It was an older S-200 system, not SA-2. Correcting myself.
An excellent article regarding Ukranian exploits against Russian aircraft using the more mobile German contributed PATRIOT systems.
Yesterday the Russians lost another Su-34, this time because…(checks notes)…it hit a rock.
Yeah, you read that correctly. It hit a rock. The Ukrainians don’t need Patriot missiles. They need Ohtani out there hitting rocks at the orcs!
How does one hit a rock during a training flight?
Think Iranian helicopter going 550 mph on a training run through the mountains.
Clouds. They ran into a cumulogranite.
Now I’ve got an unformed, nebulous comedy routine going on in my head of a conversation between the pilot and his commander in Heaven.
“You hit a rock.”
“Big fucking rock.”
I’ve heard of nap-of-the-earth flying but that is taking it a wee bit extreme.
Might it have been right at takeoff or landing? I’ve heard that, on unsuitable runways, fighter jets can suck up bits of pavement. A loose rock that’s too close to the plane could certainly get sucked up.
The Fullback has intakes on the bottom of the fuselage, so that is definitely a possibility.
That would make sense. As I recall, the Russian AF doesn’t patrol their runways.
3rd rock from the sun.
Was the pilot Charlie Brown?
But, seriously,
Further reading of different sources do more frequently say it hit a mountain (does Russian use a terminology similar to English’s “Rock of Gibraltar” to refer to large pieces of stony topography, that could lead to a mistranslation?) and it involved a malfunction in a training flight. So yeah, navigational or terrain-avoidance system malfunction, and next thing you know, “Dmitri, what’s that mountain goat doing in the middle of a cloud?”
Ya beat me to it.
Not sure about that particular plane but some russian fighter planes can at least partially close intakes to avoid FOD for take off.
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One of my favorite Far Side comics.
Remember all, breaking news thread. Don’t keep incrementing off topic.
Link to comic broken above.
The Mig 29 does that. I looked at a video of this plane and it doesn’t appear to have FOD doors in the intake.
Query, please: FOD?
Foreign Object Damage. Some airplanes have doors on the air intakes to reduce the chance of sucking in a rock (or a person) while on the ground.
Thank you.
Is that what killed the Concorde?
(Last question on this, WhatExit?, then I’ll stop.)