Russian Stealth Fighter Makes Its First Flight 418
An anonymous reader writes "The long-awaited Russian stealth fighter, codenamed PAK FA or T-50, has had its first test flight today. This Google translation of a Russian article has a photo of the jet. Production is supposed to begin in 2015; the AP reports that India is helping with development. It's reportedly designed to compete with America's F-22 (first flight: 1997). Relatedly, according to Wikipedia, Japan is planning to fly its own stealth fighter, the ATD-X, which we have previously discussed, in 2011."
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for the fact that Russia is going to be selling these fighters to many other countries.
Nah, time for a new fighter program (Score:3, Insightful)
to keep Russia bankrupt trying to catch up to it.
1. Come up with super tech military program
2. Fund it until it becomes too costly
3. Wait for the other guy to spin up to compete against it
4. Move the bar further out
considering the US Defense departments budget its an easy game to win. What they spend on one program is more than most can spend on many.
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:3, Insightful)
How about spending the money on something better? Or do you have the best edjucation, healthcare, housing and schooling already?
Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni (Score:5, Insightful)
What good would it be to try to sell an airplane that no one knows about?
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:5, Insightful)
The counter to a stealth fighter would be better radar, not more stealth fighters of your own.
I'm not even sure why there's a supposed role for fighters any more anyway. When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane, rather than being bombed on or shot from the ground?
Uh, wait. We're talking about defence procurement, aren't we? Sorry, I forgot. :(
federation credits (Score:2, Insightful)
The global arms industry exists just as much because it is profitable, as it is being really necessary. It falls into the ludicrous unreal geez-loweez that's a lot of loot profits range. There's huge bucks/roubles/yen/renminbi/euros whatever in prepping for wars and fighting wars, any size.
It is not just any one nation's fault, in other words.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
You would be naive to think a few of these fighters won't find their way into China and become reverse engineered.
Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni (Score:3, Insightful)
The point of a doomsday device is to make people fear you. For that to happen, they need to know about it.
The point of a spy plane is to spy on people without them knowing you are, or even that you can. They don’t need to know about it.
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you serious? While the electronics on board the F22 could stand to be updated, the chassis and power systems on the F22 are second to none.
Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program (Score:2, Insightful)
to keep Russia bankrupt trying to catch up to i
The only problem is, we're bankrupt due to entitlements.
Chronic Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The chronic problem of the West is using the logic they learned in their own countries when analyzing Russia. Russia was never good to its citizens, and it was hardly ever not on the brink of national bankruptcy. But that rarely stopped it from making new weapons... that were largely more robust, if less sophisticated, than their western counterparts.
Getting into another arms race with Russia is a recipe for the US bankruptcy as much as it is for Russian... and while overspending on defense in the US would causes political instability, Russia is quite happy to make new weapons while its population starves.
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:5, Insightful)
The counter to a stealth fighter would be better radar, not more stealth fighters of your own.
Actually, the counter is both on the same platform. You need weapons that can defeat the stealth fighter, since ideally you want to eliminate the target, not just look at it.
So, you want a fighter that has a small enough radar cross-section and sensitive enough radar that you see the other guy first. Then your missile just needs to be pointed in the right direction, it can aquire the lock later when it's close enough to detect their radar cross-section.
I'm not even sure why there's a supposed role for fighters any more anyway. When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane, rather than being bombed on or shot from the ground?
We shot down an Iranian drone [defencetalk.com] over Iraq a few months ago. Before that, seems the last fighter-fighter engagements were Desert Storm, only because we haven't been in an air-war since. It's possible I'm missing some conflict, though. Assuming things were to go south with Iran, Pakistan, India, Russia, China, or North Korea we would need air superiority fighters. Air superiority doesn't win wars on its own, but it's hard to win a conventional war without it.
Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program (Score:3, Insightful)
And because our pols lack the stones to raise taxes to pay for anything.
