead no matter was there their fault or not". Generally, "you may eject safely for your future in one and only case: if you are test pilot and be ejected is your job".

 

[nittany03]

SWO Admiral thought the black and yellow thing between his legs was a hand hold.

I remember reading the Approach article for that, where the pilot wrote something like “in future VIP flights, I’ll try to do a better job putting myself in my passenger’s shoes . . . even if they are black shoes.” ?

 

[Max the Mad Russian]

All kidding aside, this is an amazing story.

KA-6D? Any relation of this case to tanker version of venerable Intruder?

explosive bolts on the rotor blades of a helicopter so ejection seats can be utilized for the pilots!

On meat grinders only, i.e. co-axial helos of Kamov design, nowadays on Hokums only but more widespread Helix has no such system. When such helo gets reducer troubles let alone lost a piece of a single blade it is literally impossible to stabilize it in the air for some minimal time enough to bailing out. Have heard this system appeared on Hokum (generally CAS helo) for mostly both mountain and urban kinds of environment where there's not a lot of places for emergency landing.