{"id":59429,"date":"2025-04-29T05:31:33","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T03:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=59429"},"modified":"2025-05-04T23:27:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T21:27:09","slug":"the-farewell-of-the-polish-su-22-fighters-accompanied-by-their-replacement-the-fa-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2025\/04\/29\/the-farewell-of-the-polish-su-22-fighters-accompanied-by-their-replacement-the-fa-50\/","title":{"rendered":"The farewell of the Polish Su-22 fighters accompanied by their replacement, the FA-50"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Polish Air Force is undergoing a renewal process that will close a long chapter in its history.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/01\/03\/the-polish-air-force-has-already-completed-its-fleet-of-new-fa-50gf-golden-eagle-fighters\/\">The Polish Air Force has already completed its fleet of new FA-50GF Golden Eagle fighters<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2023\/08\/04\/the-polish-air-force-receives-and-evaluates-its-first-fa-50-fighters-the-replacement-for-the-mig-29\/\">The Polish Air Force receives and evaluates its first FA-50 fighters, the replacement for the MiG-29<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p><strong>That chapter featured Soviet-made fighters<\/strong>, acquired by Poland during the communist dictatorship that ended in 1989. <strong>Two Soviet models are still in service in Poland: the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 and the Sukhoi Su-22<\/strong>, but both have their days numbered. Specifically, <strong>the retirement from service of the Polish Su-22 is scheduled for this year<\/strong> and a few days ago they carried out a farewell flight alongside <strong>its replacement, the South Korean KAI FA-50 Golden Eagle<\/strong>, in a session aimed at spotters. The Polish military newspaper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@polskazbrojna229\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Polska Zbrojna<\/a> has shown that moment in the following video:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Su-22 \u2013 po\u017cegnalna sesja air-to-air z udzia\u0142em FA-50\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QEXKzEGJfu8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>You can see some screenshots from this video here along with some information about these aircraft. <strong>The Su-22 is an export version of the Soviet Sukhoi Su-17 fighter jet<\/strong>, which made its first flight on August 2, 1966, being a development of the Sukhoi Su-7. <strong>The Su-17 was the first Soviet fighter with variable geometry wings<\/strong>, a solution to obtain greater maneuverability at low altitudes and greater speed at high altitudes. <strong>The wings can be positioned at three angles:<\/strong> 28\u00b0, 45\u00b0 or 62\u00b0 in relation to the fuselage.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54483885946_2afde46b82_o.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54483885946_79611026fa_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The USSR manufactured 2,867 Su-17s, including their Su-20 and Su-22 variants. <strong>Poland received 120 Su-22 fighters, of which only 18 remain in service.<\/strong> The aircraft became popular with pilots and ground crews for two reasons: it is easy to maintain, compared to other aircraft, and its operational readiness is quite good, in addition to being equipped with electronic warfare systems. <strong>Polish Su-22s have been operational since the early 1980s.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54483041072_d9a4ce9cdc_o.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54483041072_32209a1e1e_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Su-22 is the largest fighter jet ever operated by the Polish Air Force<\/strong>, with a fuselage measuring 19 meters long and a wingspan of 13.68 meters at full wingspan. <strong>It can reach a speed of 1,860 km\/h<\/strong>, with a range of 2,300 kilometers and a flight ceiling of 14,200 meters.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54484081674_fe6a9e58ea_o.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54484081674_3d78f75d89_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The FA-50 Golden Eagle will replace the Su-22 and MiG-29 in Poland.<\/strong> In June 2022, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/06\/14\/the-huge-arms-purchases-that-poland-prepares-to-defend-itself-from-russia\/\">Poland confirmed the purchase of 48 KAI FA-50s<\/a> from South Korea. Of those 48, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/01\/03\/the-polish-air-force-has-already-completed-its-fleet-of-new-fa-50gf-golden-eagle-fighters\/\">12 are of the FA-50GF variant and their deliveries have already been completed.<\/a> The FA-50GF is the Polish variant of the FA-50 Block 10, with Link 16 data link and the capability to carry AN\/AAQ-33 Sniper XR target designators. <strong>The fleet will be completed with 36 FA-50PL fighters<\/strong>, which will be delivered between November 2025 and September 2028. The FA-50PL is the Polish version of the FA-50 Block 20, capable of carrying a wider variety of weapons and equipped with an APG-83 AESA radar.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54484244030_34cc9fc43a_o.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54484244030_b1068fee1d_c.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>The FA-50 is a light fighter with many elements in common with the F-16<\/strong>, a model also operated by Poland, which has logistical advantages. <strong>The South Korean fighter reaches a maximum speed of 1,852 km\/h<\/strong>, with a range of 1,800 kilometers and a flight ceiling of 14,630 meters. <strong>It has highly advanced avionics<\/strong> and is smaller than the Su-22: its fuselage is 13.1 meters long and has a wingspan of 9.5 meters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Polish Air Force is undergoing a renewal process that will close a long chapter in its history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19534,11546],"tags":[17106,10370,14051,11562],"class_list":["post-59429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-portada-eng","category-military-aviation","tag-kai-fa-50-golden-eagle","tag-poland","tag-polish-air-force","tag-sukhoi-su-22"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-01 21:19:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}