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:4, Insightful)
With what we're learning with the drone program, the best thing would be to develop an unmanned fighter. AFAIK, the big limitation on fighters these days is the guy in the cockpit. We're capable of developing propulsion and airframes capable of greatly exceeding human endurance and that's what's needed to take fighters to the next level and to really keep the competition on their toes.
Even at par with manned fighters in terms of raw performance, an unmanned fighter, minus the cockpit, life support systems, human avionics interfaces and the pilot, is hundreds of pounds lighter, and probably somewhat smaller -- all this yields better fuel consumption, more weapons capacity, better avionics and probably mission-optimizable in most categories.
Fighters probably have a role, albeit more in the strategic realm, but as we learned from 9/11, bombers aren't the only aerial threat and the ability to intercept or get on target very quickly over most targets is welcome. But overall I think you are right, our money is best spent on the resources for asymmetrical warfare.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Chinese Engineer 1: What's that part made of?
Chinese Engineer 2: Titanium.
CE1: Isn't that expensive?
CE2: We'll just use lead. Or melamine.
CE1: Will it have the same mechanical properties?
CE2: No, but by the time the Americans notice, it'll be too late.
CE1: Heh heh. Er, hang on a minute...
Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program (Score:2, Insightful)
There seems to be a disparity between your comment and your sig..
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not a case of them 'reverse engineering' the fighter, the primary obstacles to creating aircraft like this isn't an aircraft design issue, it's an engineering issue. The materials, production lines, resources, manufacturing expertise, et al., necessary to successfully implement the F-22 or PAK-50 is incredibly prohibitive. Ever wondered why China is only now just starting to produce fighter aircraft of the 3rd/4th (more like 3.5) generation on its own? They've had high quality imported aircraft for almost two decades now and they can't make anything themselves that compares to a 4.5 generation fighter. This is what one would term a 'non trivial' tast ;).
Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's where a stealthy aircraft with air to ground capability is useful - to take out the enemy's air defences and make it safer for conventional aircraft to attack "proper" targets. But drone technology has improved so much recently that maybe they're the thing for that niche.
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:2, Insightful)
Which is still fine. Buying a bunch of mig descendants is one thing. Learning how to operate them properly and maintain them is another.
Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni (Score:4, Insightful)
Saddam took that one step further. Do you really need WMD, or just for people to think you have them? We certainly feared him. He certainly had chemical weapons at one time, and tinkered with other WMD's at other times. But in retrospect, that was all gone by 2003. So why did people think he still fear he had them? There is some anecdotal evidence his scientists mislead him to keep from being "replaced", but only for a few of the suspected programs. For Saddam, ambiguity was useful up until Iraq got invaded. Playing games with weapons inspectors kept everyone nervous and a little wary of what he might be capable of.
Then came the big prank. After the invasion of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda came up with a great idea: if you get caught, mention that there is a plot with Saddam to use WMD. Remember, Al Qaeda didn't like Saddam, so this was meant to get two enemies focused on each other. Combine this with Saddam's games, poor/biased intelligence, and an administration set on wiping out any potential threat, and you get a nice little clusterfuck.
Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program (Score:4, Insightful)
Old people may need money to eat and get health care.
The question is whether or not that money should be coming from their own savings, their families, or the US taxpayer.
Prior to the growth of entitlements, there was a massive amount of $$ available for defense, if needed.
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:5, Insightful)
That changes the whole argument on the F-22 being killed now, doesn't it?
No, not really. As a Russian, let me tell you - since the fall of the USSR (and especially in 2000s), there had been a slew of announcements of new weapons that are supposedly so awesome they can match and outperform the American ones. The problem with them is that what few things actually leave the development stage and enter production, get produced in minuscule quantities. The old Soviet solid manufacturing base is mostly gone (you've got to maintain the factories, and keep workforce there and well-trained - none of that was done), and replacement is nowhere to be seen. Not to mention the simple lack of money, which was always there, but is particularly true these days [tradingeconomics.com].
