Sun, Aug 10, 2003
The Real Thing Or Another Promise To Be Broken?
We've heard them for
years now, proclamations from Moscow that this time, the Russian
Air Force is really, really going to address crippling problems
that include shoddy maintenance, aging aircraft and poor pilot
training. Really.
The latest pledge comes from Air Force Chief Vladimir Mikhailov.
He says, even though Russia has ordered only a sparse handful of
warplanes since the collapse of the Soviet Union, his troops should
start taking delivery on a new variant of the MiG-29, called the
MiG-29SMT. The Interfax News Agency also quotes Mikhailov as saying
there's a new MiG-31 upgrade coming next year, as well as a new
long-range SAM. There's also a plan to receive 50 new versions of
the MIL-8 gunship between now and 2010.
Money Crunch
It's no state secret that the Russian military
suffers from a horrifying budget crunch -- horrifying because of
the instability a broken post-Soviet military could mean for all of
Europe and China. Now, Gen. Mikhailov concedes that huge swaths of
Russia are off-limits to military aircraft because ATC services
have simply disintegrated for lack of funds. The air defense system
that was so dreaded by American SAC crews during the Cold War has
deteriorated to the point where Mikhailov says only one-third of
Russia's northern border is now under military radar surveillance.
Mikhailov says the same cash crunch has forced tremendous cutbacks
in pilot training and has led to several air accidents over the
past decade. Where pilots are required to fly 100 hours or so a
year, the lack of proper funding means they fly only 40. That, says
Gen. Mikhailov, isn't even enough for pilots to remain
proficient.
The new and improved Russian Air Force (or more accurately,
Mikhailov's vision of it) will be debuted at the Moscow Air Show,
which begins August 19th.
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