A Russian military blogger said that a Sukhoi fighter plane had been downed while it was dropping air bombs.

One of Moscow’s fighter jets has been shot down by Ukrainian forces, according to a military blogger with links to the Russian air force. Another pro-Moscow milblogger said that the Sukhoi Su-34 aircraft had been downed by a Western-supplied F-16.

  • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    1 month ago

    Pakistan proved AIM-120s are still king in the air for MRAAMs back in 2019 against India’s Su-30s.

    Obviously there’s a lot of skill and technique involved, but you get a pretty nice edge with the range. Apparently the IAF said that the pilots couldn’t get a shot off without first entering the no escape zone, or at the very least felt uncomfortable getting locked up before they could lock the F-16s.

    Although now that China has brought back LRAAMs, it’ll be cool to see what the USA makes as the successor to the AIM-54.

    • InverseParallax@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      The aim260 is in opeval, it’s basically a smaller Phoenix (except, you know, with a good seeker).

      Also they have the aim 174 (I think that’s the number), which is an sm6 upper stage strapped to an f18, basically like shooting a telephone pole at someone from 200km+ away.

      We were slow getting started, but we’re getting there.

  • Eezyville@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    I assume the bomber has to slow down to subsonic speeds to drop it’s payload. Don’t want to think about the forces acting on the payload if it were to drop at supersonic speeds.