Also don’t forget that Matthias Rust managed to evade Soviet air defences and land in Red Square in a rented C172.
eurogaguest1980 wrote:
I would not bet my life on this assumption.
Depends what the bet is. The fighter will hit you, in which case you are dead, or it will miss and in that case he will be dead. 
It also depends on the plane. I would be much more afraid of an A10 than a Starfighter.
Anyway, they have since long stopped using small recon planes, and there probably are several good reasons for that choice. Not sure what exactly those reasons are. It could be pure efficiency for all I know. The pilot would be of more use in any other aircraft, or one single helicopter would count for 10 of those planes? If that’s the case then it’s not about survivability.
LeSving wrote:
Anyway, they have since long stopped using small recon planes, and there probably are several good reasons for that choice. Not sure what exactly those reasons are. It could be pure efficiency for all I know. The pilot would be of more use in any other aircraft, or one single helicopter would count for 10 of those planes? If that’s the case then it’s not about survivability.
Actually, light aircraft – requisitioned from flying clubs and private owners – are used by the Swedish National Security Forces for recon and liaison purposes.
Ok, so imagine for a moment that your in the middle of a war zone and you want to get out of the country.
You could send days/weeks trying to walk to the border (staying off road to try to avoid detection) – stealthy but takes a long time and needs resupplies along the way, or
drive your car – faster but risks checkpoints and attack as chokepoints as you have to follow roads, or
fly your SEP – much faster, avoids choke points, but very visible to the fighting airforces
Which would be your best bet?
Given that Ukraine is well covered in portable antiaircraft weaponry, a GA plane is quite likely to get hit. It won’t have any IFF (or whatever form the Ukrainian military is using) and anyway anybody with a gun is likely to take a shot at you just for fun.
Walking might be safest.
OTOH, if you are thinking of Ukraine, most of it has no Russians on the ground, so driving is probably safe once you are away from the eastern parts.
BTW Israel has used the TB20, and later Beechcraft-something, for surveillance and stuff, although I am not sure whether it was in a “war zone”. They reportedly had them painted in a special nonreflective white paint for reduced conspicuity in the sky.
I think nowadays all the use of light aircraft for surveillance and such staff has been replaced by using drones. And as militaries are aware of that, they are developing anti-drone weaponry. I am not sure how ready is the anti-drone tech, but surely it will work very well anti GA …
alioth wrote:
Also don’t forget that Matthias Rust managed to evade Soviet air defences and land in Red Square in a rented C172.
The technical capabilities of the Russian air defence might have improved a bit in the last 40 years….
Malibuflyer wrote:
The technical capabilities of the Russian air defence might have improved a bit in the last 40 years….
Definitely. But nowhere near as much as they’d like you to think they have…
Peter wrote:
That was my long term career plan; to make enough to buy a TBM.
Isn’t buying the easy part, financially speaking? ;)
Peter, I regret to inform you that you will not be allowed to buy a TBM. For the simple reason that it’s not a good photoship. We definitively don’t want to have a guy like Dan to have a monopoly in superb Alpine footage. We would be at his mercy, bad business practice..
Unless you find a way to mount an external camera of course..
