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NCD in shambles over the fact that they missed out on getting combat aircraft for the price of a cheap car.
I'm actually pretty upset.
I assume this was a bulk discount, but still. If they'd asked I bet there could have been a hell of a GoFundMe.
I’d join a time share for that and could maybe turn a profit flying it at airshows (edit: scratch that)
But Ukraine deserves it more
You'd go bankrupt in maintenance costs and upkeep within the first month. You'd be looking at about $9,000 per hour of flight time in maintenance and component costs, and about $7,500 in fuel costs (JP-8).
The are going to strip these for spare parts. I guarantee it.
What does NCD stand for in this context?
Non-Credible Defense, a shitposting community about international military affairs. The running joke is how everyone there is desperately horny for literal jets. Like, dress the jet up in a bridal gown and go to town on the thrusters level horny.
What else are jets for
Dance-fighting the Sharks in the streets of New York City?
ONCE YOU'RE A JET
YOU'RE A JET ALL THE WAY
FROM YOUR FIRST CIGARETTE
TO YOUR LAST DYING DAY!
Hell, you can't even get a Cessna 172 that's as old as these planes for $20k. Add another zero to the end and people will start talking.
Even if the thing doesn't get airborne anymore, it'd be one hell of a way to build up a flight simulator for gaming. Probably not what's going on here but it's what I'd do.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the reason is as simple as buying them so Russia can't.
The missiles we'd use to shoot down these flying tubs of shit probably cost more than buying them lmao
The "I'm gonna give you $100 to fuck off" school of military strategy.
Look up the Soviet era Night Witches.
They had the worst possible aircraft, and managed to use them to become a feared weapon.
Well aware, I've seen one of their planes in person actually. Nobody worth talking to needs convincing that crummy planes are still dangerous, I was mostly just joking about how expensive American munitions are.
I see and concede the point. Have fun.
This is one of those stories that Hollywood could use with female leads, no need to shoehorn a female cast into other plots.
That's actually one of my Hollywood pet peeves.
There are plenty of heroic folks whose stories haven't been told. No need to recycle James Bond as a woman when you have Virginia Hall
The article frames them as garbage, but they're still 4th gen fighters. Same vintage as the F-16 and F-15, and the US still operates tons of those. 4th gen stuff is a whole lot cheaper to run than 5th gen, and that will probably keep 4th gen stuff flying for a long time.
Granted, they're probably not very well maintained, and the F-16 and F-15 have gotten upgrades over the decades and these probably didn't. The US doesn't have spare parts to keep them maintained (except by cannibalizing one plane to keep the other one running), and any weapon hardpoints would need to be adapted to US missiles. There probably isn't any interesting intelligence to be gained from them anymore. So, yeah, spare parts for Ukraine seems most likely.
To say that the F-16 "got upgrades over the decades" is quite the understatement. A block 1/5/10/15 F-16 would get straight up destroyed by a Block 52 or 60. The airframes may be the same but every major system ON that airframe has seen continuous improvements over the years. Engines upgraded to improve power and reliability, control surface upgrades to improve handling and safety, avionics upgrades to improve flight controls, FoF performance, weapons targeting and on and on. As technology progressed we spent tens of billions keeping the F-16 current.
I highly doubt that Russia or Kazakhstan made those same investments so while those MiGs and SUs are 4th Gen they wouldn't fare well at all against "Modern" 4th Gen.
Edit: That ignores the upgrades that COULD be put on an F-16 too. There's at least some of them now flying around with Stealth Coatings and 3D vectoring engine nozzles!
Holy shit, thrust vector nozzle on a 16? I’ve been watching them overhead daily my entire life and the Falcon is still going strong. I’ll just look at the Wikipedia…
”System for Autonomous Control of Simulation (SACS) will be added in order to operate X-62A as a Skyborg”
Oh shit.
