Soko J-22 Orao

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The Soko J-22 Orao (Eagle) is a light ground-attack aircraft developed as a joint Yugoslav-Romanian project in the 1970s for the air forces of both nations. Its Romanian counterpart was the IAR 93. For Yugoslavia, the J-22 was intended to replace the lightly armed Soko J-1 Jastreb (Hawk) and the now obsolete US-made F-84Gs as fighter-bombers.

J-22 – Diagram

Development

On May 20 1971, the governments of Romania and Yugoslavia signed the first agreements for the formation of YuRom, a joint R&D venture. The program managers were Dipl. Dr. Engineer Teodor Zanfirescu of Romania and Colonel Vidoje Knezevic for Yugoslavia.

The aircraft was of conventional high-wing monoplane configuration with all flying surfaces swept. The Rolls-Royce Viper was chosen as the powerplant, as Soko had experience with licence-building this engine. The Yugoslav prototype 25002 made its first flight in November 1976 from Batajnica airfield near Belgrade with Major Vladislav Slavujevic at controls. Aircraft 003 was a preproduction two-seater which made the first flight on July 4, 1977 and was lost in March 1978 due to a tail flutter problem.

The first batches of pre-production machines were delivered in 1978. 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.

Orlovi

Operational history

Serbian machines saw combat against NATO forces in the Kosovo War in 1999, with pilots often facing extremely unfavourable odds. Most J-22s successfully survived the bombing campaign, protected by an effective use of camouflage and decoys. Serbian sources claim that a J-22 shot down a Tomahawk cruise missile during the campaign.

Variants

Orao 1 – initial production version, without afterburners. Lack of performance limited role to tactical reconnaissance – later redesignated IJ-22 (Izvidyach Yurishny – reconnaissance attack)
- NJ-22 – two-seat trainer version of the Orao 1. (Nastahvny Yurishny – trainer attack)
Orao 2, also known as J-22(M) – refined version with afterburner, enlarged fuel tanks, HUD, ejection seat, and LERx.
- Orao 2D, also known as NJ-22(M) – two-seat trainer version of Orao 2

Specifications (J-22(M))

Orao 1 – line-up

Orao 2s – Above the Slovene Alps

Orao 2s – Above the Danube

General characteristics

Crew: one, pilot
Length: 13.02 m (42 ft 8 in)
Wingspan: 9.30 m (30 ft 6 in)
Height: 4.52 m (14 ft 10 in)
Wing area: 26.0 m² (280 ft²)
Empty: 5,750 kg (12,676 lb)
Loaded: kg ( lb)
Maximum takeoff: 10,900 kg (24,030 lb)
Powerplant: 2 x Turbomeccanica/Orao-built Rolls-Royce Viper Mk 632–47, 44 kN (10,000 lbf) afterburning thrust each.

Performance

Maximum speed: 1,130 km/h (702 mph)
Range: 1,320 km (825 miles)
Service ceiling: 15,000 m (49,210 ft)
Rate of climb: 5,340 m/min (17,520 ft/min)
Wing loading: kg/m² ( lb/ft²)
Thrust-to-weight:

Armament

2x 23 mm GSh-23L cannon
up to 2,800 kg (6,173 lb) of stores, including
- AGM-65 Maverick
- Grom air-to-ground missiles
- BL-755 cluster bombs
- 57 mm or 128 mm rockets