Battered and bruised SU-25
 

Allegedly took a whack over Ukraine, but made it back to base.

Certainly that is one of the worst wacked airframes in the modern era to make it home. I repaired ZD843 in GW1 and that was easy for the ABDR compared to this. Way worse that the Jaguar A91 wacked by a MANPAD in 1991 on the Al Jaber raid. Yes, some WWII frames coming home were way worse. SU25 was a basic idea copy of the A-10A so concepts of design survivability have seemed to work. Just. RTS the good bits for another U/S jet.

??

Su-25 design dates to 1968 and follows a proud tradition of survivable, anti-tank designs that go back to the Il-2 and beyond.

A-10 design dates to 1970 or so.

The Russians may well have copied concepts and designs, but they didn't copy the A-10 (or the concepts that it was built around) when they created the Su-25.

Frogfoot
 

I would say it looks more than bit like the Northrop A9-the ac that lost to the A10.

It predates the A-9.

A9
 

A quick google suggests 1975 for Frogfoot and 1972 for A10 and A9.

The Su-25 comes from the T8 design, which is dated 1968. First flight was 1972, which is about when the YA-9 and YA-10 designs were being finalised and first flights taken.

Perhaps a "quick Google search" is not always enough?

Got a source for that Euan? Most pages I looked at suggest 22 February '75 as the first flight date for T8-1, design and mock up had been completed in 1972 and prototype completed in late 1974. Concept dates back to 1968.

You will find many types that have survived a missile strike here, including pictures..

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-A-10-Wa...tinger-missile

Sorry, Treadi, my books are all in storage, so I cannot tell you exactly, but IIRC it was one of the Yefim Gordon books on the type. If I am wrong on the dates, then I will of course retract that portion of my post!

However, if the various sources agree that the design and mockup was complete by 1972, and that the T8 design (1968) served as the basis for it, then the historical facts still strongly argue against the suggestion that the Su-25 was a copy of someone else's design.

This site gives you all the info on the SU development and the things that were wanted during design, such as supersonic perfomance that was dropped.

https://airvectors.net/avsu25.html

IIRC a long tail pipe against MANPADS was a design point for the SU25

Soviet story goes that the competition leading to SU-25 was launched 1969, Sukhoi being appointed the task in late 1969. It had been on the drawing board already on 1968 but the comperition made it official. They made many versions of the T-8 throughout the 70"s eventually leading from T-8-1 to T-8-D in 76-77 with new wings to relief loads on stick with lots of other modifications.
Eventually first AC saw action in Afghanistan in summer 1980.

To make it short, the idea was there already in 1968 within Sukhoi office. Officially it was started in 1969 (from government perspective). However it took more than ten years to have one flown in combat with lots of midifications from the original.

A bit of ‘speed tape’ and she’ll be reet!

‘No Fault Found’!

" MEL applied Repairs deferred until next C check"!

"it'll buff out - no problem"

“Unable to reproduce fault on ground”

"No problem, boss, a quick AF/BF and it'll do a trip".

Couple of things occur to me on this;

1. Still carrying rocket pods on the pylons; not jettisoned.
2. Flaps deployed; would it have made sense to land flapless? ISTR an RAF F-4 in the 70s lost part of its outer wing but remained controllable until the crew elected to select flaps down; lost utility hyd pressure due to damaged LE flap-lines, lost rudder PFCU and became uncontrollable.

Whatever; regardless of the nationality, kudos to the pilot.

Incidentally, from my RAF battle damage repair training in the 80s, ABDR was based around the damage caused by a soviet 23mm HE shell; if you could fix that you could fix anything, as munitions greater than 23mm were not thought survivable; so kudos to Sukhoi also.

edit: of course, they might have just fitted the pods after landing in anticipation of a quick turn-round . . . .