LevshaThe simple fact of the matter is that while all 3 Euro canards are Cold War relics, Rafale and Typhoon aren’t that well suited to the world today. The Swedes, by luck or genius, decided on a more basic design at a reduced cost, and the result is a great multi role platform that is affordable.
Rafale and Typhoon are simply too expensive for many countries, and the performance gains are hard to justify.
I don’t think either aircraft is too expensive for UAE. If money was a problem for UAE they wouldn’t be looking for a new aircraft and having this competitive tender in the first place.
LevshaWell, we can always have other fun series of threads for those fanboys, such as “Typhoon or Rafale, who is the most miserable exporting fighter in 20XX??”, “The King of Losers ~ The ultimate competition between Rafale and Typhoon”, “Rafale v.s Typhoon, The Record of Losers’ War”, and so on:highly_amused:
Don’t give people ideas…:rolleyes:
LevshaRequest : Could anyone help me for good quality picture(s) of ” Щука” КСЩ (SS-N-1) anti-ship missile.
I’ve tried Google for a long time but only find mediocre ones like these :
LevshaThat’s why I wrote that India did a “Breakthrough” with the Teja. But since it took years to achieves since the program is late, this is what I feel right to call a “painful breakthrough”.
I think we are on the same line here Levsha (unless my English).
There’s nothing wrong with your English…;)
To be honest I don’t really know just how advanced or effective Indian avionics and radar tech is nowadays. I was just surprised to read about the Russian AF’s unusual choice of supplier for such a security and industry sensitive piece of technology.
LevshaI think you misunderstood me. When I say the ‘back end’ of a a fighter’s main radar, I mean the signals processing computer connected to the ‘front end’ end of the radar, the main radar’s antenna. Did you think I was talking about some kind of tail-mounted, rearward-looking radar?
On the Su-30MKI, the signals processing computer/mission computer is indeed sourced from India itself. The main radar dish, is of course, the Bars PESA design from NIIP.
LevshaEuropeans are more pressured on this issue. And this is why, generally speaking, emerging countries with large fighters are the ones advancing at a faster pace in this business than others unless a painful breakthrough (Teja).
That’s a bad analogy to make regarding the development of avionics and microelectronics among the various different countries. I read somewere that the latest Flankers to enter Russian AF service Su-30SM are fitted with Indian designed (and produced?) mission computers. I believe the ‘back end’ of the SM’s radar is essentially Indian?
LevshaThere is still very little reliable information on the Russian radar suite, and even less on how good the its underlying technology is, particularly its likely ability to detect low-RCS targets. Much the same goes for the APG-81. So in a forum such as this, we have no idea of which aircraft would be the first to achieve detection and lock-on in various forms of T-50 versus F-35 engagement…
…Time will tell if you are right. But as I have already said, in practice, victory in a T-50 v F-35 engagement will probably go to the aircraft that is first to achieve target detection and BVR missile launch.
And that is all that needs to be said.
LevshaCould someone help me with mig-21 in particular? how many hours-in-air was the airframe used in Soviet union? how many years did an average mig-21 serve back then, before retirement?
I recall reading that the Soviet AF withdrew the MiG-21 from frontline combat service in the early 1980s – I don’t think there were any Soviet MiG-21 in the Warsaw Pact zone facing NATO (E. Germany, Poland etc) by the end of the cold war? There were still MiG-21s flying the Soviet Union, perhaps for training?
is the 7000 active airframes a realistic figure for end of 1989?
No. That’s almost the entire figure of MiG-21s delivered to the SU since the 1950s – if not the entire production figure of MiG-21 in total.
Levshain which famed aircraft designer Pierre Sprey and defense watchdog Winslow Wheeler made a compelling case that the F-35 is a reincarnation of the infamous F-111…
…The F-111 ended up costing far more than planned, suffered crippling design flaws and was ineffective in combat, Sprey tells War is Boring.
