Those who observe flights from the ground are concerned about other issues. For example, how long can the combat mission of a fighter continue. Note that we are focusing on tactical (front-line) aviation, because everything is clear with strategic aviation. Bombers and scouts are capable of flying around the clock. The current record belongs to the "stealth" B-2, which continuously circled in the air for two days (44, 3 hours).
Fighters of the fourth generation, surprisingly, demonstrate equally impressive results. Despite its "front" mission, cramped cockpit and modest, by the standards of strategic bombers, fuel supply, the duration of flights exceeds all expectations. The record was the combat flight of four F-15Es from the 391st Squadron of the US Air Force, which held out in the air for 15.5 hours!
The record was not a training performance. It was a routine combat mission, during which the aircraft "lingered a little" over the combat area. A combat patrol with mixed air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons flew from a / b to Kuwait to be over Afgan in three hours. The fighters spent nine hours there, periodically attacking targets that reconnaissance "revealed". And, returned back to Kuwait.
It may seem suspicious that the Eagles had to refuel 12 times on the way, but from an aviation point of view, this looks like the right decision. Aviators love it when the fuel needle hovers around the MAX area. And they use every opportunity to maintain this holy and obvious tradition.
For combat conditions, there is probably a strict fuel standard, for example, at least 50 or even 75%. Pilots try to keep the needle from dropping below this value. And as often as possible, they "pump up" kerosene, as soon as they have such an opportunity. And if it is not there, they will be able to hold out in the air for enough time until the end of the battle or the arrival of a new tanker. For this case, and keep full tanks.
As practice shows, they always have the opportunity. The tanks of the KS-10 tanker (based on the passenger DC-10) are designed for 160 tons of fuel. And let a part of this reserve go on the journey of the tanker himself from an airbase on another continent, but the remainder will be enough to “fill up the throat” with many fighters.
The US Air Force has about 450 air tankers in active service and in reserve, not counting the outboard kits for converting part of combat fighters into tankers (war is unpredictable).
In peacetime, paying salaries to military pilots is too expensive, because the Yankees leased the KC-10 to private firms. For example, Omega Aerial Refueling Services. Tankers with civilian crews are constantly "hanging out" in hot spots and exercise sites of NATO countries.
And you say - an aircraft carrier. An airfield in the ocean is required. Ha ha ha, what century do these people live in?
Modern fighters have proven the technical feasibility of 15+ hours of combat missions.
It is clear that this is overkill. If you need to fly day and night, 365 days a year, it would be worth considering looking for a closer air base.
But this only happens occasionally. And the domestic aerospace forces did not need it even once - in Syria, the Khmeimim airbase was found. And in Afghanistan - the airfields of Kandahar, Shindand, Bagram. Nevertheless, if required, both ours and the Americans will fly thousands of kilometers.
15 hours is a record. And how many flights were there that lasted 8-9-10 hours? According to the participants themselves - routine.
There is no reason for a dispute, 70 years ago, armada of "Fortresses" under the cover of hundreds of "Mustangs" flew from PTBs to Berlin, moreover, the fighters had a supply of fuel (15-20 minutes) for an air battle with "Messerschmitts", after which all returned to the airfields of Foggy Albion. The route is 3 thousand km long.
You can imagine what modern "Sushki" and "Efki" can do, having twice the cruising speed, a normal combat radius of 1000 km and, in addition, in-flight refueling systems!
Already now - the fifth generation with its afterburner supersonic, even more adapted to long flights.
Mechanics
The turbine is spinning - the technician is standing, the turbine is standing - the technician is spinning.
Skeptics will certainly point out the impossibility of constant patrolling at a great distance, even by the forces of an entire air regiment. Despite the seeming simplicity of the task, all technicians, flight and technical personnel will not rest.
There is a carousel in the air. Two couples arrived in a given area, those whom they changed went on the opposite course, and a new four was already taking off at the airfield. Plus one more group is waiting in constant readiness - in case of unforeseen situations.
This is what combat work looks like. The problem is that a modern aircraft undergoes extensive maintenance before departure, in terms of tens of man-hours per 1 hour of flight. Some of the fighters, as a rule, are incapable of combat due to identified serious malfunctions. As a result, even an entire regiment may have problems solving the above problem.
Or maybe they won't. We do not know the exact standards and coefficients, therefore, let us turn to the known facts.
In 2001, the air wings of the aircraft carriers "Vinson" and "Enterprise" ensured the constant presence of three pairs of fighters in the airspace of Afghanistan to deliver operational strikes at the request of ground forces.
The irony of the situation was that the Americans failed to bring the aircraft carriers closer than 1000 km to the shores of Afghanistan. And deck "Hornets" had to cover hardly less distance than ground-based aircraft from air bases in the United Arab Emirates (Al-Dhafra).
So what's the moral? The forces of two air bases (even floating ones, it does not change the essence of the matter) managed to provide a long (for months) constant patrolling at a distance of 1000-1300 km, with many hours of "hovering" of six Hornets over the mountainous regions of Afgan.
This was possible due to the fact that the fighters did not have to replace each other hourly. Sometimes they were in the air for 10 hours. Five refuelings. The six sent on a mission "hung" over Afgan for long hours, until a new group arrived to replace them. At this very time, the rest of the aircraft and flight personnel were calmly sunbathing in the Arabian Sea. 30-35 sorties per day from each aircraft carrier, for such an air group - warm-up, babble.
