Russian Air Force?

[guiwee]

I attende an airshow this weekend here in Michigan with my 8-yr old son.
He asked me ..as kids do....have there ever been crashes? I told him sure and we went home and goggled it.
Why is it the majority of these crashes stem from the soviet-era aircraft?
My understanding is the Su-27 and Mig 29 are decent aircraft. Are they not performing enough maintenance or just shoddy design. These guys need to learn how to fly...better!!!!!

[MagicRat]

Flying at airshows is one huge nightmare for pilots of modern military aircraft. From the air, the intended airspace that the planes are supposed to fly in is actually very small and very low.

This means the planes are flying much slower than they usually do. High speed interceptors such as the SU-27 and Mig handle poorly at low speed. If they stall or cannot execute a turn properly, the low altitude pretty much guarantees the plane will hit the ground before a pilot can recover.

Now, the US interceptors have much the same limitations and they seem to crash less often. This may e explained, imo, by the sorry state of the Russian military. According to the Economist magazine a few months ago, the Russian military spending is only 5% (one-twentieth) that of the US. This means the Russians simply cannot afford top-notch pilot training, nor can they maintain the planes properly.

These problems pop up regularly elsewhere in the Russian military. For example, although they 'won' their conflict with Georgia last year, (mostly due to overwhelming numbers) they suffered problems with equipment, communications and discipline. For example, military commanders in the field simply gave up on using their failure-prone military communications equipment and simply used their cell phones.