Air Power

@RyukyuanRipper Its fantastic. What am doing here is my hobby too 😀

@RealAirPower1 I doeverything from lithograph styles to 3D through Blender. Sort of as a hobby aside from my airline career.

I had to redo this on the artwork because the blue cheatline was misaligned. The largest and coolest biplane ever made and most numerous. The prototype first took flight on August 31st, 1947. Mass production began shortly after in Kiev and later Dolgoprudny, where the Soviets built over 5,000 units. The Polish era from 1960–1991 In 1960, the Soviet Union transferred the primary manufacturing of the An-2 to the WSK PZL-Mielec factory in Poland. This is where the plane became a true global phenomenon. Poland built a staggering 13,000+ units of the aircraft (including the individual aircraft RA-62438 that we mapped out, which rolled off their line in 1963). Mainline factory production finally wound down here in 1991. Even though regular mass production had officially ended, limited assembly of the An-2 continued all the way until 2001. The factory used remaining stockpiles of parts, components, and spare airframes to construct small, custom batches of brand-new aircraft on demand (such as a final batch of four built specifically for Vietnam).

@RyukyuanRipper This is very nice. You are very talented...

@RealAirPower1 If you thought that was cool, you might like this. I know a lot of people think this is weird, but I like it and also did some art of the new Su-57D x.com/RyukyuanRipper…

@USAS_WW1 True...

@RealAirPower1 Makes perfect sense. And it's probably a good thing when you consider how much we have paid for them.

While Whiteman AFB prepares for the B-21 drop, the USAF just dropped a reality check on the Pentagon. The service has officially ripped up the early retirement plans for the B-1B and B-2 fleets. Instead of heading to the boneyard, the Bone and the Spirit will now soldier on until 2037. The USAF has also allocated $17 billion to keep these heavy-hitters modernized and lethal. I guess the B-52 won't be alone when we move to Mars.

@N4_O13 Wow! Thats some serious Excel. 🫡

Complete list of P-8 sorties over the past month tracking a Russian Akula-class submarine and GUGI units in the North Atlantic. British and Norwegian crews operating seamlessly around the clock. 110+ sorties flown, with hundreds of hours on station. 🇳🇴🇬🇧✈️

@realmikeglynn 😊 🙏

@RealAirPower1 Great look underwater. Appears to be an SSQ-101 ADAR sonobuoy. These buoys are not used alone - rather as receivers for arrays of "multistatic" buoys. A high-powered source puts sound into the water which bounces off of a target submarine and is picked-up by the SSQ-101 sensor.

I always thought that sonobuoys were just "simple" metal cylinders packed with microphones and a radio, that were dropped by ASW aircraft to find submarines by their sound. While the idea is generally correct, these sonobuoys are anything but "simple" metal cylinders. Watch this video of how sonobuoys deploy underwater - this blew me away when I first saw it. The RAF and RoNAF blanket-bombed the Atlantic with such sonobuoys last month to drive off a trio of snooping Russian subs (see my previous tweet).

@Petersens70 @BaA43A3aHY Thats a fine photo. May I use it?

@RealAirPower1 @BaA43A3aHY The MiG 21, a flying chimney pipe with a single seat on top and two wings full of fuel. That’s enough. Second place goes to the Starfighter.

If I had to pick one Cold War interceptor with pure "heavy metal" aesthetics, I'd pick the Su-15 "Flagon." Just look at it: twin massive engines, a bulging cockpit, a bulbous nose, and a grim reputation for killing Boeings. Pure rock and roll🤘

@OlympicDrankz @EmuSecundus Lol... thats so cool

@EmuSecundus @RealAirPower1 Random trivia: I sent that picture to my dad, turns out those things we played with were the sonobouy shipping containers ... which also explains why he could get away with taking them home, they were normally just thrown away.

@noir_2207 @BaA43A3aHY 🫢

@RealAirPower1 @BaA43A3aHY Did you say Boeing?

@NikosVsdl8 And Finland too...

@RealAirPower1 Greece 🇬🇷 also on this path.

With the arrival of F-35s at Lask Air Base, Poland has officially joined Europe's stealth club. A club that already includes Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and the UK. But do you know who's still standing outside the velvet rope? Europe's biggest economy: Germany. To be fair, Berlin did order 35 F-35s back in 2022. The problem is that the first jets won't reach Germany until 2027, and IOC isn't expected until the end of the decade. The country is at least four years behind the curve. 1/2

@Germann10600 Yeah, its getting too complicated.

@RealAirPower1 France can be difficult to build planes with. But FCAS needs to happen just like GCAP. Just out of principle alone America need to be shown they are not the only ones capable of producing world beating air frames. The dependency needs to stop and EU/UK needs much more kit.

@JeffAllen329818 @BaA43A3aHY Go-Go Bird 🥰

@RealAirPower1 @BaA43A3aHY The ACH-47A is pretty 'Heavy Metal'

@Paelarrastre @korea_ufo Good info guys... I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing

@korea_ufo @RealAirPower1 Exactly

@RealAirPower1 Some sonobuoys are even capable of deploying aerostats to act as “above ocean” reconnaissance and communications relays:

@Karl_K_Bonde @BaA43A3aHY Oh I didn't know that. Very interesting. I'll look it up.

@RealAirPower1 @BaA43A3aHY No, really lost. It was harassing a recon Viggen sortie during the Cold war and the Viggen pilot got fed up with it and performed a split S wich the Flagon tried to follow but failed and flew into the sea, killing the pilot. I believe it was in '85. Maneuver kill for the Viggen!

@Karl_K_Bonde @BaA43A3aHY Did it? Mock intercepts you mean...

@RealAirPower1 @BaA43A3aHY And loosing to a Viggen over the Baltic sea...

@Kryptik_Tigrrr @BaA43A3aHY Sorry to hear that...

@RealAirPower1 @BaA43A3aHY The father of a sixth grade classmate was one of the passengers of that KAL 747 shot down by a Flagon near Sakhalin Island in 1983.

@MalotteMartin @TomcatJunkie @AFmuseum HaHa... by F-15 fans? Maybe...

@RealAirPower1 @TomcatJunkie @AFmuseum I think he's been abducted and signals for help

The business end of the Eagle. @AFmuseum

@TankOutflank I can't argue with that... 😆

@RealAirPower1 No, for me it's the massive Tu-128 interceptor. The empty weight of the Tu-128 is more than double the Su-15, it has about double the range, double the max takeoff weight, about double the engine thrust, and is larger (30m vs 19.5m).