The Skyborg has 3d Thrust Vectoring. If you're on YT you can see a brief video clip of it on "Sandboxx News". Also Skyborg and it's SACS, with 3D vectoring, has already flown! :)
Pepsi could’ve finally given that kid a jet and had a PR boost on the cheap, although not a Harier
Probably for spare parts and then used as dummy aircraft after that, all for Ukraine. For less than 20k per plane, that's pretty damn good. And Ukraine could certainly use the parts. Though I hope we also donate a considerable amount of our aging out planes and tanks. They'd serve Ukraine well and get second, well-deserved life overseas.
Theyre gunna be rented out as props in a forthcoming "Top Gun" prequel.
It's gonna be called Bottom Gun and be all about his career in shirtless beach volleyball
"Top Gun: Power Bottom"
How hard would it be to turn these into drones?
When the US retired the F4, a number of the planes were converted into target drones. Probably the bigger hurdle would be to get these planes airworthy again.
The goal was to remove Soviet era planes, and thus a customer to Russia, and open up space and provide a budget for Western arms.
The article calls the planes unusable, so I don't think Ukraine has enough spare parts to fix up 81 outdated planes just to blow them up. They'll probably strip out everything usable and use the more modern husks as decoys. That being said, I have a feeling Ukraine will scrape together enough parts to get some of the older models flying and cause some embarrassing security incidents and IFF shenanigans. Finally, there's the possibility that other former Soviet countries can pool the resources to refurbish at least a few aircraft, which would be good timing after the latest US aid package and donated F-16s entering service in the next year.
Agreed, you put these suckers out on the airfield and they’ll be great decoys. Probably cost less than the missiles that hit them.
Considering they don’t fly. Pretty hard.
Harder than just making regular drones, I would think.
Probably. Even if they were airworthy, they're going to cost maybe a bit less than an equivalent purpose-built drone, not counting in R&D to figure out how to do it. There's a lot of extra systems in there for the pilot, and you can make an 80s-level radar way, way, cheaper and lighter with modern tech, so all of that is wasted.
Going by this article:
https://www.defensemirror.com/news/30871/Russia_Tests_MiG_31_Jet_with_Fly_By_Wire_Control_System
The MiG-31 was only recently tested in Russia to have a fly-by-wire system. That would mean these original jets had the controls directly actuating the hydrolics to run the control surfaces. So you'd either have to convert fly-by-wire, or rig up something for the computer to use servos to control it.
Considering that Congress just (fucking finally) handed the President a whole lot of money in "Presidential Drawdown Authority". I suspect the conversation is going to go a whole lot like:
US DoD: We bought all these former Soviet shit-boxes to prevent them being used by Russia and to build goodwill with Kazakhstan.
US President: Hey, look at all these former Soviet shitboxes the DoD has sitting in inventory. We don't need these. I'm giving them to Ukraine who can find a use for them.
Makes sense, don't want Russia to get their hands on them.
Very nice
How the hell did Eric Prince not get in on his first?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Given Ukraine's continued reliance on Soviet-era weapons, the aircraft could either serve as a source of spare parts or be strategically deployed as decoys at airfields, said the Post.
But the Central Asian country's efforts to upgrade its military capabilities coincide with its increasing engagement with Western nations, signaling a shift away from historical ties with Moscow, per the Kyiv Post's analysis.
Kazakhstan and Western nations are showing increasing cooperation, with recent diplomatic engagements including a visit from UK Foreign Minister David Cameron to Astana, the capital.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the central Asian country in March 2023, where he said that the US "strongly supports Kazakhstan's sovereignty, its independence, its territorial integrity," according to news agency AFP.
One notable Russian TV commentator, Vladimir Solovyov, said that his country "must pay attention to the fact that Kazakhstan is the next problem because the same Nazi processes can start there as in Ukraine."
Agreements on trade, education, environment, and mineral supplies reflect the deepening ties between Kazakhstan and Western nations as they navigate geopolitical challenges posed by neighboring countries like Russia, China, Afghanistan, and Iran.
The original article contains 446 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!