The article is not particularly flattering about the F-111 either. I always thought the F-111 was in the end, a pretty successful design…
I can’t say I think much of this article, regarding what it has to say about the F-111, F-4 and F-35.
LevshaTyphoon just drops the stores and is able to use the much higher kinematic performance available to it.
Simple.
Every time a combat aircraft drops its combat stores it has failed its mission if it hasn’t completed it yet – that’s a mission kill against the Typhoon.
The whole point of the F-35’s LO design was to reduce the chance of being intercepted and becoming a mission kill – if I’m not mistaken?
LevshaYou can’t build an a/c that is both agile and VLO, you got to prioritize,
How do you explain the F-22?
Freehand
Crickets… I just can’t get excited about drones even though they might be running the place one day.
Yup.
LevshaIn a World first, K-77M MRAAMs for the PAK-FA to feature AESA seeker heads, production to commence in February 2015:
http://www.i-mash.ru/news/nov_otrasl/44702-pak-fa-ukomplektujut-cifrovymi-raketami.html
http://forum.keypublishing.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=222606&d=1383498165
That article actually says “no earlier than February 2015” – production could start at any time after that.
LevshaFWIW, A USAF pilot was quoted as saying that he hoped the USSR would widely produce and export the MiG-23. That being the case, there would be no need to fight, the MiG-23 pilots would kill themselves flying the Flogger. USAF/USN Red Eagle pilots hated flying the MiG-23. Some rotated out of the squadron because of their distaste for the MiG-23 and its derivatives. The MiG-21 was much more well-liked than its successor.
And they wouldn’t be the only air force with that attitude the MiG-23. Some people in the Indian AF were also glad to see the back of it.
LevshaYou do realize that you’re refering to posts in which you were clearly proven wrong, do you? :confused: Czechoslovak AF have lost three MiG-23s due to technical failure in 21 years of service, that is by all means an impressive safety record.
My posts have not been proven wrong at all. Most aircraft losses are usually due to pilot error or weather conditions anyway, and that includes Luftwaffe F-104. Compare Czechoslovak MiG-23 record with that of Danish AF F-16, as I did in that thread, to put it into perspective. The Indian AF lost almost half of their MiG-23s in 154,000 hour of total flying time. The MiG-23’s safety record is a lot worse than the F-104’s, as far as I can see.
LevshaMach 3.2+, and I understand that the aircraft in question never flew again.
I have seen not seen statistics for MiG-25 losses in the former Soviet Union, but India started with 10 and lost four. Another crashed during its post-delivery checkout, and was replaced. Hardly a scintillating safety record.
Algeria is reported to have 12 MiG-25PDS left in service from a batch of 16, and 4 from a batch of 6 MiG-25RB. The figures may be even worse if reports of a top-up buy of 12 from Ukraine in 1997 are correct.
We learned that Libya such purchased the type when an Italian fishing boat rescued a pilot from the sea. That was the first of Libya’s Foxbat losses. By 2007, only 35 of its 50 MiG-25 interceptors were reported to be operational.
In the case of both Algeria and Libya, many of the missing Foxbats were probably retired rather than crashed, but this would reflect badly on the aircraft’s serviceability and reliability.
The subject of F-104 losses has been being discussed in other threads. The high loss rate experiences by West Germany was due in part to weather, inexperience pilots, and inexperienced ground crew. Many air forces operated the type successfully and with a much lower loss rate.
More than 4,500 F-16s have been built, and to date around 550 have been lost – about 12% of the total over a period of more than 30 years. So the claimed “hundreds per decade” is in fact an average of around 160 a decade.
Does anyone have figures for what the former Soviet Union’s MiG-21 loss rate was?
Most MiGs have a lousy safety safety record, but especially the MiG-23. Check out some of my posts on this thread:
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?65706-MiG-21-versus-Mirage-III-IAI-Kfir-and-F-4/page2
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