RARE
SU25
Sukhoi Su-25
The Rook
“A titanium bathtub with wings.”
Sukhoi · military
Length
50 ft 11 in
Wingspan
47 ft 1 in
Max speed
526 kts
Range
540 nmi
Ceiling
22,970 ft
Engines
2x Soyuz/Tumansky R-195 turbojets (9,930 lbf each)
Crew
1
Typical config
Single seat (two in the Su-25UB trainer)
Built
1,000+
The Su-25 was designed around one idea: the pilot sits inside a welded titanium tub, and everything else is built to keep flying with pieces missing. Over 1,000 were produced between 1978 and 2017. The pair that show up on Western tracking feeds are civilian-owned warbirds — privately flown pieces of Cold War engineering.
Fun fact
Russian crews call the Su-25 'Grach' — the Rook — and its cockpit is a bathtub-shaped enclosure welded from titanium sheets.
How to spot one
Straight, slightly drooped wings and a long fairing under the nose. NATO calls it Frogfoot. On a Western feed, an Su-25 hex is almost certainly a privately owned warbird.
Crews call it
Grach
Sounds like
Two R-195 turbojets — a flat, gritty roar with none of a modern turbofan's hush
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Rook from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook.