The Yankees themselves say that they could fly more often if the barmaley had more bases, caches, and other targets suitable for aviation. And if instead of aircraft carriers there was a normal coastal air base, with mighty F-15s capable of plowing the sky for 10-15 hours, then the intensity of patrols could increase many times!
As for the combat readiness of aviation formations, many facts are known when it was close to 100%. Even for the most complex fourth-generation aircraft systems.
So, in the mid-1980s, the 36th TFW air wing, located at the Bitburg airbase (Germany), had an operational readiness of 92%, and, thanks to the convenience of the infrastructure of the German airfield and the preparation of those. personnel refueling the fighter and the suspension of weapons before the new flight of the F-15 took only 12 minutes. Equally minimal was the take-off time of the duty unit on alarm, the record was 3.5 minutes (with a standard of 5 minutes).
Also, according to open sources, during the Tim Spirit-82 exercise, a group of 24 Needles flew 233 combat training missions per day. It is clear that those flights were carried out according to a simplified program and planes flew nearby. But all this gives confidence that modern airplanes are not a pile of incapacitated junk that lies flat for days in a repair hangar.
There would be a normal base and a team of experienced, trained technicians.
The experience of civil aviation, where the planes do not stand still, regularly making transcontinental and transoceanic flights, indicates approximately the same thing.
In this situation, the author feels some awkwardness and guilt before the readers for such a frequent mention of foreign aircraft. But understand correctly: the review is of an exclusively educational nature, and there are no such data on the number of sorties and the combat readiness of the Su-27 in open sources.
American "Efki" were given as an example. And I don't see a single reason for the Russian Aerospace Forces to fail to do what the Americans are doing. Just take a look at the combat work of the grouping on a / b Khmeimim. They work like clockwork!
The tired pilot saga
Tired of what? What once in my life spent two shifts at the helm?
In 1937, Colonel Gromov flew his plane for 62 hours without letting go of the steering wheel and freezing in the cockpit over the North Pole.
And now, of course, the pilots are not the same. Conveniently lounging in a warm chair, having a full set of automation systems, a urinal and an autopilot, and in some cases even a partner operator, of course, they will not be able to fly 10 hours.
Although there is nothing to argue about. In the first part of the article, many REAL cases were described when modern fighters spent 10-15 hours in the air. Q. E. D.
P. S. If you cannot find the pilots, contact the truckers. Those almost non-stop drive their trucks for 11 hours a day (a limitation by law, which is desperately violated). Without autopilots, but with a dense vehicle flow and multi-stage "mechanics". They're coming. And offer them the salary of the pilot - they will fly.
Epilogue
Briefly. These cases allow us to draw the following conclusions.
1. Modern tactical aviation is capable of covering (ie organizing round-the-clock patrolling with the possibility of rapid reinforcement) any selected area on any continent of the Earth.
2. From the point of view of the Russian Aerospace Forces, there are all the possibilities for covering the internal seas (Baltic, Okhotsk, Black Sea) - aviation tightly covers these "puddles". There would be at least a handful of fighters and tankers available.
There is no doubt about the technical feasibility of such an idea (see the above examples).
3. There is a possibility of continuous coverage of the coastal zone of the seas and oceans at a distance of up to 1000-1500 km from the coast. However, the combination "coastal zone" is already incorrect. These are already open sea areas.
4. Russian Aerospace Forces, flying from air bases in the Far East, are guaranteed to be unable to cover the Philippines and Easter Island. But they don’t need it.
5. Strike operations on the principle of "flight there - flight back" without long loitering in the air take even less time and can be successfully carried out on another continent, at a distance of THOUSAND kilometers from the base. Without the help of aircraft carriers and jump airfields.
Remember, we are not talking about strategic aviation, but about "ordinary" multi-role fighters.
In 1982, with only five combat-ready "Super Etandars" (max. Takeoff weight of only 12 tons) and a single piston refueling tanker, Argentine aviation took out British ships in the Atlantic, at a distance of about 1000 km from the airfield on Tierra del Fuego.
In 1986, a group of American F-111 bombed the capital of Libya from Great Britain (flight over the Bay of Biscay - turn over Gibraltar - flight along the entire coast of North Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria - hook over the desert, combat turn and exit to the rear of the Libyan air defense system - and return on the same route). We returned before dawn.
6. This material has become a detailed response to disputes about the prospects of carrier-based aircraft. The facts show that with the development of jet thrust, the growth of speeds and the emergence of new technologies to increase the duration of flights, the age of aircraft carriers has come to an end. Just as cruisers and battleships with artillery weapons became obsolete in their time.
Aircraft no longer need to constantly drag the airfield with them, while enduring many hardships and hardships associated with increased accidents, lower combat load and inadequately high cost of the "floating airfield" itself with a crew of thousands of sailors.
7. As you know, 71% of the surface is occupied by the ocean, but do not forget that the solid surface is uniformly distributed over the entire globe.
Six large continents have connecting "bridges" in the form of entire archipelagos. And in the open ocean, literally at every step, there are islands and atolls. Even in the equatorial part of the Atlantic, where there is supposedly nothing, there are two pieces of land - about. St. Helena and Fr. Ascension (by the way, the British-American airbase).
It's not even worth talking about Pacific Polynesia-Micronesia. Where do the Yankees keep their stealths? That's right, at the Anderson airfield on about. Guam. Fighter air wings also visit there during inter-theater flights.
And where are the B-1B Lancer. Diego Garcia Air Base in the Indian Ocean.
So it turns out that the above "coastal zone 1000-1500 km" gives almost complete coverage of the oceans of the globe.
