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."
Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:4, Interesting)
That changes the whole argument on the F-22 being killed now, doesn't it? We'll see calls coming out to restart F-22 production, but probably an F-22 B where some of the stealth stuff that drives up operational costs gets dropped in the interest of being just a good first line fighter.
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: (Score:2, Insightful)
to keep Russia bankrupt trying to catch up to i
The only problem is, we're bankrupt due to entitlements.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And because our pols lack the stones to raise taxes to pay for anything.
Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program (Score:5, Informative)
Foolish assumption. (Score:5, Interesting)
Old people do need money to eat and get health care
You assume that because they need it, they should get it. At the other end of the scale is a child that needs an education. If there's only one dollar out there, and the old guy wants it, versus the child, I'd say, give it to the child, and let the old guy die.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My point was that unless you personally, as a rational, self-sufficient person, plan on killing yourself instead of retiring, you have to plan for the future
I smoked a pack a day for 20 years and have a heart condition. I won't live that long, so I want every cent to go towards my son.
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: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.
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:Chronic Problem (Score:5, Informative)
Very good observation. As a person who has lived in Russia some 10 years in total, I can say that Russian government even though one of the people (for better or worse) has traditionally been one that will pursue bold objectives without taking notice of the more at-hand problems, such may be criminality, morale, education (well that one may be an exception now, and thank gods for that) etc. Too many older folks or their trusted descendants sit in the corridors of power in Kremlin that do not want to deviate from old style of doing things - still envisioning grand Mother Russia not only very potent but in fact aiding the rest of the world. Whether it does so at the cost of its own citizens, is of no concern to these few individuals in power - to them it is the image and glory that counts. Russia's ambitions cover as much ground as its whole land and more. In time, they will learn to see be realistic, only despotic communism could handle (and did so for limited time, as history shows) the kind of progress seen there until '89. New Russia must understand that it has to choose between happy people and happy but overambitious leaders. When the balance is restored, it perhaps can become productive without using its people. As someone who has seen a lot of misery there but also a lot of absolutely ingenious minds, I would say it has what it takes, but is still with one foot in the mess that was left after the last "party" collapsed. That's nothing new though...
Re: (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:Nah, time for a new fighter program (Score:5, Informative)
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
The story of the F-15, as related to me by an Air Force guy. The Russians come out with a new interceptor, the MiG-25. In reality it's a lead sled, can go really freakin' fast in one direction and fire off some missiles but it has very little flexibility and is not that good of an aircraft. But since we don't have good intel on it, we start guessing as to what it's capabilities would be, making up all sorts of shit. The Air Force freaks out and demands we build a counter and that eventually became the F-15, fully capable of doing everything the Foxbat was supposed to do. Total overkill.
Doublechecked wiki, this story is confirmed there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig-25 [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you really sure that F-15 can outrun a missile? Because that wikipedia entry proves that a MiG-25 very well can.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe, maybe not.
The answer is absolutely yes. They started engineering stealth aircraft before the Soviet Union collapsed. They have maintained their program in a drastically reduced capacity until such times they can afford to ramp it back up. They found a partner which allowed them to continue their efforts on a reduced budget.
In absolutely terms, their efforts never stopped. The F22 did not spur this plane. Rather, the F117 spurred it on, which is very much in the midst of the cold war.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How about spending the money on something better? Or do you have the best edjucation, healthcare, housing and schooling already?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
education - yes
AFFORDABLE healthcare - yes
housing - capable of taking +40C in the summer and -40C in winter
schooling - how is this different to education?
Re: (Score:2)
compared to the US?
education - yes
AFFORDABLE healthcare - yes
housing - capable of taking +40C in the summer and -40C in winter
schooling - how is this different to education?
Education: okay, probably when you take into account the whole student body, not just elite academies.
Healthcare: surely you jest with me.
Housing: your use of communistic units brings your patriotism into question.
Schooling: grammar fail disqualification.
