Forward Air control aircraft

[Mossie]

I've never seen one so curiosity got the better of me.  Odd, like a RC aircraft but the noise isn't to scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A29M-zANIs

[Weaver]

One of the first models I bought when I got back into modelling was one of these:



The intention was/is to do it as a Vietnam-era FAC, converted to turbine power and with extra radios in the back. What stalled me at the time was that the kit interior is pretty basic, and I couldn't find any good visual references for what the radio kit and seats in a real O-2ish machine would look like, and being a 1/32nd fishbowl, the interior kinda matters.

[Weaver]

Another rolling never-gets-started plan is for a Britain-in-Vietnam FAC. There are three basic ideas:

1. An Optica-style twin-boom pusher, but without the duct, made from a 1/72nd Gazelle fuselage and 1/160th Noratlas wings and booms. The engine would be in the rear of the pod, but the prop line would be elevated, using the old oil-cooler as a shaft mounting, and the prop would be an oversized slow-turning one like a Lockheed Q-Star.

2. A Strikemaster with a helo-style forward fuselage. The Gazelle is too narrow: a Alouette III or Dauphin may better.

3. A Miles M.100 Student-style aircraft with a more helo-like nose, made from a Dauphin fuselage. Wings and tail yet to be determined.

4. A straight-forward M.100 with no major mods, just smoke rockets. I have the Whirlybirds resin kit.

[jcf]

Evidently MiG did try to sell it to AEROFLOT, but they weren't interested.
I wonder what changes might have been incorporated if a production
version had been developed.

From what I've read, not much.  Development flying went well, they shifted the verticals in from the wing tips early on. Handling improved and the main problem after that was with engine cooling.

Nothing I've seen gives a definitive reason for the Utka being shelved, but a lack of interest combined with MiG focusing on military projects again as the Cold War warmed up seem probable reasons.

Well you have to go back to the primary reason it was designed and built, as a testbed for swept-wing development/testing,
it performed very well in that role and was used for years as a company hack. Realistically there was no pressing reason to
turn it into a production aircraft.

[DarrenP2]

RUC trialed the Optica, we used it for tracking practice with Blowpipe whilst waiting for the ferry to liverpool.

[KiwiZac]

Way back when I was more prolific here c.2006, inspired by the Winjeel, I built a re-engined DHC Chipmunk in near-East camo (think Beverley, Andover and Argosy) as a Vietnam FAC for an in-country RAF.

[PR19_Kit]

I find myself laughing hysterically when trying to think about a Chipmunk and a Beverley in comparison with one another. 

[Mossie]

Well you have to go back to the primary reason it was designed and built, as a testbed for swept-wing development/testing,
it performed very well in that role and was used for years as a company hack. Realistically there was no pressing reason to
turn it into a production aircraft.

A source I have claims it was originally designed as a Po-2 replacement but as a kind of "private venture" by MiG, with no requirement from Aeroflot or the GUAP. That's driven my thoughts about  FAC, dating back to the Trainers with Teeth GB.

It would explain another of the Utka's quirks, the passenger cabin, at odds with it's experimental status, also the MiG- designation. 

[jcf]

The MiG book by Belyakov (MiG designer and director) and Marmain states unequivocally
that it was for experimental use and quotes a note from Mikoyan and Gurevich as to the design's
purpose ditto the MiG Putnam by Gordon and Gunston, which does not include the Po 2 assertions
made in Gunston/Gordon's Soviet X-Planes, which leads one to wonder if that comes from Gunston
who actually wrote the book. This Po 2 replacement relationship diesn't appear in othe books and
probably comes from them trying to sell it as a Po 2 replacement to AEROFLOT.

Having a 'passenger cabin', really a space for monitoring engineers, on an experimental aircraft
isn't that unusual.

[DarrenP2]

percival provost is similar to the winjel. Rhodesians put rockets on them.

What would you use on the Chipmunk FAC for target indication?

[AS.12]

Possibly the last "dedicated-FAC" design was the SIAI SM.1019. but despite the era in which it was developed ( late 1960s ) it didn't incorporate features for survivability which would have been evident from Vietnam.  For example the turbine exhaust was dumped straight overboard without cooling and appears to lack any armour.

Popular now on the civilian market for bush-flying, though!

[kitnut617]

Possibly the last "dedicated-FAC" design was the SIAI SM.1019. but despite the era in which it was developed ( late 1960s ) it didn't incorporate features for survivability which would have been evident from Vietnam.  For example the turbine exhaust was dumped straight overboard without cooling and appears to lack any armour.

Popular now on the civilian market for bush-flying, though!

You could say the same thing about the Cessna Bird Dog

[DarrenP2]

or the AM3C bosbok the South Africans used

[Mossie]

The MiG book by Belyakov (MiG designer and director) and Marmain states unequivocally
that it was for experimental use and quotes a note from Mikoyan and Gurevich as to the design's
purpose ditto the MiG Putnam by Gordon and Gunston, which does not include the Po 2 assertions
made in Gunston/Gordon's Soviet X-Planes, which leads one to wonder if that comes from Gunston
who actually wrote the book. This Po 2 replacement relationship diesn't appear in othe books and
probably comes from them trying to sell it as a Po 2 replacement to AEROFLOT.

Having a 'passenger cabin', really a space for monitoring engineers, on an experimental aircraft
isn't that unusual.

Thanks John.

[KiwiZac]

Possibly the last "dedicated-FAC" design was the SIAI SM.1019. but despite the era in which it was developed ( late 1960s ) it didn't incorporate features for survivability which would have been evident from Vietnam.  For example the turbine exhaust was dumped straight overboard without cooling and appears to lack any armour.

Popular now on the civilian market for bush-flying, though!

You could say the same thing about the Cessna Bird Dog

You could, because the SM.1019 was just a Bird Dog with very slight redesign!

DarrenP2 - I put marker rockets on my Chocolate Chippy.