MultiroleI’m going to go against the gain here: T-50 > YF-23. I don’t think the present paint scheme does T-50 any favours, and the engine cowlings aren’t on yet!
For ugliest (excluding BoP, X-32, etc.) it’s a toss-up between F-35 and J-20. The former has the lines of a small delivery van whereas J-20 commits the arguably greater sin of making the intrinsically elegant delta-canard layout into something brutish
I must be amongst the few who think F-35 is the best looking. It’s beauty lies in it’s single engine elegance. Clean and simple at a glance, yet very sophisticated in the details. The T-50 doesn’t look like a stealth fighter from a lot of angles. It looks rather odd with a mix of 4th and 5th generation elements in sharp contrast to the YF-23 which remains the most futuristic looking. I think people who like the T-50 tend to be those who prefer traditional looks over 5th generation fighters aesthetics.
MultiroleI third the An-22 vote!
Why didn’t this bird sell better internationally?
MultiroleNo, nobody will given them engines, radar or weapons. Fact is Taiwan should re-unite with the mainland, it is their only option, as the Chinese Dragon is controlling Asia again.
Supposedly this air force general gave a speech at the ROCAF academy graduation saying “unification is inevitable whether you like it or not.” Feathers were ruffled.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2012/02/11/331305/Retired-generals.htm
MultiroleThere is no legal embargo on military supplies to Taiwan as far as I know. I imagine that China has simply made it clear that countries making such supplies to Taiwan incur the displeasure of China with attendant consequences along the lines of: if you sell military kit to Taiwan we will avoid buying goods/services from you.
Looking into the future, unless Taiwan is prepared to dispense with its air force it will have to buy aircraft from someone. Will Taiwan be forced to switch to non-US, non-European suppliers? India might be happy to supply Tejas Mk2 in the future but would that be blocked by the US due to having an American engine?
Everyone is saying Taiwan needs to get new fighters without asking how those fighters will survive when the whole island would be saturated with missiles in wartime. Taiwan would probably be better served developing some indigenous UCAVs with short field capability.
UCAVs also have the advantage of being defection resistant. I can easily imagine PRC offering an eight figure bounty for something like a F-35. With all these ROCAF pilots leaving to fly commercial jets on the mainland and marrying local women, this is a distinct possibility.
Multirole[ATTACH=CONFIG]218549[/ATTACH]
Who doesn’t appreciate a sexy ****.
MultiroleSomething a bit different !
… following several years of research here it is, a final teaser before I leave to France !!!
Hope You like it.
Deino
Can you tell us a little about that twin rudder delta? What is it?
MultiroleThere is a nice market for the T-50, but I do not think the VPAAF will be an early adopter. Their trend is to not buy leading edge as soon as the product becomes available. T-50’s will be in service with India and Russia before that.
China is not going to be terribly concerned with T-50s since the country can be saturated with ballistic missiles. As far as 5th gen fighters go, the F-35B would be a more survivable option.
MultiroleThe hi-lo mix of JF-17 + MiG-35 and possible future buy of J-31 is a sound road map for a lot of air forces in the world. It makes so much sense it would be strange if someone doesn’t try it.
MultiroleHere is your top twenty
#1 MiG-21 Fishbed (and derivatives like F-7) has been used by 61 nations
#2 MiG-17 Fresco (incl. J-5) goes second with 43 nations
#3 F-5 Tiger II is third with 40 nations
#4 F-86 Sabre with 38 nations
#5 MiG-15 Fagot with 36 nations
#6 MiG-23/27 Flogger with 35 nations
#7 MiG-29 Fulcrum with 34 nations
#8 Su-25 Frogfoot with 29 nations
#9 DH-100 Vampire and derivatives with 27 nations
#10 F-16 Viper with 26 nations#11 Mirage III/V with 25 nations
#12 Hawker Hunter with 24 nations
#12 MiG-19 Farmer (incl. J-6) with 24 nations
#14 Su-17/20/22 Fitter with 22 nations
#15 Su-27/30 Flanker with 18 nations
#16 F-104 Starfighter with 16 nations
#17 MiG-25 Foxbat with 15 nations
#18 Gloster Meteor with 14 nations
#19 Mirage F1 with 13 nations
#19 F-4 Phantom II with 13 nations
MiG-15/17 is just one family. There’s less difference between them than the variations of many other planes on this list.
MultiroleAssad was Moscow’s friend so no purchases there.
Syria is poor (no oil resources) so can’t afford top of the line. Furthermore country needs rebuilding.
Assad is winning right now, who knows how long he’ll stick around.
Syria exports more oil than Yemen, which wants an oil for weapons deal with the Russians.