You get 1 out of 4. In MLB you would have a chance if you are a middle infielder with stellar defensive skills, in the NHL you would be a failure as a goalie.
Must be a joke... (Score:5, Informative)
You must be kidding.
Education - teachers and college professors get paid barely enough to literally survive, when they get paid at all. After the exodus of the Jewish scholarly elite, and the subsequent evacuation of any non-Jews that had academic credentials, Russian education is barely starting to recover...
Healthcare - hospitals are in shambles. If I remember correctly, you would have to bribe every nurse and orderly in turn to get clean(er) sheets and non-expired medication. Better to bring your own, bought on the black market.
Housing - it is not lacking in strength, but it's barely above the level of trailer parks in amenities
Moscow and St. Petersburg city centers are not a good indicator of the conditions in Russia. They are about as sophisticated as the West, at Western (or higher) prices. Given that a chief physician of a large hospital makes about $1000-1500/month while paying New York prices for groceries and only about 1/2 as much for housing, it should give you a lot of pause before making these ridiculous comparisons.
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:4, Insightful)
The man behind the curtain... (Score:2, Interesting)
I wouldn't be surprised if Lockheed Martin/Boeing secretly funded Russia's stealth fighter project to justify restarting production on the F-22. That would be business as usual - gotta keep the wheels of the industrial military complex spinning.
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. :(
Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22 (Score:5, Informative)
To answer your question for the US the Iraqi war. For Russia they downed a drone just last year with a fighter.
Every time somebody says that Fighters are not needed anymore something happens that prove that idea wrong.
Same with Aircraft Carriers and Tanks.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Dude are you too lazy to use Google or do just never listen to the news?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-15_Eagle [wikipedia.org]
"According to the USAF, its F-15Cs had 34 confirmed kills of Iraqi aircraft during the 1991 Gulf War, mostly by missile fire: five MiG-29 "Fulcrums", two MiG-25 "Foxbats", eight MiG-23 "Floggers", two MiG-21 "Fishbeds", two Su-25 "Frogfoots", four Su-22 "Fitters", one Su-7, six Mirage F1s, one Il-76 cargo plane, one Pilatus PC-9 trainer, and two Mi-8 helicopters. "
I left out Bosnia
"USAF F-15Cs sho
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
In the days of mechanical aperature radars, absolutely.
Now with AESA radar [wikipedia.org], the beam is much smaller and harder to determine direction. The analogy is that if the old radars were flashlights, new radars are like laser pointers: they don't even know you're looking at them most of the time, and if they do they can't determine where the beam is coming from.
This Russian fighter; the F22; F35; and F15s, F16s, and F18s with retrofits have AESA radar.
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: (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: (Score:3, Informative)
Actually you are. I've watched documentary of the F15 pilots which engaged the targets. They were retreating the aircraft to Iran.
a few helicopters were seen but no fighters flew to fight against coalition aircraft.[citation needed]
Basically the statement is only half correct. And note, its stating a quotation is needed; which I absolutely agree because it misleads idiots like you. There was also some question about the pilot's origins. Which is to say, some believed it possible the pilots were actually Iranian, but I don't believe that was ever confirmed one way or the other.
Also note, there is a differenc
Stealth is not a magic bullet. (Score:5, Informative)
Disclosure: I was an avionics tech on the original Stealth Fighter, the F-117A, back in the late 80's-early '90s. (37th TFW, Tonopah Test Range).
Back then, stealth was achieved by a combination of architecture (the angles), materials, and flying the thing under certain profiles (that is, you avoid flying too close to enemy radar installations, fly at night, etc). The whole idea was to be a literal hole in the sky, or at least make enemy radars less effective - enough to get in, do your job, and get out. The results have been somewhat mixed - during our whole Desert Storm tour, not a single F-117 got so much as a paint chip, let alone a bullet hole - sand and heat was a bigger danger to the things than lead. OTOH, one was shot down over Bosnia during the late 1990's.
