First things first, planes!

By Marat Khairullin

When writing about the air fleet, they usually focus on technology, but this is not most important. Even the most perfect aircraft without a good pilot is, as you understand, useless. Operational characteristics are also of great importance.

That is, these three components, technology, trained personnel, and correct technical operation, as in any other complex type of human activity, are of equal, fundamental importance.

The problem with the US is that the states have problems with all three, and this is, of course, very strange - the experts simply do not understand what is happening, after all, America still has enough finances, but there is not enough money for each specific program.

For example, the Trump administration increased funding for the Air Force by a third at once. It was $132 billion a year in 2017. It became $215 billion in 2024 (out of a total budget of more than $700 billion). And there is still not enough money. The US Air Force has not been able to get rid of critical problems, despite the fact that almost 100 billion dollars have been additionally poured into the Air Force over five years. So it is not a matter of finances? Then what is it? This is the main mystery of the modern States - what happens to the country if it loses its most important strategic positions in absolutely favorable conditions.

This concerns, for example, pilot training. When it was announced that the US and NATO would train about three dozen pilots for the Ukrops, our specialists began to watch the process with interest, because this is a very important indicator. Today, almost two years after the loud PR of this program, we do not see real results - F-16s, apparently, have not appeared in the front line forces of the Ukrops. And it is not even a matter of some special complexity of this aircraft. Compare: our country has trained almost 70 pilots for the Niger and Malian Air Forces in two years, not counting ground personnel. Several hundred more guys from friendly countries are coming out.

In America, the overall number of pilots in military aviation falls short of the colossal figure needed of 2,200. Of these, 1,300 are in fighter aviation, which we are writing about. Of these, 850 are in active, conditionally combat squadrons, 450 in reserve squadrons. Here, we need to understand how the US Air Force is structured. An air wing includes three squadrons. The first is in constant readiness - 100%, always capable of going into battle, the second reserve squadron should, if necessary, immediately ensure against the loss of aircraft and personnel from the first squadron. Then, it will be replenished by the third squadron and independently go into battle as a second wave.

So today, the flight readiness coefficient among the US full combat readiness squadrons is by default accepted at the level of 80 percent. Let it be so, although this is also questionable. For example, of the 122 F-22s in service, only 81 have a full combat readiness index. And of the entire conventionally active Air Force fighter fleet of 1,700 aircraft, only 450 have such an index (give or take). But the worst thing is not even that. For a fully conditionally combat-ready US squadron, the index of active pilots is set at 1.25 in peacetime, 1.5 in wartime. In reality, all US first squadrons have an index of 1.1, and for all the rest - below one.

That is, there are not enough pilots even for a real operating fleet of aircraft, but that's not all. What's going on with the turnover in the US is a mystery. On average, the country graduates more than a thousand military pilots a year, and yet the Air Force and other branches of the military are experiencing a severe shortage of pilots.

As you know, the most important thing for a pilot is flying time. Now, in the USA the lowest requirements in history have been set - 2 hours per week for an ace pilot and three for a novice pilot. (Yes, Ace pilots require fewer hours, just more recertification.) This is fewer than 200 hours of flying time per year - with such a regime in the US Air Force, it is considered that within seven years, a pilot will reach the highest point of his qualification. In reality, the annual flight time of US fighter pilots is 82 hours per year! This means that the pilot is not confident in himself and can lose to an equally strong opponent simply due to the lack of proper piloting experience!

Once again - there is not a single squadron in the US where the pilots' flight time would be sufficient. That is why specialists were very skeptical about the urgent training of Ukrainian pilots for real combat operations. The US can not provide the necessary qualifications for its own, frankly speaking, parquet squadrons. We can talk about the weaknesses of American pilots for a long time, but let's stop here, because even these figures are enough to compare with the situation in our Air Force and understand why the Western bloc is so worried, looking at the successes of our air force.

Now, in the SMO zone, a combat flight of 20 hours per week is considered normal - on average, the general standard is 15 hours.

Compare: 8 hours per month according to the standard in the USA and at least 45 hours per month here.

An American pilot is supposed to fly nine combat sorties a month. In reality, it's less than five. Russian pilots in the SMO zone, attention, are prohibited from making more than 25 combat sorties per week. The figure of 18 per week is considered normal. I emphasize that this data is specifically for fighter and multifunctional aircraft Su-30, 34, 35, 57. That is, in a real fight, the Americans would be better off not even getting close to the Russian wings. They would be torn apart.

