They must have been reading the thoughts of Peter Costello. They are having a bad enough time without suffering that as well.
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Norway is not an EU member.
In any event , there would be a few Russian dual citizens or with residency status in the EU and elsewhere who would be sending consumer goods by post to Russia.
There could be a few daigou type shopping syndicates operating around the world.
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Hmmm. I can see families objecting to providing another generation of cannon fodder.
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Fox is bombing itself into as much irrelevance as the Russian army tbh
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Probably not related
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That probably explains the situation. I had difficulty believing DTED was not being used with such ground hugging flying in Ukraine even when @elfm confirmed fourth generation fighters don’t have it because of philosophical objections from pilots and @Benny40 said cockpit photos showed absence. But I had to accept not having any evidence to contradict theirs.
Now I assume that GCAS is not connected directly to auto-pilot but only warns the pilot when ground is too close, so it is assumed to simply be a measurement of distance to ground by radar or Lidar. But actually it is far more efficient than when that really was the case.
With DTED map files “under the hood” the comparison is between fairly precise knowledge of exact Digital Terrain Elevation Data at the GPS location and the flight path ahead of that location with both the radar/Lidar current measurements and the fairly precise GPS altitude from the reference ellipsoid the DTED files are referenced to. That makes ground hugging flights much safer than with just radar/Lidar, let alone pilot visual observation. It also works even without radar/Lidar as long as GPS is not denied.
Anyway, as @barry_day mentioned, drones certainly use DTED map files.
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There’s also a philosophical difference between western and soviet equipment. Western equipment tends to add tech to solve problems, soviet tends to ruggedise and simplify. Soviet will outnumber, Western will outperform.
The F-16 couldn’t operate in the field conditions the Ukrainians are flying their SU-25 and MIG-29s from. The aircraft are of a similar age design, but the Soviet airframes are built to withstand a tough life with simple easy to maintain parts.
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There’s also a philosophical difference between western and soviet equipment. Western equipment tends to add tech to solve problems, soviet tends to ruggedise and simplify. Soviet will outnumber and stay working in rough conditions, Western will outperform and hope that the support can be maintained.
The F-16 couldn’t operate in the field conditions the Ukrainians are flying their SU-25 and MIG-29s from. The aircraft are of a similar age design, but the Soviet airframes are built to withstand a tough life with simple easy to maintain parts.
If you haven’t been a Cold War equipment nerd, that stark difference wouldn’t be obvious.
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Ok, so a huge MQ-9A “Reaper” drone could take off and fly within NATO airspace or over the Black Sea and launch a Ukrainian “tactical” drone for an ISR or strike mission and then recover it in mid-air.
Russian failure to destroy the airborne airfield with an air to air missile could help set the scene for use of less Rube Goldberg forms of NATO air support to Ukraine.
If Russia just complains about it there would be a bland denial than any NATO airbase was involved, with much sniggering.
It’s an intriguing thought but more likely application is just extracting more funds from US military budgets.
If they are going to launch drones from NATO ships in the Black Sea I don’t think they need a new Portuguese helicopter carrier to do it.
I do see an application for ISR drones south of the south coast of Ukraine - always good to approach from two directions instead of just one. But Ukraine could probably just launch from a drone boat and recover to it. There are industrial launch and recovery boxes for unattended continuous surveillance of remote operations.
That makes 8 locally produced Ukrainian types of drones approved in the last month!
I doubt that is a good allocation of resources but they will certainly end up with a post war drone industry!
I suspect main issue will be proper architecture for interoperable avionics.
Good point about Soviet military hardware ruggedness. The Su-27 Flanker is also a standout for its toughness and strong airframe. As evidenced during this incident in 2020.
A Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 combat aircraft narrowly avoided a more serious accident when it landed short and collided with a traffic sign during an expedient tactical airstrip training exercise on Thursday, August 27, 2020, in Ukraine.
“The unusual accident occurred on a closed portion of the M06 international highway between Kyiv and the city of Chop. The area was being used for a training simulation that demonstrated the use of “twelve fighters” on an improvised, forward dispersed highway landing area according to a report on unian.info. The aircraft were reported to be from the Ukrainian “39th Tactical Aviation Brigade” according to the report. A quote attributed to a Ukrainian military source on the media outlet said, “These skills will come in handy for war pilots in the event of a large-scale enemy invasion”.”
Eerily prescient comment.
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Well while not being an equipment nerd I did study navigation and communication systems for counterforce ballistic missile submarines back in the 1970s (due to Australia pretending Omega VLF navigation system was not a target). Strangely turned out to be useful background now. In fact I first heard of TERCOM (now DTED) back then.
Some oddities I became aware of then:
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US were very mocking on discovery Soviet MiGs still used vacuum tube “valves” instead of transistors. Then they thought about the implications of nuclear Electro Magnetic Pulses and stopped laughing.
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Ludicrous Pentagon projects were not uncommon eg “flying submarine” abandoned after concluding that there was no actual operational requirement for a flying submarine (I bet its been revived by now). Another was an idea to deflect ballistic missiles by firing lots and lots of rocket motors to alter the spinning of the earth - costed in multiples of Gross National Product.
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Stark difference between Kalashnikov and US infantry arms was very well known.
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The main difficulty Vietnamese liberation fighters had in retraining puppet troops that changed side was ammunition discipline. They had been trained to just spray the bushes with bullets.
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“Experts” on nuclear war discussing arms control in terms of “Mutual Assured Destruction” were abysmally ignorant of all aspects of actual counterforce nuclear strategy on either side.
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«You can hear it when it has already dropped a bomb» Ukrainian reusable strike drone - (Eng Subs) hromadske
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@Taojas, here is a pre-emptive bump.
I like your nice new avatar, too.
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Thank you @Albert_Thurgood! Yes, a change is good now and again…
More Aid
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Road conditions in the East: Ice on Mud
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That’s a VERY impressive video of local Ukraine production of a small light reusable winged strike drone that is battery operated so stealthy. Claims to be the first in that weight class.
$100 per sortie makes a LOT more sense than the “Kamikaze” drones.
Apparantly has a significant catapault launch failure rate if I understood the comments at end about next version having two aircraft per system (per “complex”) to avoid combat mission failure and costing $70k for the system with 2.
Clear statement at end about needing government support to scale up. Mass production should be VASTLY cheaper.
Looks like proliferation of tiny drone manufacturer startups is gaining a lot of experience in aerodynamics. Standardization of the avionics for mass production should make a huge difference to costs and effectiveness.
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The Pathfinder Chapter of the Association of Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) associated with University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) had a symposium in August.
I’ve watched 1h22’53" video from 28’ to end.
Main take away is clear statement near end from “Red Team Six” who do UAV threat analysis for US Government:
China’s DJI drones are way ahead and nothing from US Blue UAS program to replace them comes close.
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Update from DefMon
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