When it comes to stealth? You either fly quietly, or you get noticed by enemy A/A and fighters. Modern stealth tech has taken a step back from the looks of it, and appears to have cast aside the whole idea of sneaking around, which IMHO was the whole point to stealth in the first place. Also, the F-117A was, in essence, a small tactical bomber - it has no dogfighting ability to speak of (no guns, and A/A missiles would be damned clumsy to use from one - doing that would make you even less aerodynamic than you already are, and carrying even one air-to-air missile would eat half of your bomb load). Old-school, we snuck around, making sure that the only time you noticed one of our jets was from the explosion its bombs made on your property. The Russian jet and the F-22 take a different tack - they only want to make it a little bit harder for an already-flying missile to find them, without sacrificing speed and maneuverability too much. But - if you load either one with a full bomb load, those round bombs will happily give your position away to the first radar dish that you come even partially close to.
So use them only for air superiority, you say... cool - but the whole point of air superiority is to own the sky, and noticeably so. ;) Any other role besides those two (e.g. ground support), and you face the same big risk as any other aircraft - that of being taken down by the first piece of dumb lead to fly in your direction.
Long story short, stealth is useful in limited circumstances at best, and even at this time doesn't really justify its expense and R&D outside of those circumstances.
Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet. (Score:5, Informative)
Modern stealth tech has taken a step back from the looks of it, and appears to have cast aside the whole idea of sneaking around, which IMHO was the whole point to stealth in the first place. Also,
No idea why you think that. The F117 was basically designed during the 70s and heavily based on prototypes developed during the late 60s. Its shape is heavily derived based on computational limitations of the period. Keep in mind, much of the math was still done on slide rules and less computing power than a 386. Because of this, specific flight profiles are required to maintain radar stealth. In certain aspects, the aircraft is visible on radar. In short, it is not an all aspect stealth aircraft. And once you get close enough, even a radar lock becomes possible.
Modern stealth is designed with new materials and supercomputers. These aircraft maintain stealth at all aspects. Outside of afterburners, even their heat signature is lower than that of the F117. Simply put, the F117 is a dinosaur by modern equivalents. Hell, the F117 basically has clusters of 486s and the F22 has a couple of "super computers." Even from on-board computational capabilities, there's not comparison.
As far as I know, all F22 pilots are F15 pilots. One F22 can take out a squadron of F15s and typically never be seen. Its greatest limitation is weapon payload. Which is to say, a single F22 will run out of ammo before it can even become a target. IIRC, the best public record indicates a 14+:1 kill ratio, or better, with the F22:F15. And keep in mind, the F15 has NEVER been shot down in actual air to air combat. And yes, there has been air to air engagements.
The F15 pilots, after their mock engagements made it very clear that even after they were able to get directly on the tail of the F22, they generally couldn't obtain a lock or after doing so, the lock was quickly lost. Furthermore, because of the huge maneuverability advantages of the F22, it was almost impossible to stay on the F22's tail for any length of time. Some F22 kills were scored but by far, that was the exception rather than the rule. And keep in mind, we're talking about the creme de la creme of fighter pilots sitting in those F15s.
As for your bomb comment, that too is not accurate. That's exactly why all munitions are carried internally. Modern aircraft maintain stealth throughout all stages of flight EXCEPT for actual weapon release. The F22 is capable of releasing missiles inverted and in high G turns because they are mounted on hydraulic rams. They are basically catapulted off the aircraft. This means they can engage targets in aspects and during maneuvers which are impossible with other aircraft. And its only during the actual release that the weapon bay opens. So the window in which stealth is compromised is extremely limited. And the fact that they can super cruise away immediately after engagement means within seconds they are once again phantoms.
Simply put, the number of counties which can even offer an F15-quality of air resistance is extremely tiny and most of them are our allies. Make no bones about it, modern stealth aircraft are light years beyond the poky F117's capabilities in every measurable way possible. To say they have taken a step backwards is completely baseless and in no way accurate.
Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet. (Score:4, Interesting)
I can corroborate the 14:1 kill ratio. I've participated in green flag excercises at Nellis and our pilots (in f-16s) came back fully defeated (pretend killed) after every mission. That is not to say that our pilots are not good- they are, and they have had chances to prove that in several combat zones.
Simply put, the F-22 dominates the sky. Every aspect of the aircraft is superior in terms of performance. One thing that is left out in these discussions is pilot task saturation; in the F-22, the aircraft computers take care of many tasks, and does them better than humanly possible, allowing the pilot to focus more on flying. My conscience tells me to leave it at that, considering the sensitivity of the subject, but you can probably find more information somewhere else.
As someone who has been working on fighters for almost a decade, I am still continually amazed by everything I learn about the F-22. I've personally heard generals and some colonels who have been flying since the f-4 was new say that the F-22 was to them an entirely new paradigm in combat flight. They couldn't say enough good things about it.
I know I probably sound like a shill for lockheed-martin, but I'm trying to counteract the dozens of posts that lament the f-22 as already outdated, as merely an incremental improvement on the f-15, or as an aircraft that could be suitably replaced by its cost in f-16s. None of those things are true.
-b
Re: (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:4, Interesting)
I know our drones now aren't air to air fighters yet but a squadron of drone fighters would probably run a lot cheaper and be nearly as effective as a couple of big expensive planes. I'd also expect that it might be a little easier to stealth up a drone than something that has to carry a person and a drone could perform manuvers that a plane couldn't do safely with a human pilot inside. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, and PC game makers have also been training a generation of drone pilots for free.
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: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.
2015 (Score:3, Funny)
Why worry?
That's THREE WHOLE YEARS after the end of the world!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I live by the F-22 production plant and I want the project to start up because:
I like your enthusiasm for the F-22 restart - just a little correction. India's participation in developing this aircraft will imply a limitation on licensing, especially to perceived threats such as China. So it'll be interesting - here we have Russia returning to its Soviet - style grande aviation engineering but also India, the world's largest democracy and one of America's most important strategic ally in the region. Id think itd be naive for the US to think of it as a strategic threat. /\ \/
Re: (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: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:Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
J-10 is definitely at least 4th generation, and the upgraded (J10-B) variety is almost certainly 4.5-gen - and that should be finalized really soon.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
The J-10 is considered to be a 4th generation fighter, but the Chinese did not engineer the plane themselves - it is based heavily on the IAI Lavi, Russian engines, and Israeli flight controls (not the same as the Lavi.) The J-10 is the second attempt at the J-9 which was cancelled long long ago and even as such took nearly 20 years of development to get to where it is, even though it is basically a foreign born aircraft. Needless to say, the Chinese will be buying their PAK-FAs, just likey they do their other Sukhois (and engines, and electronics, and flight control systems...)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You would be naive to think that an aircraft of this complexity can be "reverse engineered". I do not think, in fact, that history bears a single example since WWII at least of any foreign military aircraft being reverse engineered into a successful combat aircraft.
With any advanced aircraft the "secret" of success is not the plane itself so much than the whole vast production system that builds it. The tooling plans are actually some of the most valuable secrets.
Perhaps the closest example of a successful
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: (Score:2, Funny)
For the sake of economizing, maybe the US will outsource and have the F-22 built in China.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (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: (Score:2)
Yes I could see an F-22B with improved electronics. If they have simplified the Stealth systems of the F35 I could those being put into the F22B. You may also see an F22J, F22i, and F22k soon for Japan, Israel, and Korea.
F-35 is too slow. (Score:2)
A lot of pundits think the F-35 is too slow. You need to be in the Mach 2 club these days.
and has not been seen since.... (Score:2)
do you have to think in Russian to fly it? (Score:4, Funny)
do you have to think in Russian to fly it?
Re: (Score:2)
Konjeschno!
Re: (Score:2)
It's interesting - according to the Wiki article cited in the main article, the aircraft will have an "artificial intellect". I wonder if it studies Marxism.
