Escort aircraft - an aircraft escorting another aircraft for any purpose.
An escort aircraft may be assigned to assist an aircraft in distress, for example, in the event of a loss of spatial orientation, radio communication failure or other technical problems. Escort aircraft are also widely used during various test flights for visual inspection and technical documentation (such as video recordings). It is believed that such aircraft are the best way to observe the flight of an experimental aircraft.
Incidents
Flying in close proximity to each other represents a certain complexity and danger. For example:
- On September 9, 1994, the aircraft laboratory of the LII named after M. Gromov ( Zhukovsky ) based on the Tu-22M2 with a laminated wing collided with a Tu-134 (RA-65760) during a test flight, from which a video was taken of the picture of the flow around the experimental wing of an airplane - laboratories in a wide range. Tu-134 received significant damage to the keel and stabilizer, and crashed in the Shatursky district of the Moscow region. All those aboard the Tu-134 died: FAC Pavlov Valery Viktorovich, co-pilot Kushin Viktor Stanislavovich, test navigator Khokhryakov Alexander Anatolyevich, flight attendant I. Yu. Sokolov, flight engineer S. M. Izgorodin, lead engineer A. A. Korolev, engineer - researcher V. M. Galkin, cameraman E. V. Kolpakov. Tu-22M2LL received damage to the bow, but the crew managed to land the plane at the Zhukovsky airfield.
- On February 10, 1995, an experimental An-70 was lost in a test flight after a collision with an An-72 escort aircraft . Having suffered structural damage, the An-72, led by the honored test pilot Vladimir Tersky, was relatively safely landed at the Gostomel airfield.