Beriev A-50

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Beriev A-50 Schmel
Beriev A-50 "Schmel"
Type: Air reconnaissance aircraft
Design country:

Soviet Union 1955Soviet Union Soviet Union / Russia
RussiaRussia 

Manufacturer:

First flight:

December 19, 1978

Commissioning:

1984

Production time:

in series production since 1984

Number of pieces:

about 40

The Beriev A-50 Schmel ( Russian Бериев А-50 Шмель , NATO code name : "Mainstay" ) is a four- engine early warning aircraft developed in the Soviet Union based on the Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft . It forms the counterpart to the US Boeing E-3 Sentry . The Beriev A-50 is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the Ilyushin Il-82. In Russia , a significantly modernized version is being developed under the name Beriev A-100 , the first flight of which was on November 18, 2017.

development

The development began after the Soviet air forces requested a suitable carrier aircraft for the Schmel radar system (шмель, Hummel), which was planned from 1965 and developed from 1969 . After the Tu-126 and Tu-142 types, which were already in use , a project based on the Tu-154 and a new construction of a Tu-126 fuselage with revised wings with jet propulsion under the designation Tu-156 , a decision was made for use in combination with the Il-76 transport aircraft, as this has already been mass-produced, saving time and costs for a new development while ensuring the supply of spare parts. The OKB Tupolev was not able to provide the armed forces with a corresponding model and so Beriev received in Taganrog with a Council of Ministers decision of 1973 the order to take over the work under the designation A-50 or Isdelije (product) A. The project management was entrusted to Alexei K. Konstantinow. The design office had not yet dealt with aircraft of this type and had to carry out extensive development work, in particular with regard to accommodating the large number of electronic instruments and the aerodynamic design and cladding of the antennas.

The first A-50 completed its maiden flight on December 19, 1978 with incomplete equipment. The other test flights took place in Aktyubinsk and ended in 1981. Then the series production began very slowly, with the production of the aircraft being carried out in Tashkent and the installation of the electronic equipment in Taganrog. The A-50 replaced the Tu-126 when it was introduced to the Air Force of the USSR.

construction

The A-50 has an elongated fuselage to make room for screen consoles and communication systems. The main task is air reconnaissance, for which the A-50 uses a radar antenna in the rotating plate. The conversion of the basic Il-76 to A-50 takes place at the manufacturer Berijew , who delivered the first series machines in 1984.

The A-50 also serves as a command center to coordinate the actions of allied units. For this purpose, radar data can be exchanged with allied combat units via satellite communication or directly. So every aircraft can get a full radar image without having to switch on its own radar; It is also possible to exchange radar data from allied aircraft and ground stations .

For self-defense, instead of the two 23 mm on-board cannons of the Il-76 , the aircraft has ECM , infrared and radar decoys and radar warning receivers in the rear . The A-50M version is an improved variant of the A-50. The A-60 is an Il-76 converted for testing laser weapons .

Under the name A-50I, a version was planned for export to China , which was to be equipped with an AESA (a phased array radar) developed by Israel Aerospace Industries . Under pressure from the USA, this deal was canceled by Israel , but later China produced its own model with the same technology with the KJ-2000 , which had its maiden flight at the end of 2003. So far, four KJ-2000s have been built.

Three machines destined for India are designated A-50EI. Beriev takes over the equipment of the cabin and the assembly of the radar fairing on the back of the fuselage. The radar is supplied and installed by IAI Elta . It works with electronic beam swiveling. The first of these machines had its maiden flight on November 29, 2007 in Taganrog . A modernized model equipped with new radar equipment called the Beriev A-100 has been developed in Russia since the early 2010s. The first Il-76MD-90A, which served as the basis for the machine, was handed over to the responsible plant on November 21, 2014 for the installation of the electronics.

Users

Current

RussiaRussia Russian Air Force - 26 in service.

IndiaIndia Indian Air Force - three in service, three more being equipped with the IAI Phalcon AEW&C radar system by IAI ; In March 2016, it became known that India wanted to convert two more machines, for which machines of the Uzbek air force are to be bought.

Former

IraqIraq Iraqi Air Force - Iraq, with the help of France and Russia, equipped three Ilyushin Il-76 civil aircraft with radar equipment similar to the A-50. One machine was destroyed, the remaining two machines were flown to Iran by their crews during the Second Gulf War . Iran kept the machines as reparation for the losses from the Iran-Iraq war . Only one machine could be kept ready for use, the other was probably cannibalized as a spare parts supplier. One operational machine was lost during a military parade on September 22, 2009 in a mid-air collision with a Northrop F-5 E Tiger II (or HESA Saeqeh ), killing the seven-man crew. The collision with the subsequent explosion was recorded with a camera.

Technical specifications

Sketch of the Beriev A-50
Indian A-50EI
A-50 at the MAKS 1997
Parameter Data
Type Early warning aircraft
crew 16
length 47.50 m
span 50.54 m
Wing area approx. 300.0 m²
Wing extension 8.51
Wing loading
  • minimum (empty weight): 250 kg / m²
  • maximum (max. takeoff weight): 575 kg / m²
height 14.76 m
Empty mass approx. 75,000 kg
Max. Takeoff mass 172,370 kg
Fuel capacity 64,820 kg
Top speed 765 km / h
Service ceiling 10,200 m
Range 7,300 km
Max. Duration of use 7:42 h
Engine four turbofan engines Solowjow D-30KP each with 117.68 kN thrust

See also

literature

  • Dieter Stammer: AWACS aircraft in the Soviet-Russian armed forces . Elbe-Dnjepr, Klitzschen 2009, ISBN 978-3-940541-30-7 , pp. 17th ff .
  • Rudolf Höfling: Beriev. Since 1934 . Motorbuch, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-613-04025-0 , p. 94 ff .
  • Yefim Gordon , Dmitriy Kommisarov: Flight Craft 6: Ilyushin / Beriyev A-50 . Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4738-2391-4 , pp. 96 ff .

Web links

Commons : Beriev A-50  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ First flight A-100
  2. ↑ Russia to start testing new A-100 long-range radar detection aircraft in 2017. TASS, accessed January 23, 2016.
  3. ↑ journal Air International , January 2013, p 54th
  4. ↑ AIRheads ↑ FLY: Russia starts production A-100 AWACS , accessed on February 8, 2015
  5. ↑ Russian fleet of A-50 .
  6. ^ India requests deal for three more AEW aircraft . flightglobal.com. April 9, 2010. Retrieved June 3, 2012.
  7. ↑ Arie Egozi: India approves funding for two more Il-76 AEW aircraft. In: Flightglobal.com. March 11, 2016, accessed on March 11, 2016 (English): "The Indian government has approved the budget for the purchase of two additional airborne early warning (AEW) platforms from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)."
  8. ↑ Aircraft Museum - A-50 'Mainstay' . aerospaceweb.org. Retrieved June 3, 2012.
  9. ↑ Iran loose AWACS in mid-air collision . Arabian Aerospace. September 29, 2009. Retrieved July 5, 2011.
  10. ↑ Caught on camera: The horrifying moment a military jet fell out of the sky and exploded in a fireball . Mail online. June 6, 2011. Retrieved June 3, 2012.