Russian jet shot down by Syrian rebels and pilot is killed

[Strikerrr]

[video=youtube;nj5zLhcixPo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj5zLhcixPo[/video]
high FPS video of the rebels shooting at the SU-25 with an AA gun and then hitting it with a missile.

[Rainboo]

The pilot apparently has a wife and a four-year old daughter :(

[Toybasher]

Supposedly it's suspected America provided the MANPAD but the sources are not very good. Nobody really knows.

Appearently Russia sent people to try and find the launcher to figure out what it was.

It could have been an FN-6, a chinese MANPAD.

[IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e4/FN-6_portable_air_defense_missile_weapon_system_MANPADS_China_Chinese_army_defense_industry_640_002.jpg[/IMG]

MANPAD's themselves are fucking scary for a number of reasons.

1. They can be practically anywhere. Stacked inside the doorway of a building, stored inside a vehicle, etc. There's no way to predict where they might be.

2. They often use IR homing. This means they typically are undetectable (compared to radar guided SAMS where the radar lock is detectable.) when fired unless the pilot spots the launch with his eyes or a wingman spots it. Some missile warning systems work by detecting the smoke plume and exhaust of the missile, and they can potentially spot it.

3. They are fire and forget. Older radar guided SAM's, if the lock is broken with the radar on the ground, the missile loses guidance. With IR guidance the missile itself is what tracks the target. Some can even try and ignore flares or IR jamming.

4. They have very, very short range. While this means flying high puts you out of range, when one is launched, you have pretty much no time to react (And remember, with an IR guided missile there's typically no warning.) before it hits.

5. While older IR SAM's can only track the exhaust, newer ones can track hot surfaces of the plane.

The variant shot down is supposedly. the SU-25SM, an upgraded varient of the SU-25. (NOT the SU-25T.)

[media]https://twitter.com/BabakTaghvaee/status/959866245851041792[/media]