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The Russian Air Force
by Jeffrey Ethell
 There is no question the Russian Air Force today is but a shadow of its
former self. With a collapsing economy and the lack of communism's massive
infusion of money into the world's largest military machine, line pilots fly,
at the most, around 50 hours a year and bring home very little pay to support
their families. Times are hard in Mother Russia.
But times have rarely been anything but hard in Mother Russia from long before
Lenin. For centuries Russians have learned to survive in a very hostile
climate, repulsing every enemy foolish enough to invade Mother Russia's vast
expanse. Napoleon and Hitler relearned that lesson the hard way, both being
defeated by "General Winter" and the hordes of Russian patriots who came to
their country's rescue. In spite of technological superiority and a
professional military force, both France and Germany could not overcome the
sheer numbers of men and equipment they tried to wade through.
 During World War II a relatively unsophisticated Russian Air Force outfought
and outgunned the superior Luftwaffe, which had better aircraft and better-trained
pilots. The highest-scoring fighter pilots of World War II were Germans
who fought the Russian Air Force (Erich Hartmann is the world leader at 352
kills)...but they lost. At the height of the Cold War the Soviet Union and its
Warsaw Pact had amassed close to 19,000 tanks and 7,500 aircraft for a possible
confrontation with the West in Central Europe. Regardless of arguments as to
which side was the technological leader, the Soviet Union had numbers. The West
argued it could overcome superior numbers with superior technology through
"force multipliers." In other words, a single F-15 with superior radar and
beyond visual range missiles would down five Russian fighters before being
lost. So far, history has never proved this to be a sound concept. As one
military philosopher once said, "Numbers has its own quality."
That same tenacity and determination to persevere in spite of tough odds
simmers below the crumbling infrastructure and poverty-stricken squadrons of
the Russian Air Force. Certainly training is at its lowest, a very real
liability, but Russian aircraft are the same brute force machines they have
always been, made to operate from rough fields while being maintained with a
minimum of support.  No one will dispute the raw power Russian machines exhibit.
Much is made of the crumbling concrete ramps on Russian airfields. The fact of
the matter is, it doesn't matter. With excellent FOD (foreign object damage)
protection on most aircraft jet intakes, the rubble will not get sucked up into
the engines, just as it wouldn't on a grass or dirt airstrip. Russian aircraft
can be ill treated and still fly effectively, far more than their Western
counterparts.
(continued)
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