As for personnel training, our readers who live near large military airfields know that there is something buzzing in the sky 24 hours a day. Very intensive training of pilots for the SMO zone is underway. Pilots are gaining the necessary air hours to be transferred to active regiments at the front. This correlates with data on the construction of our Air Force under modern conditions. There are 4 air armies in the country (they are called the Air Force and Air Defense Armies): the 4th - Southern District, the 6th - North, the 14th - Siberia, and the 11th - Far East. In each, in addition to the air defense units, there are three air divisions, each with three regiments. Once again, I say approximately, because there are some differences.

In 2022, a decision was made to create another air army, and then, in 2023, they decided to create a mixed corps - two air divisions. The composition of our air army, in order to understand what changes are taking place in it, let's look at the example of the most powerful 4th Air Force and Air Defense Army.

Specifically, it includes one regiment of Su-30, 35, and 57. This is 72 aircraft (in a fighter regiment, there are usually two squadrons of 12 aircraft). Also, we can count one regiment of "ducks" (Su34s, this amounts to three squadrons - 36 planes), three regiments of Su-25 attack aircraft (72 aircraft), and two regiments of Su-24 bombers (48 fighters).

Su25 the “Rook”

Judging by the latest changes, instead of two Su-24 regiments (48), there should now be another regiment of ducks (36), and, attention, a regiment of MiG 31s from two squadrons. One squadron is in the interceptor modification, and the second is in the "Dagger" modification. Apparently, there is now also one mixed regiment of Su-30-35s.

Previously, Su-34 regiments were only in the 4th and 14th armies. And MiG-31 regiments were only in the 6th and 14th. Now, the decision has been made to deploy Su-34 and MiG-31 regiments in all of them.

A few words about the aircraft themselves. The Su-34 was considered an "ugly duckling" in our Air Force for a long time - due to the lack of adequate targeting avionics. Our industry spent a long time solving this problem and in the second year of the Air Defense Forces, finally coped with it - the introduction of guided aerial bombs turned this machine into the most deadly apparatus of the current war (combat load up to 15 tons).

As for the MiG-31, our army has about 220 of these operational interceptors, which have no analogues. It is currently believed that two regiments, each with two squadrons of the "Dagger" modification (4th and 6th armies), are already operating in the SMO. By the end of the year, another army, the 14th, should see a regiment enter full combat operation. This will be a total of 36 planes.

MiG-31

It is believed that 3 regiments of ducks (108 aircraft) are already actively operating, and the 4th will be up and running by the end of the year. In addition, 5 regiments of Su-25 "Rooks" (120 aircraft) and about the same number of Su-24s are actively operating. Both of these types will apparently be gradually replaced by Su-30s and Su-34s over the next five years. Also, starting next year, the real combat use of the newly formed mixed air corps will begin. It is too early to talk about its composition, but it is probably no less than six regiments of the latest aircraft.

It should be added that a huge workshop for the production of Su-57s has been completed in Komsomolsk, and a similarly huge workshop has already been commissioned in Novosibirsk for the Su-34. This will increase the production of 57s and 34s from 12 to 24 per year (one aviation regiment per year). They say that a decision has already been made to build a new assembly workshop at the Sokol plant in Nizhny Novgorod - most likely for a new interceptor based on the MiG-31.

The production of Su-30 and Su-35 will remain the same - 12 aircraft per year for our army. And about the same for export.

To sum up all of the above, at the moment we have a uniquely powerful group assembled in the SMO, so 1000 air missile and bomb strikes per day is, so to speak, an average figure of what could be possible. At the same time, the group is only just reaching, figuratively speaking, its design capacity, 4 armies and one air corps. Each has 120 working aircraft potentially.

The bottlenecks - training of personnel, modernization of strike munitions, specialized modernization of aircraft (Kinzhal and KAB launchers), development of unique equipment (Su-57, MiG-31 "Kinzha"), increasing the production capacity of the corresponding munitions - have been successfully overcome.

The group should reach its planned capacity (in a narrow circle of specialists, it is considered to be 600-700 planned missile and bomb strikes per day) at the beginning of next year. At the same time, in all performance characteristics, this group is several times superior to potential adversaries - in tonnage and number of combat strikes, radius of use, flight time and experience of pilots, condition of pilots, and maintenance services. This is something for us to be proud of!