The difference is the Chinese have been working on all sorts of ballistic missiles for decades.

To suggest the South Koreans or Japanese could achieve what took decades and generations of cumulative R&D to develop on their very first attempt is fanciful at best.

Just to play Devil’s Advocate- this particular argument tends to be dismissed in the case of the F-22/F-35/stealth/AESA/etc… vs. PAK FA/J-20. Advocates for the latter types seem to weight experience/learning curves lightly. I would agree with you though, that NK has a pretty significant lead in ballistic missile technology, that would likely require assistance from an outside source, to help close the gap.

82 troops, is the highest number I’ve seen. I’d be pretty skeptical of numbers in the 100-120 range(safely). Just for purposes of comparison, the C-130 can only carry 92 troops(128 for the extended model).

Well, no matter how Pyrrhic or odd, if you are an ejector manufacturer you got no other choice. Ever seen the Martin Baker website with the number of ejections on the counter? 😉

That wasn’t the original context, to which I was responding to though. Obviously, if you’re an aircraft manufacturer/end user, it’s good to see the product working well under real world conditions.

These airshow crashes have nothing to do with sales. Exactly how would you hold Sukhoi responsible for that Su-27 crash at Lvov? :confused:

That was kind of my point. It’s great to have good ejection seats, but even better when you don’t have to use them. Hence- using crashes, to show how good the seats are, is somewhat Pyrrhic in nature.

compete isnt a problem in AtoA combat, in deep strike i high threat they wont compete (thou rafale have a incredible deepstrike range)
x-band stealth is overrated in my book. Its good, but in f-35, it takes tole on other preformance requirments which seems today basic for a new fighter.
Maybe that works today when avionics is top notch, but not in a few years.
Again thats my opinion..

Just because one band is where optimization is, doesn’t mean that the F-35 has a conventional signature is every other band. The F-35 also has IR, etc.. signature reduction. Additionally, it’s a bit premature to say that stealth trade offs, have hurt the F-35’s performance to such a degree, that it’s uncompetitive. The F-22 is even stealthier, and it certainly isn’t hindered in performance, when compared to other fighters.

An observation eh?
Sounds more like taking a pi** on this thread yet again.. which doesn’t come as a surprise.
Go and pi** on another thread.
Stop letting your frustration out on an otherwise exellent thread.
There was no topic of ejection seat at all, it was about center or side stick, did the center stick have any issue with ejecting. Do a read back.
Just push it on this one, and i’ll report you.

Post #252

It’s called a ‘side-stick’ – and it has a number of advantages over a centrally-mounted control column.

The pilots arm can rest on an armrest, he doesn’t have to move his whole arm – just the wrist.

The sidestick isn’t in the way of the ejection seat when it fires.

And- as used on Airbus airliners – the pilot can put his coffee and sandwich tray in front of him while he has lunch.

Post #260

That the stick is in the center has absolutly nothing to do with safty of the pilot when ejecting.. thought this beeing obvious looking back at all those crazy Russian stunts(sucsessfull ejections) over the years.
No other aircraft can top the Flanker and Mig-29 on this issue..

I’m not the one that’s frustrated- I find the PAK FA to be very interesting. The topic of ejection clearly was brought up, and you chimed in(as did I).
I merely pointed out that bragging about the number of successful ejections from Flankers and Fulcrums, wasn’t necessarily how I’d frame that statistic.
As for your last statement.:rolleyes:

You really are a strange character, your existence seems to rely on denigrating everything and anything foreign, whilst cheer-leading every US military asset.

I’m just glad that the US doesn’t actually underestimate and sneer at overseas technology to the degree that you do, otherwise the USAF’s frontline fighter would be antique P-51 Mustangs.

Would you care to give an example where I’ve ever said that Typhoons, Rafales, Gripens, Fulcrums, Flankers, etc… aren’t excellent aircraft?

That the stick is in the center has absolutly nothing to do with safty of the pilot when ejecting.. thought this beeing obvious looking back at all those crazy Russian stunts(sucsessfull ejections) over the years.
No other aircraft can top the Flanker and Mig-29 on this issue..

Shame on you Flanker Man!!🙂

I’m not sure this statistic is one to brag about too much.