The Su-25 is a close air support aircraft, soviet counterpart of the USAF's A-10 (and whose silhouette notably reminds one of the aspect of the A-10's unfortunate challenger, the A-9).
It is also a twin-engineed plane designed to survive : shells, two engines remote from each other, a diversified A/S weaponry.
In the present case, our Su-25, formerly based between Rostock and Berlin, carries two air-to-air AA8 missiles and two supplementary fuel tanks.
The NATO designation "Frogfoot" as well as the nomenclature number "Su-25" mean that the initial use of this aircraft ought to be fighting: all soviet fighters were named with a two-syllabe designation beginning with F (for Fighter), as shown by these quite burlesque examples :
"Fishbed" (MiG-21), "Fulcrum" (MiG-29), "Foxbat" (MiG-25), "Flagon" (Su-15), "Farmer" (MiG-19), "Fagot" (MiG-17), "Flanker" (Su-27), "Forger" (Yak-38)...
The same creativity prevailed for strategic bombers (Bull, Bison, Bear, Badger, Blackjack...), for helicopters (Hind, Helix, Hoplite, Hip, Hokum...), transports (Candid, Coaler, Cub...) and whatever else that could be flying in communist territory.
Back to the Su-25, this plane had some export success and got known with the conflict betweenn the USSR and Afghanistan in 1982.