Re: (Score:2)
i found the nato codename even more interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
I’m just waiting for it to try downloading the entire internet...
What happens in a dogfight? (Score:3, Funny)
Google translation (Score:2)
Is it just me or the google translation engine is a lot better this days?
AI is improving quickly. Of course someone will answer telling me that this is not real AI. It was considered AI when it couldnt be done and as soon as it can be done, it is just a stupid algorithm.
Here come the awful firefox jokes... (Score:2, Funny)
Man, I hope their firefox works better than mine.
They'd have finished it years ago if it wasn't for Gecko and XUL.
Stealthy ? (Score:5, Funny)
has a photo of the jet.
So not *that* stealthy then ? Of course, I guess if it was that good, the pilot would never be able to find where he parked the thing.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Joking aside, the T-50 certainly isn't all-aspect stealthy in the manner of the F-22. The exhaust and nozzles are conventionally shaped. Perhaps the Russians are trying to go for the best mix of stealthiness and affordable price tag.
Re: (Score:2)
It looks kind of like they glued the front half of an F-22 to the back half of an Su-27.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but do you know how many years of research went into that glue? Pretty impressive engineering, wouldn't you say?
Re: (Score:2)
According to Lenta.ru, the current nozzles will be replaced with thrust-vectoring ones when the plane batch production starts.
Re:Stealthy ? (Score:4, Funny)
I hear the US is working on a fighter so stealthy that once it's in motion, even the pilot doesn't know exactly where it is. The F-6626 Heisenberg.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I can just see Larry Ellison wandering around a huge mall parking lot, trying desperately to remember where he parked his Russian stealth fighter. Damn it, he says to himself, why didn't I just drive the Lamborghini?
Re: (Score:2)
Compulsory picture (Score:5, Funny)
Stealth fighters can be detected by the characteristic pattern of reduced precipitation below the body of the aircraft:
http://www.roe.ac.uk/~jkd/stealth.jpg [roe.ac.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone remember where we parked the ship!
Re: (Score:2)
That's nothing! (Score:5, Funny)
My country has also developed a stealth airplane. It's so stealthy nobody has seen it yet.
Or the tax money used to develop it....
Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour? (Score:3, Interesting)
...or did someone fabricate this part of the Wikipedia article?
The Sukhoi PAK FA... NATO reporting name: Firefox
Re: (Score:2)
> The Sukhoi PAK FA... NATO reporting name: Firefox
Well, if it's in use and then keeps crashing a lot into electrical switch stations and the like, they might rename it to Internet Explorer. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
For those who may have never seen it, c.f. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/ [imdb.com]
Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour? (Score:4, Funny)
Clint Eastwood will steal it in no time...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/
Someone at the DOD has a sense of humor.
Here... (Score:2)
Question About Radar Development (Score:2)
indian way of making stealth vehicle (Score:4, Funny)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7eOVpBCtPo [youtube.com]
Firefox (Score:2)
You have to think in Russian.
--
This thing looks like the F-22 and the Su-27/35 had a baby. i'd like to see how it actually measures against the F-22.
When did we discuss it? (Score:2)
Relatedly, according to Wikipedia, Japan is planning to fly its own stealth fighter, the ATD-X, which we have previously discussed, in 2011.
Funny I don't remember talking about that. Must still need to do some catching up on /.
Catching up? (Score:2)
Honestly, I don't know why people waste their time trying to catch up with something that's already totally outdated.
Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech? (Score:5, Interesting)
The viability of manned aircraft is a question of technology. By the end of WWII, proximity-fused shells on US Navy ships made convention air attack against them a suicide mission. If the US Navy was forced to fight an identical opponent in '46, air attack would likely have been abandoned. The Japanese resorted to suicide attacks in part because conventional attacks were already suicide, at least a crash dive might let you get a hit. The cruise missile a refinement of the suicide plane concept. The idea of dive-bombing or torpedoing a warship from the air quickly fell out of favor. But that was ok for airplanes since they could carry missiles and engage from beyond the range of return fire. While aircraft did indeed use gravity bombs and later guided bombs against naval targets in the following decades, that was usually in third-world wars or against small patrol ships. Nobody would think of risking that against a proper warship.
