Now this was a thing that
I could just not resist. Someone laid down a gauntlet for me. If
I were able to reduce the weight of an SU-22 (about 17 tonnes) to
that which would enable it to be airlifted by Chinook (10 tonnes
or less) I could keep anything that I wished. The only stipulations
being that I left it looking like a jet and safe to airlift. They
had approached the owners of an SU-22 in the UK only to be told
how long it would take and that it was impossible without shipping
all their tooling over and getting a specialist guy from Russia
or the Czech Republic. The trouble was they wanted it doing and
doing now.
So I said urm, yes ill
do it........... DOH!!!
I started
by de-paneling and surveying the airframe to determine its condition,
completeness, and how it was assembled. The aircraft turned out
to be 100% complete. I did try go get permission to run it prior
to dismantling it but to no avail. So I looked at what components
would best reduce the weight, decided what needed to be removed
roughly roughly and made my mind up what to do. Next came the draining
of the fuel and oil, the next was the task to depressurize the oleos
and find any other systems that were still pressurized such as the
fire suppression system, accumulators, flying control and general
services hydraulic systems etc and deal with them. The next task
was the seat, this I was not sure about so I bought a K36 seat manual
from the Ukraine, made some safety pins and lifted it out. It turned
out to be disarmed any way. I then decided to set about pulling
the engine. The majority of Russian single engine aircraft are similar
in construction and require the removal of the tail before the engine
slides out on rollers. This was similar to the Hunter with which
I am familiar, but the engine in this is four times the size and
is primarily stainless steel and refractory alloys and so I guessed
it to weigh about 3.5 tonnes. The fuselage split line required a
special tool for the bolts so I made my own with an old socket with
a HUGE bi hex nut welded into it. The
engine needed supporting at the rear with the crane while I slid
it out. I then tresstled it to be able to lift it a both ends and
removed it. There is very little room to work in Russian fighters,
with the Mig 21s there is so little room that the harness and controls
are routed along the outside of the fuselage and covered with large
conduit. To cut a long story short I got it done pretty much without
hassle and got a beautiful engine out of it (and the TS-21 GTS featured
on this site). Once stripped a little further and re-assembled minus
the seat, radar, avionics, powered flight control units, oxygen
bottles, ballast etc etc, we weighed it with a crane and the weight
turned out to be 9.2 tonnes HA HA and HA!!! We sent the gen to Odiham
who calculated the c of g and dutifully arrived with a Chinook and
slinging crew. After some shuftying on their part they slung it,
and departed with it. It was unbelievably impressive to watch a
Chinook hovering at 15 feet and steady as a rock with guys clambering
all over the Sukhoi to sling it. The professionalism was amazing
to watch, it was a cacophony of noise, dust and vibration that was
simply awesome and yet the chinook was controlled to inch perfection
and the guys knew exactly what to do and where to be and all went
seamlessly.
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