I spent the last couple of days on this profile:
Sukhoi Su-24R, NATO codename "Frostbite"
47th Reconnaissance Air Regiment
Czechoslovak Air Force
Pardubice air base
Early 1980s
In the early 1960s, just a few short years after the Avro Arrow had been cancelled, the Sukhoi bureau began work on a new tactical strike/bomber for the Soviet air force. They had designed a fuselage with a side-by-side cockpit for a crew of two and were designing the aircraft to have relatively short wings. The company designation for the aircraft was S-6.
At this early stage in the aircraft's development, the bureau was visited by TsAGI representatives and directed to design the new aircraft as a delta wing type. The TsAGI representative gave a detailed briefing of the Avro Arrow to the top people at the Sukhoi bureau, the briefing was based on documents, plans and other material about the Arrow that was collected by spies who were assigned to the Arrow program.
A former Sukhoi employee recalls:
"It was a strange order to us. We knew enough about the Canadian plane to know it was an interceptor by design. We were working on a strike/bomber type and TsAGI wanted us to adapt the wings and tail of an interceptor to it. We could tell them just by looking at the design that there would be no hauling bombs with that design; a dedicated reconnaissance platform maybe but not a bomber.
TsAGI were insistant in spite of our concerns and tasked us to make separate prototypes for strike and reconnaisance. They also insisted that the prototypes be powered by the Lyulka AL-21 turbojet engine.
As we had designed the s-6 to have a conventional wing and tail, we spent quite a lot of time redesigning the fuselage to accept a high mounted delta wing and the AL-21 Engines. We had to redesign the wings as well to remove the landing gear from them as we opted to use a fuselage mounted landing gear based on the S-6's design.
The prototypes were ready for their first flights in 1967.
The reconnaissance variant was impressive from the start. It lacked the attack radar of the strike version and the associated gear for the radar. Its usual mission profile was intended to be at medium altitude. It was quite a bit lighter than the strike version and the AL-21 engines could easily push it past Mach 2.
As we expected, the strike/bomber variant was a very different story. True to its interceptor heritage, it did not like being down low and its wings did not really like having a lot hung from them. The pilots also reported that taking a large delta wing down low was not something they recommend or would care to repeat.
TsAGI accepted that they would not get the strike aircraft, but they directed us to continue developing the reconnaissance version and also to continue work on a strike aircraft. For that strike aircraft, we went stright back to the S-6 as we'd had it and started experimenting with giving it variable geometry wings.
We developed the Reconnaissance aircraft's camera systems to fit in a dedicated pod on the underside of the fuselage, in the same location the Avro Arrow would have carried its air-to-air missiles. We also developed a self-defense system for the aircraft that included jamming pods on the wingtips.
The Reconnaissance aircraft was given the official designation of Su-24. It entered service with the Soviet air force in 1972. By 1976, the aircraft was also in use by the Bulgarian, Czechoslovak and Polish air forces.
Our return to the S-6 and making it a variable geometry type also paid dividends as it performed admirably in flight testing for the strike/bomber requirement. It entered Soviet air force service in 1974 under the designation Su-25."
The Sukhoi Su-24R, and it's updated follow on Su-24MR, served the air forces of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Soviet Union. It also served in the Polish and Soviet navies, the naval version had a different camera and sensor pod that was optimized for over water missions.
