Soko J-22 Orao

Uncommon card · No. 111529

The Soko J-22 Orao (Serbian Cyrillic: Oрао, lit. 'eagle') is a Yugoslavian and later Serbian twin-engined, subsonic ground-attack and aerial reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed and built in collaboration by SOKO in Yugoslavia and by Avioane Craiova in neighbouring Romania, being known in the latter as the IAR-93 Vultur. The Orao was designed as either a single-seat main attack version or as a combat-capable twin-seat version, the latter being principally intended for advanced flight- and weapons-training duties. It was developed as a joint Yugoslav-Romanian project, known as YuRom, during the 1970s. Early ambitions to produce a supersonic fighter were scuppered by Britain's unwillingness to permit the desired engine to be license-produced in Eastern Europe. Further difficulties in fitting an afterburner to the older Rolls-Royce Viper also hindered development and the performance of early-build aircraft. First flying during November 1974, the resulting aircraft would equip the air...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Srđan Popović, CC BY-SA 4.0