Time to blow stuff up! Hoo-rah! Enough of this flying and navigating stuff; while all of those are very important and will continue to be the basis for all that follows, the Su-25T isn’t a training aircraft, it is an attack warplane. My instructor has flown my training aircraft over to Novorossijsk and I’ve driven up the coast from my last landing spot, Gelendzhik. After witnessing some of the action near the front over the past couple days I’m anxious to get cracking on weapons training.

Today we’ll be flying a short training hop down the coast past Gelendzhik (allied forces have cleared out the enemy troops that were laying siege to Gelendzhik) before crossing the coast to enter a long valley leading up to the northwest. Terrain masking is an important part of surviving on the battlefield for the –T and learning to use the terrain contours to the best advantage is essential. After entering the valley we will have several target sites with passive targets set up for our use.



We can see the contour lines along the route which indicate a valley and the bordering ridgelines. During the preflight briefing it is extremely important to familiarize yourself with the terrain, waypoint locations, target locations, and telling landmarks to help you maintain situational awareness during the flight.



For the flight today we’ll be hauling along some of the typical tools of the trade including dumb bombs, rockets and air-to-air missiles. We’ll be carrying four FAB-100 (100 kg./ 220 lbs.) which are unguided bombs similar to the “Mark” series carried by the United States attack aircraft (Mk-81 specifically). Two RBK-250 cluster bombs round out the free-fall weapons, consisting of 150 individual fragmentation bomblets. Loaded near the wing root, two B-8 rocket launchers contain 20 (each) 80mm rockets. The rockets are similar to the U.S. 2.75” folding-fin aerial rocket. At the most outboard stations are loaded R-60M short range heat seeking missiles (AA-8 ‘Aphid’). Since the mission stage length is so short we are carrying only a 50% internal load of fuel (1895 kg.).



Weather is mild today with only a slight crosswind and light winds and turbulence aloft.



The morning is brilliant and beautiful; a great day for flying and making things explode!



After going through the now familiar cockpit setup and engine start procedure I check the fuel gauges and note the mission start time (0800).



Soon enough I’ve taxied out to the runway and received takeoff clearance and am rocketing off into the early morning light.



Cont…