You can basically expect a production run on the order of a dozen or two of those things, just enough for them to fly over in the next V-day military parade while Putin goes on about how the country is restored to its former might and glory. Maybe they'll send one or two to fly real close to, say, Estonia, just to remind them who's the daddy (and get a few more cheers from the "patriotic" crowd). But that's about it. And, to remind, US currently has 145 operational F-22s... there's absolutely no way Russia can catch up with that, even if you discount the rest of the air fleet (and even if PAK FA is indeed on par with F-22 in performance, and superior to F-35 - which is by no means certain yet - I very much doubt it can hold up to two F-35; not to mention the higher quality of training of American pilots, which is historically demonstrated).
Also, one other thing... Russia doesn't have any long-distance force projection capability. There's only one operational air carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov [wikipedia.org], and that one is in a less than perfect state, and even then inferior to the current generation of US carriers, much less the next one. And, while I have no doubts about US introducing the new line of its carriers on time, there are many doubts about the ability of Russia to do the same, despite all the talks of more carriers being needed (which have been going on since mid-90s). So all those next-gen fighters end up being mostly a defensive weapon, and potentially usable in border conflicts like the recent one in Georgia (though in those cases, air superiority is usually ensured by a preemptive all-out air strike on the enemy airfields, as again seen in Georgia).
Nothing to see here, move along...
Re:Chronic Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to add to that - Russian people in general are extremely proud of their country's military power; most large Russian towns will have regular military parades, parks with military hardware for people to take their photo with, retired missiles and jet fighters on display beside main roads and so on. Spending a large portion of their GDP on their armed forces isn't seen as a frivolity or opposed by anything but a tiny minority of Russian citizens.
Which sounds pretty close to the attitude of the people in the US as well.
Re:Foolish assumption. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Mostly, you can think of it as a payment from yourself now, to yourself later."
I don't think this is true. SS is paying beneficiaries now with money taxed now. It is not going into some magical pot with your name on it to be opened when you retire. If the tax money is not there when you retire, you and everyone that looks like you is screwed.
The problem with SS is that too many people have a straw in it. And it the boomers are going to make it all worse because the working population won't be large enough to support these whiners. They will whine because that's what they've always done. The government has taken one minor step, my retirement age is 66 + 3 months, not 65, according to the SS administration. But I'm at the tail end of the boomers. All boomers should be retiring much later, just as pay back for having to listen to them all these years if there is justice left in the world.
My retirement age should be later that than, say 70. And capping contributions to be made on only the first $105,000 or so of income (I think this cap is still there) is plain silly. You should pay SS on all income. And they need to cut the social contract in such a manner that if your retirement income is above, say, $60,000 per year, you slowly lose benefits until income $100,000 where you cease to get any distribution from SS. Unfair? Nope. It is merely the contribution you will make as citizen to the rest who are less well off and have not benefitted from living in the U.S. as long as you and continue to reap the rewards of a +$100,000 income.
I'm sure there are other adjustments that could be made. Whack the insurance companies and make health care run by nonprofit cooperatives. That is the way Blue Cross and Blue Shield started. In the 70's, insurance companies figured out they could make a killing in health care and have been killing us ever since. Reform the tort laws, it isn't Christmas just because some doctor or medical establishment screwed up.
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:3, Insightful)
Making an AI that can fly a drone between GPS points and one that can best a human in a dogfight are two entirely different levels of difficulty.
The human body is the current limitation on the performance envelope, but the human mind is still far ahead in terms of strategic and tactical control capability.
Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program (Score:1, Insightful)
This can be seen in the current economic debacle. Although it fell apart under Bush II's watch, that administration had inherited problems ignored or exacerbated by the Clinton administration and maybe even Bush I. It's simply too complicated an issue to attribute success or failure to 4-8 years of voting for programs, implementing them completely in that time, and seeing the fruit of the effects.