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7 months ago
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UKRAINE’S air force pilots are using iPads in the cockpits of their jets to launch Western missiles on Russian jets.
Footage showed the dramatic moment one Ukrainian pilot used an aircraft fitted with a tablet to conduct strikes against Russian radars.
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Reuters
ReutersThe pilot was seen in the video carrying out “Wild Weasel” operations in an airborne Su-27 Flanker aircraft, meaning he was baiting enemy anti-aircraft defences into attacking his aircraft with their radars.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the Flanker – which was fitted with an iPad – was conducting strikes against Russian radars with US-supplied AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs).
The iPad, located in front of the pilot in the cockpit, displayed a navigational map and other indiscernible data in the video.
The sheer size of the tablet suggested it was used to display a variety of flight-critical data, not just GPS navigation, according to military magazine The War Zone.
At the very least, it would allow for basic weapons employment and help with navigation.
The US’ undersecretary of defence for acquisition and sustainment Dr William LaPlante this week confirmed that the Ukrainian Air Force is using iPads to operate Western air-to-ground weapons.
He said at a forum on Wednesday: “There’s also a series of … we call it ‘air-to-ground,’ it’s what we call it euphemistically … think about the aircraft that the Ukrainians have, and not even the F-16s, but they have a lot of the Russian and Soviet-era aircraft.
“Working with the Ukrainians, we’ve been able to take many Western weapons and get them to work on their aircraft where it’s basically controlled by an iPad by the pilot.
“And they’re flying it in conflict like a week after we get it to them.”
HARM, Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) precision-guided bombs, and French-supplied Hammer rocket-assisted bombs are likely employed against known targets.
The coordinates of the targets must be pre-programmed on the flight line before the jet takes off, then the pilot navigates the area – perhaps with the help of a tablet that has GPS navigation.
The pilot then releases the weapon, which is guided to the target using its GPS-aided inertial navigation system.
Tablets would help Ukraine by making its Soviet-era fighters compatible with weapons such as HARM, JDAM-ER, and Hammer.
Ukrainian forces are relying heavily on aid provided to them by the US and its allies as they continue to fight a Russian invasion.
Earlier this month, the US said it had supplied Ukraine’s military with 5,000 AK-47s, machine guns, sniper rifles, RPG-7s, and more than 500,000 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition.
And the UK is set to give Ukraine its “go-to” weapons, recently used to strike ISIS and Iranian terror proxies, for the first time.
The high-precision Paveway IV bombs will be delivered as part of the UK’s largest-ever tranche of military aid to its ally.
Each fighter-jet-launched munition costs £30,000, carries a payload of 500lb, and can travel 30km through any weather and despite enemy smoke screens.
Footage released by Defence Secretary Grant Shapps showed the moment Paveway IV bombs blitzed an ISIS target in Iraq.
A huge explosion was heard as multiple bombs were dropped.
This week, Ukraine struck a Russian oil refinery and sparked a huge inferno that destroyed one of Vladimir Putin‘s trains.
Three wagons containing 17, 22 and 50 tonnes of oil were sent ablaze right by the world-famous Trans-Siberian railway line.
Giant flames and pungent black smoke engulfed the scene, the attack forcing Russia to halt oil exports and to import from Belarus.
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