The rise of the SAM's made things trickier for land-attack craft. A multi-million dollar jet is risked attacking tanks that are worth maybe $200k. The attrition rate under the 6 Day War was so high it was thought the end of manned combat aircraft had been reached. But subsequent development of Wild Weasel tactics and improved ECM put the SAM's on the defensive. But technology continues to improve. The early missiles were laughable. The F-4 went to Vietnam armed only with missiles and did not achieve an air-to-air kill until the gatling-equipped version arrived. But missile tech is very, very good now. The last gun kill achieved by the Air Force was an A-10 versus a Hind in Gulf War 1.
The question now is one of development cycles. The F-22 program started in '81 and didn't go operational until 2005. Ridiculous! How many SAM generations came during that time? And how much cheaper will those weapons be? The damn B-2's cost a billion bucks a pop and are irreplaceable. We're not cranking up the production lines for any more. And what are they good for, truly? To carry cruise missiles? Why do we need a fancy bomber for that? Why not just load cruise missiles on C-17's and kick them out the back a thousand miles from target? There, now you have cargo-bombers and can buy more aiframes for the same money.
The Poles kept cavalry units up until WWII. They finally were disabused of the idea by Germans with panzers. I think it's going to take a similar catastrophe to move us past the idea of manned combat aircraft.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"The rise of the SAM's made things trickier for land-attack craft. A multi-million dollar jet is risked attacking tanks that are worth maybe $200k".
Tanks cost more than 200k.
True ground attack aircraft such as an A-10 are dramatically different from the a standard high flying fighter. An A-10 may have some vulnerability to SAMs, but they are much harder to shoot down than say an attack helicopter. Generally when A-10s are operating, it is as a close air support, so they have some measure of security on th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ridiculous! How many SAM generations came during that time?
You call into question the number of generations out one side of your mouth and point out the duration of a single generation out the other. Somehow the irony seems to have been missed.
There hasn't been very many generations. Period. Second of all, in order to create a generation which can counter, you generally have to know what it is you're countering. At best they have a lot of speculation. Third of all, the math doesn't even make sense. Why spend billions creating new target/trigger mechanisms to counte
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Operating a military force like Pen and Teller just sounds like shear idiocy.
Why? I think we can count on Teller to keep his mouth shut.
Re: (Score:2)
That's because it's less about force than show of force. It's "Hey look, we have these now too. Brand new stealth fighters RIGHT HERE BABY."
With global economies so intertwined, there's really not a huge chance these days of needing some kind of secret weapon force to go against other large countries in large-scale war. So they make the new developments public for the sake of national pride and respect among other countries.
Plus, it's always fun to show off new toys.
Re: (Score:2)
However, I'm not sure the point gets across to second and third world countries operated/controlled by dictators or gorilla-mongers.
Military force is exactly what third-world dictators would be worried about. Take Iraq, for example: Their military was rolled over by US/allied forces, no contest.
Most of the heavy military equipment isn't worth much against insurgent forces using guerrilla tactics (which I think was the point you were trying to make) but none of that is the purpose of a new fighter aircraft anyway. You gotta replace your 1970's MiGs sometime...
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: (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: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: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmCKJi3CKGE [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has been pretty big on foreign military sales. So yeah, a big motivator here is business.
Also, it's not like the specific capabilities of the plane are publicized. It's basically saying, "look at this plane that kicks ass" without specifying exactly how much ass it will kick.
Re: (Score:2)
It's basically saying, "look at this plane that kicks ass" without specifying exactly how much ass it will kick.
For years I've thought someone should introduce an SI unit to help quantify this sort of thing. I figure the unit should be called the Gracie*, with one Gracie representing one ass kicked every second. Hopefully this wouldn't require a big debate over standardizing the "ass" unit.
* After the Gracie brothers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)