"Ukraine Has Lost Half Its Warplanes" Topic

"A year of fighting has cost Ukraine a full half of its fighter jets, cargo planes and military helicopters. That's the most startling finding of the 2015 edition of Flight's annual report on the world's air forces.

In early 2014, before Russian forces invaded Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and subsequently came to the aid of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine, Kiev possessed 400 military aircraft, according to Flight.

A year later, that number has plummeted to just 222.

The Russians captured some aircraft. Others crashed. Rebels and Russians shot down many others. Potentially dozens of warplanes had lain around unused for years prior to the conflict and simply proved too decrepit to return to flight, finally compelling Kiev to remove them from its inventory…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

It's really a dumb article. The plummeting implication is that massive amounts of planes have been destroyed, when the reality is that something like 23 planes have been shot down, and the remainder have more to do with the Ukrainians sitting down and being honest with maintenance readiness and admitting much of their fleet is not mission capable.

Yea, if you don't maintain them, they won't be airworthy when needed.

I would have thought people would have learned that from the examples of the Iraqi Air Force, decades ago.

It's also not a good idea to bury multi-million dollar jets under tons of sand either, to hide them, for future reference.

link

"A Kyiv Post newspaper reported on 22 August 2014, that since the beginning of the aerial operations in the East, 18 Ukrainian air Force aircraft were lost, with 16 shot down or destroyed on the ground and 2 crashed for other reasons.

Those lost due to hostile fire included: 10 helicopters (five Mi-8s and five Mi-24s), six combat planes (one Su-24, two Su-25 and two MiG-29) and three transport planes (a An-26, a An-30 and an Il-76)"

Bit different from 200+ 'losses', although granted not much consolation to have 200+ not in an airworthy condition…

I wonder what the reaction would be (from Russia) if they managed to get 30+ of those operational and were able to carry out US-style air strikes?

The article isn't misleading at all, since 'neglect' is one of the causes stated in the article's byline. What's misleading is the 400 aircraft 'on paper' stated as the original strength, since only a fraction of that number is flyable due to lack of spares, maintenance, funds etc.

I can't say what I would like to say because would get housedog'd

Flight Global's fleet reporting is not exactly accurate. For example they included Peruvian Su-22s for years after they were retired after service.

Some errors/questionable entries in this year's Flight Global survey:

-Botswana – no mention of CF-5A/D Freedom Fighters (17 in service, at least 3 active in 2014).

-Brazil – F-5 fleet is understated and does not include 11 Jordanian F-5s delivered as M2000 replacement (correct numhber is about 57).

-Denmark – F-35 not formally chosen. There's a competition being held to chose next fighter and F-35 is in a good spot to win it.

-Indonesia- F-16 fleet not just A/B. Fleet split is 10 F-16A/B and 24 ex-US F-16C/D Blk 25.

India- Mirage 2000 fleet overstated (49 in service not 54.

MiG-21 and -29 totals include dual seaters which are generally listed as trainers.

Netherlands – F-16 fleet overstated by 13 aircraft.

Peru = Those Su-22's are still there.

Etc etc.

In fact the survey is inconsistent – in some instances it has all aircraft delivered but excludes attrition, in others it only includes operational and not stored aircraft.

It's pretty good overall though especially compared to many other online sites.

However Wikipedia is just as accurate.

So, I wonder how many of those 200 non-airworthy planes are museum or private collection worthy? Seems like they could get some hard currency out of them.