MultiroleThe J20 is not highly maneuverable. It’s a double delta Canard with a low relaxed stability gradient. It’s a striker or more likely a fleet “denier”. The canard is there to improve the overall lift with the original delta plan shape.
I never thought anyone would make a case of delta canards are inherently not maneuverable.
MultiroleThe Navy’s Next Gen Fighter Jets Will Heal Themselves
http://gizmodo.com/5994053/the-navys-next-gen-fighter-jets-could-be-a-new-kind-of-bulletproof
Sounds like they don’t really know what a 6th generation fighter is. They should start with the questions, what is the fundamental weakness of the 5th generation fighters that can’t be fixed with upgrades?
MultiroleI didn’t say it’s a ship striker. PL-12 might have 4% of the fins cropped in order to fit in the bays of the J-20. But IMHO, i think they’ll get the PL-13/15.
But the PL-12 cropped is fine. This plane will rock at BVR you know? IMHO, i think the J-20 is a fighter bomber type of 5th gen fighter. Just like the F-4 phantom. J-20 will carry more heavy bomb payload due to its long and huge size. But this plane of course will be a primary ground attack plane with air to air as its secondary role.
China never operated something like the F-4. It does have Su-27/30, which is most likely the niche the J-20 is designed to fill. The Flanker is bigger than the F-15, has longer range, is multirole, and is highly maneuverable. I see no reason the J-20 will deviate from a proven model.
Also the scale in your picture is wrong. J-20 is less than 21 meters long and T-50 is over 20 meters.
MultiroleAs said above, the US does not ask itself which wars it will be fighting, but which wars it still can afford to fight. It is the experience from Vietnam all over again. Fighting a war while keeping the states budget and taxes in peace time mode will kill oyur budget. the good thing is that today there is no Cold War going, so the US can afford to reduce the armed forces much more. The US has reached a point, where hanging on to old planes and equipment to avoid a capability gap, will just create a bigger gap in the future, as there no money to keep the old stuff in service and introduce the new equipment. Every F-15 flight hour costs 36.000$ a F-16C roughly half. This means you can keep 2 F-16 for one F-15C. Or One F-16 + 16.000$ for new planes. Going by a 180 planes fleet and 1000 hours per year for each plane. This is 2.880.000.000 if you just fly an F-16 instead of an F-15.
What the US can’t afford is wars involving large land forces and open ended occupation. With that in mind big cuts are going to be made in the Army, and the air assets that are dedicated to supporting Army operations.
Times change. The turnaround from Vietnam to Reagan was a little over a decade and, psychologically speaking, one followed from the other. Personally I expect the Republicans to return to the White House in either 2020 or 2024, and to pursue an aggressive foreign policy coupled with military expansionism. The single largest factor driving this is the rise of China to near-peer status. Far from causing the United States to back down, this transitional period in the great power balance will occasion increased belligerence and inflexibility on the part of the United States.
Secondary factors reinforcing this structural tendency include the aforementioned period of relative — very relative, only in the sense of ‘no boots on the ground’ — quiescence under Obama and Hillary Clinton, and the fading of Afghanistan and Iraq from political consciousness. Additionally, given the demographic transition in the nation, this period will likely represent the last chance for Republicans to rapidly advance their economic agenda, an objective that will be greatly enhanced by directing the attention of the American people abroad whilst their society is disassembled from under them.
It is likely that the mid-late 2020s will see American militarism reach heights not seen since the 1950s.
Be that as it may, the B-1B is far more useful in your scenario than the A-10. The former will remain a great deterrence factor for a couple more decades. Keeping the A-10 only makes sense if you’re going to do another invade and occupy war in the near future. The A-10 has no deterrence value because everyone knows the US is not going to send the Army to another war anytime soon.
MultiroleIt comes down to what kind of wars the US will likely fight in the future. I think it’s pretty obvious the kind of large scale COIN war we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan are unlikely to occure in the future simply because it would be madness for any American President to fight a major land war. There’s no political will for it. Without huge numbers of boots on the ground, you don’t need the A-10 to protect them. Whether we’re talking about Iran or North Korea scenarios, the B-1B would be more useful than the A-10. If forced to chose between them, the A-10 will have to go.
Giving up European bases to save money would be the option of last resort. Retire a plane and you can find a replacement. Give up those bases and you’re never getting them back. Those bases were acquired with political capital you can’t buy back with money.
Furthermore, no other air force has the money to buy or operate the B-1, where as there are plenty of potential customers for the Warthog. Both Pakistan and India could be buyers, and there’s no reason the Saudis, Iraqis or Israelis can’t take some. You’re going to get your money back from the A-10.
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