A quick Review of the Russian A-50-Fleet

Hello everybody!

Because it seems that there is a hunting season for Russian A-50s in Ukraine, every February, and in the wake of already the second such loss within a month (for the first one, see here), there are lots of questions in style of, ‘and how many (Beriyev) A-50 SDRLO (AEW) aircraft are left in Russia’? So, I thought: OK, lets check. In a matter of some 30 minutes of browsing around the social media came into being the following ‘photo-review’.

Please mind: none of following photos is mine, found all of them at different websites. Their use is really, ‘for review purposes only’.

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To start with, back in the 1980-1990ss (precisely: 1985-1993), a factory in Tashkent manufactured a total of

• 3 prototypes (Borts 10, 15, and 20)

• 24 operational A-50s (Borts 30-53).

One of earliest photos of any A-50s (at least published in the West), taken by the Swedish Air Force in 1986, over the Baltic Sea.

Over the following 20 years, multiple upgrade projects were announced, including A-50U, then A-50M, then another A-50U, and then the A-100. As usually, the Russians excelled in planning and announcing; not so much in realisation. Indeed, except for that ‘another’ or ‘new’ A-50U project, next to nothing of this came into being.

Nowadays, finding photos of ‘vanilla’ (non-upgraded) A-50s is getting harder by the day. And if one finds any, it seems the aircraft in question are worn out, and have not been moved for ages. Apparently, they became a rarity already about 10 years ago, and most are looking like this:

9 of A-50s ‘in open storage’…

From those that could still be clearly identified over the last dozen of so years:

• Bort 20 (one of prototypes): at display in Taganrog

• Bort 30: RF-?????, seems to have been used for training purposes, at least around 2010; fate unclear;

• Bort 44: RF-?????; fate unclear;

• Bort 46: RF-?????; fate unclear;

• Bort 50: RF-50601; might still be operational, even claimed as shot down on 14 Jan 24;

• Bort 51: RF-50606; might still be operational (last photos are from around 2008);

• Bort 52: RF-93953; converted to A-100-prototype.

Fate unclear: a top view of the Bort 44 from the early 2000s.

One of ‘latest’ photos of the Bort 50, from 2013, and while still in A-50 configuration.

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The Soviets also manufactured (at least) three Il-976s. While looking like A-50, this was actually a ‘civilian’ derivative, used for monitoring test flights at Zhukovsky. Their serials were (RA-)76453, (RA-)76455, and (RA-)76456. AFAIK, this one was last seen in around 2017.

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Originally initiated in 1999, then cancelled, then re-launched in 2000, the A-50U project came forward very slowly. The essence was an overhaul of selected A-50-airframes, and installation of modern processors and flat screen displays. New processors have improved the ‘resolution’ of the radar picture, speed of processing, and increased the total number of targets the aircraft could track at once (from 45 to 150).

The first A-50U was the Bort 37, rolled out in 2005. Because it served as a prototype, it was handed over to the VKS only in 2014. It was followed by Bort 47 (2011), Bort 33 (2013), Bort 41 (2017), Bort 45 (2018), Bort 42 (2019), and Bort 43 (2022).

Means, the VKS went into the all-out invasion of Ukraine with following A-50Us:

• Bort 33: RF-50602; should be in service; nick-named Vladimir Ivanov;

• Bort 37: RF-93966; was nick-named Sergey Atayanc; (reportedly) shot down on 14 Jan 24;*

• Bort 41: RF-94268; should be in service; nick-named ‘Taganrog’;

• Bort 42: RF-50610; (reportedly) shot down on 23 Feb 24;

• Bort 43: RF-50608; damaged on 25 Feb 23;

• Bort 45: RF-93952; should be in service;

• Bort 47; RF-93957; should be in service.

Bort 33 is the sole A-50U of the VKS painted in dark grey overall. It was the second example of this variant built, but the first made to series standard and the first A-50U to enter service with the VKS.

The A-50U Bort 43 (RF-50608) as seen at Makulishchi Air Base, in Belarus, in February 2023. This was the last example of this variant confirmed as upgraded and handed over to the VKS, in early 2022.

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In 2006, the Keystone Cops in Moscow contracted the Vega Group for another upgrade: the A-100, code-named Premier. This project ‘consumed’ one of older A-50s (Bort 52/RF-93953) that was converted into the first prototype A-100 - and was also the first example to have an additional radome above the cockpit (see the photo below).

Bort 52, the first A-100 prototype, here still without the radome, as seen in April 2017.

Two other prototypes were based on Il-76MD-90As 78651 and 78652. However, the project then stalled before being re-organised as Premier-476 in 2013. First flights by one of prototypes were undertaken in 2017 and it was announced that the new type would enter service in 2020. I haven’t seen it as operated by the VKS yet, but: in April 2021, an aircraft with ‘call-sign’ 78651 was monitored on Flightradar24, while - apparently - shadowing the flight of a Northrop-Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance UAV over the Black Sea. So, most likely, the Russians used the opportunity to test their new toy.

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Conclusions:

• the VKS is unlikely to still have any operational A-50s;

• out of 7 A-50Us known to have entered service, 5 might still be operational, if the Bort 43 was meanwhile repaired;

• out of 3 A-100 prototypes known to have been constructed, none is confirmed as in service with the VKS, but nobody says the Russians are unlikely to press them into operations.

Bottom line: the VKS is likely to still have a total of 7 or 8 A-50Us and A-100s on hand.

Arguably, after two years of intensive operations over Ukraine, availability of remaining A-50Us is rumoured to be ‘low’. That said, even at ‘best times’ (early during the war), the Russians never deployed them the way NATO would do so: i.e. it never kept 2-3-4-5 aircraft airborne and ‘on station’ for 24/7. This is simply not the way the VKS operates. Instead, they were deployed to improve the protection of zones of special interest (early on, this was in support of major heliborne operations in the Kyiv and Voznessensk areas, just for example; lately, this was to bolster air defences of the Crimean peninsula), or to support specific large-scale operations of the tactical aviation (like supporting air strikes in the Avdiivka area).

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*I’m writing ‘reportedly’ because even if the loss was eventually confirmed, I haven’t seen any kind of evidence it was really the airframe listed here.