293
submitted 4 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
  • The US has purchased 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Kazakhstan, the Kyiv Post reports.
  • Kazakhstan, a historic ally of Russia, is engaging more with Western nations.
  • The planes could be used for spare parts or deployed as decoys in conflict regions, the Post said.

The US has acquired 81 obsolete Soviet-era combat aircraft from Kazakhstan, the Kyiv Post reported.

Kazakhstan, which is upgrading its air fleet, auctioned off 117 Soviet-era fighter and bomber aircraft, including MiG-31 interceptors, MiG-27 fighter bombers, MiG-29 fighters, and Su-24 bombers from the 1970s and 1980s.

The declared sale value was one billion Kazakhstani tenge, said the Post, or $2.26 million, equalling an average value for each plane of $19,300.

The US purchased 81 of the aged, unusable warplanes, said the Ukrainian Telegram channel Insider UA, per the Post.

The motive behind the US purchase remains undisclosed, said the Post, but it raised the possibility of their use in Ukraine, where similar aircraft are in service.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Windhover@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago

How hard would it be to turn these into drones?

[-] toddestan@lemm.ee 29 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] misophonium@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 4 months ago

The article calls the planes unusable, so I don't think Ukraine has enough spare parts to fix up 81 outdated planes just to blow them up.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.

[-] pennomi@lemmy.world 10 points 4 months ago

Agreed, you put these suckers out on the airfield and they’ll be great decoys. Probably cost less than the missiles that hit them.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

They did that sort of thing in WWII all the time. Fake airplanes, inflatable tanks, all kinds of stuff. My grandfather worked for De Havilland in WWII as an aircraft inspector and the roof of the factory had fake bomb damage painted on it.

[-] breetai@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

Considering they don’t fly. Pretty hard.

[-] aeronmelon@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago

Harder than just making regular drones, I would think.

[-] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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.

[-] frezik@midwest.social 2 points 4 months ago

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.

this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
293 points (99.0% liked)

World News

38578 readers
2130 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS