The Soko J-22 Orao is a Yugoslav twin-engined, subsonic ground-attack and reconnaissance aircraft. It was designed as a single-seat main attack version or as a combat capable two-seat version for advanced flying and weapon training. It was developed as a joint Yugoslav-Romanian project in the 1970s for the air forces of both nations, SOKO built it in Yugoslavia, and Avioane Craiova built it as the IAR-93 Vultur in Romania.
Development[]
On 20 May 1971, the governments of Romania and Yugoslavia signed an agreement for the formation of YuRom, a joint R&D venture. The program was headed by Dipl. Dr. Engineer Teodor Zanfirescu of Romania and Colonel Vidoje Knezević of Yugoslavia. The aircraft was intended as a replacement for the lightly armed Soko J-21 Jastreb and the Republic F-84 Thunderjet, then in the JNA arsenal.
The requirements called for a light aircraft to be built on a simple structure, using locally produced equipment and avionics, tough (able to operate on grass or damaged runways), easy to maintain and reliable. The aircraft was of conventional twin-engine, high mounted wing monoplane configuration with all flying surfaces swept. The designers originally planned a single-engined supersonic aircraft, but Britain would not authorize the license for the engine the designers wanted (due to Romania being in the Warsaw Pact), so the less-powerful Rolls-Royce Viper was chosen as the powerplant, as Soko had experience with license-building this engine. It was originally intended that an afterburner would be developed for the Viper engines, but there were prolonged difficulties with this project, meaning that none of the pre-production aircraft featured it, and neither did early production examples. During the 1980s, both countries developed slightly different versions to take advantage of the afterburning engines that had since become available.
The Yugoslav prototype 25002 made its first flight in November 1974 from Batajnica Air Base near Belgrade, with Major Vladislav Slavujević at the controls.
The third aircraft, numbered 003, a pre-production two-seater version, made its first flight on 4 July 1977, but was lost almost a year later due to tail flutter problems. Construction continued, and the first batches of pre-production machines were delivered in 1978 to the Air Force Aircraft Testing Facility in Belgrade, with serial production being set up in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On 22 November 1984, Orao 25101 piloted by test pilot Marjan Jelen broke the sound barrier in a shallow dive over Batajnica Air Base, becoming the first Yugoslav-designed aircraft to exceed Mach 1. The aircraft is incapable of breaking the sound barrier in level flight, so it is classified as subsonic.
Design[]
The J-22 is a twin-engined combat jet aircraft for close air support, ground attack and tactical reconnaissance warplane with limited air-defense capability.
Standard communication and navigation equipment, plus (fire control and weapons management) Thompson-CSF VE-120T HUD replacing the original Ferranti ISIS D-282 gyro sight (defensive sensors and systems) Iskra SO-1 RWR and provision for up to three chaff/flare dispensers and P10-65-13 passive jammer pod, and (navigation) Honeywell SGP500 twin-gyro platform; there is also provision for an optical/IR reconnaissance pod or an optical reconnaissance/jammer pod.
Specifications[]
General characteristics[]
- Crew: one or two
- Length: 13.02 m (42 ft 8½ in)
- Wingspan: 9.30 m (30 ft 6¼ in)
- Height: 4.52 m (14 ft 10 in)
- Wing area: 26.00 m² (279.9 ft²)
- Empty weight: 5,550 kg (12,125 lb)
- Max. takeoff weight: 11,080 kg (24,427 lb)
- Powerplant: 2 × Orao/Turbomecanica-built Rolls-Royce Viper Mk 633-41 turbojet
- Dry thrust: 17.79 kN (4,000 lbf) each
- Thrust with afterburner: 22.24 kN (5,000 lbf) each
Performance[]
- Maximum speed: 1,130 km/h (610 knots, 702 mph) at sea level
- Stall speed: 185 km/h (100 knots, 115 mph)
- Combat radius: 522 km (282 nmi, 324 mi) (four BL755 cluster bombs and one 1,500 L drop tank)
- Ferry range: 1,320 km ()
- Service ceiling: 15,000 m (49,210 ft)
- Rate of climb: 89 m/s (17,520 ft/min)
Armament[]
- Guns: 2 × 23 mm GSh-23L cannons
- Hardpoints: Five (four underwing and one centreline) with a capacity of 500 kg (1,100 lb) (wing pylons), 800 kg (1,770 lb) (centreline pylons) - total capacity 2,800 kg (6,200 lb)
- Missiles: Molniya R-60, AGM-65 Maverick TV guided AGM or Grom-1 Radio-guided AGM (based on Soviet Kh-23).
- Bombs: MK series bombs, BL755 cluster bombs, Matra Durandal anti-runaway bombs,and laser guided bombs.
Trivia[]
- The aircraft is featured in the cilit bang advert.