A video launched by Ukraine’s Air Force seems to indicate its pilots utilizing a pill to assist it conduct fight missions in opposition to Russian air protection techniques.
It may very well be extra proof of the US working with the Ukraine to assist it adapt Western expertise to its dated Soviet weapons.
US Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, William LaPlante, informed reporters at a Washington DC convention final week: “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.”
He described how Ukraine’s growing older fighter planes may now take many Western weapons and get them to work on their plane as they have been “basically controlled by an iPad by the pilot. They’re flying it in conflict like a week after we get it to him,” he mentioned, per The Telegraph.
LaPlante did not present additional particulars.
The iPads or related tablets may help in what are known as “Wild Weasel” missions, mentioned The War Zone, a protection publication.
The technique includes jet pilots luring enemy antiaircraft defenses into focusing on them with their radars. The radar waves are then traced again to their supply and struck by the Ukrainian pilots with weapons just like the US-made AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs).
In the video, a jet pilot might be seen flying a Soviet Su-27 aircraft fitted with an iPad or an analogous pill within the cockpit. The pilot might be seen firing off HARMS, mentioned The Telegraph. The pill additionally reveals a navigational map, and different flight info.
Business Insider couldn’t independently confirm the place or when the video was taken or if it recorded a fight mission or a coaching train.
Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 Flanker Wild Weasel operations, seen right here conducting a number of low stage standoff strikes in opposition to Russian radars with US-supplied AGM-88 HARMs. pic.twitter.com/7CosjXFNkO
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) April 21, 2024
The War Zone said that the tablets have been “vital for the employment of several Western-supplied air-to-ground weapons” as Ukraine’s Soviet-era fighters lack the info interfaces that guarantee “seamless compatibility” with the newest missiles.
“A cockpit tablet,” the publication mentioned, “could provide a kind of visualized radar warning receiver for Ukrainian fighter pilots conducting Wild Weasel missions.”
The US Air Force developed the Wild Weasel technique in the course of the Vietnam War after the introduction of Soviet surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) that used radar to pinpoint its targets, the place plane geared up with anti-radiation missiles may detect and destroy the North Vietnamese guided missiles.
It is the newest instance, from the conflict that started with Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, of Ukrainian weapons constructed by stitching Western and Soviet elements collectively to make a brand new system.
They embody the “FrankenSAM” air protection techniques now working on the entrance line. The title is a nod to “Frankenstein” as a result of their manufacture includes cobbling bits of various machines collectively to make Ukraine’s inventory of Soviet SAMs simpler.