On Aug 10, 1:56*pm, "Andrew Chaplin"
wrote:
"George Ruch" wrote in message

...

"David E. Powell" wrote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...08/08/08/GA200....

Looks like the Flanker but I could be wrong, I can't quite tell if
that is a single or double exhaust. Photo #10. [...]

It looks more like anSU-24Fencer
(http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/su-24.htm).
Distinguishing marks are the radome, vertical stab, and the
external fuel tank mounting.

Definitely FENCER: single vert stab and variable geometry, no deep ventral
strake, the latter ruling out FLOGGER. The thought of regiments of these
flying with ARMs kept us air defenders in West Germany awake at night as we
updated our estimates and recalculated our ammo expenditure rates.

Thank you.

My main knowledge of the Su-24 came from playing "Harpoon" where I
found it to be a great "go to" plane for just about any kind of attack
mission. Want to go after land targets? Hang iron or guided bombs and
the Fencer is your plane. Want to go after ships? Hang air to ground
or anti ship missiles and the Fencer is your plane. Want to shoot at
just about anything else? Load whatever you want from a pretty large
catalog, and the Fencer is still your plane.

That was all for a game, and you have much more knowledge of the type
than I do.

I got into this, actually, after the fall of the Berlin wall, so I
sort of wondered if the Russians had held on to any of their stocks of
older weapons to use against terrorists, etc. where the new stuff
might not be needed. I guess they have plenty of the newer ones now,
though.

the Su-24 just always struck me as am impressive machine.

--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)