are the numbers of what the Gripen Demo are capable of accurate?
it would seem to have a ferry range greater than the Typhoon, Rafale AND Mig-35! and some how manages to supercruise on that one single engine!

never realized how “small” the F-35 was until I saw that clear picture with the pilot inside. isn’t it roughly the size of the Typhoon (perhaps a few cm shorter?) based on published specs. If so, i’m a little surprised that they could fit internal bays in that thing

My partner informs me that the current mainstream theory of the origin of the Japanese language is that it’s a hybrid, formed when speakers of proto-Korean settled in Japan, imposed their language, but absorbed some of the vocabulary & much of the sound systems of the languages of the previous inhabitants.

It is believed that the previous inhabitants formed at least two distinct groups, accounting for some of the sharp linguistic differences between northern & southern Japan. They may also account for the visible physical differences (diminishing, with greater mobility) between northern & southern Japanese, with southerners looking more “Polynesian”, & northerners being hairier (more heavily bearded men, for example).

In the south were speakers of Austro-Asiatic languages. Consider that in historical times, Taiwan was largely inhabited by Austro-Asiatic speakers, & some of their descendants are still identifiable, not having been fully assimilated by the Chinese who’ve been settling there for 1000+ years. BTW, do any of them still speak their old language?

It seems likely that as the proto-Korean settlers spread, they formed a number of different hybrid languages with the previous inhabitants, which have since mostly (but not yet completely) been absorbed or replaced by Japanese, which IIRC is based on the (Austro-Asiatic-influenced) speech of SW Honshu, though leaving strong traces in dialects. My partner (she’s Japanese, & has Japanese degrees in linguistics) tells me that Ryukyuan is a different (though related) language, not just a dialect of Japanese, she can’t understand it, & some dialects are incomprehensible to her. Literary accounts speak of visitors from central Japan hiring interpreters when travelling in Tohoku, in the north, as recently as the early 19th century.

I’m from Okinawa, and yes, the Ryukyuan languages (each island has a different language) are very different from standard Japanese, but are still related. As a matter of fact, the Ryukyuan languages preserves many aspects of ancient Japanese than modern Japanese.

As far as Austro-Asiatic, Polynesian links with Japan goes. The arguements for weak. I’ve seen some people claim that it may be related to Indonesian because of sounds like “ka, ga, etc”. These are baseless. I’ve also studied Korean and even some Turkish, they have very similar particle markers. Korean especially uses “ga” as a subject marker, and “ka vs kka” as a question marker just like Japanese (the only difference is that the Koreans only add it when speaking formally). There’s actually a bunch of words in Japanese that sound and have nearly the same meaning as words found in Basque and Hebrew but that’s not enough to argue any kind of strong links. Even the remarkable similarities between Japanese and Korean in grammar and particles (and even some words of non-Chinese origins) are not enough to group them as related either. As it stands the only relatives of Japanese is the Ryukyuan languages.
Racially, the Ainu, Japanese and Ryukyuans all descend primarily from the Jomon and Yayoi. the Yayoi are typical N.E Asians who crossed over from the mainland. The Jomon on the other hand, are more of a mystery. People have claimed many things, such as the Jomons being sea farers from the south. But the fact remains, (and much research about this has been done in Okinawa), that even during the glacial period, the wide gap of water between Okinawa island and Miyako Island would’ve made it impossible for sea farers to go further north, in addition the ice bridges did not extend that far either. But conversely anyone going south from the North, could do it because there’s tons of little islands within visual distance from Kyushu to Okinawa.
What the Jomons most likely were, were Paleo-Mongoloids.. a term that escapes most racial “theorists” because they are limited into thinking that within East Asia, there are only Mongoloids (southern and northern) and austro-asiatic speaking peoples.
The Ainu preserved most of these features, i.e deeper brow bridges, stocky frame, hairiness, larger eyes (but many Ainu still mixed with the Yayoi or some other native groups on Sakhalin). The Ryukyuans also have similar features, particularly the stockiness, hairiness and larger eyes. As a matter of fact most S.E Asians from Indonesia or the Phillipines aren’t stocky or hairy, they’re for the most part, slender. Ryukyuans however, absorbed more Yayoi elements than the Ainu, while the mainland Japanese absorbed the most Yayoi elements. There are several genetic data that proves this. Paleo-Mongoloids probably migrated further east in the face of expansion from the modern Mongoloids who came out of Siberia.. it seems clear that some of them continued East into Kamchatka and crossed into America, and others went south into the Japanese islands.

anyways sorry for diverting off topic
here’s some more F-22 and Japanese tidbits:

apan Wants Electronic Attack In Next Fighter

Jun 3, 2008

David A. Fulghum/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report

TOKYO – Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor still appeals to Japan’s leadership, but there’s an implacable demand for Japan’s industrial participation in any aircraft it operates, which appears to be diminishing demand for the Raptor.

“We must have the capabilities within Japan for technical support, maintenance and upgrading to meet changing circumstances during the F-X’s lifetime,” says Maj. Gen. Hidetoshi Hirata, director of the Defense Planning and Policy Department in Japan’s Defense Ministry air staff. As far as F-X capabilities, “Stealth would be a great advantage for air-defense and air-to-air engagements. Stealth would also be necessary if we had to [penetrate enemy air defenses to] attack a ballistic missile launch facility before it activated.” However, Japan is thinking about more than bombs.

“I think the technology to create malfunctions or damage [in enemy systems through electronic attack] is very important,” he said.

Meanwhile, Japan’s Air Defense Command (ADC) has begun building a new headquarters at Yokota Air Base that will include a joint, Japanese-U.S.-manned subterranean command-and-control center. It also will feature an underground tunnel that connects the ADC HQ with the U.S. Air Force’s air operations center.

The $400 million, 1.3 million-square-foot complex is not without its share of unsolved issues. Both countries have to rationalize their internal networking and then they have to develop a third network that lets the trans-Pacific countries swap and fuse information in real-time.

They hope to have their problems solved by opening day in 2011. “At the moment, we’re having a hard time understanding how to consolidate all the information,” according to Hirata.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=aerospacedaily&id=news/JAPAN060308.xml&headline=Japan%20Wants%20Electronic%20Attack%20In%20Next%20Fighter

I personally would rate the Ching Kuo being higher than the LCA and FC-1

the question was competition between the Superjet and the Tupolev, not success in the western market, etc. This competition could be within the CIS.

on a side but related note. Lately I’ve been playing this PC game called “Air Management” in America its known as Aerobiz. Its an airline simulation game.

You can buy the Il-96-300 or the A340 for your airlines. Based on the game at least, the Il-96 was cheaper but its higher maintenance and gas costs took a higher chunk of the total revenues of a route while the A340 costed more than twice as much as the Il-96 but had significantly better gas and maintenance costs. Even after several months, despite the A340 being cheaper/more profitable to operate.. it took a very very long time to make up for the costs of being twice as expensive than the Il-96. This of course is just a game 🙂

did you make up the term F-3 because there is no such classification for this aircraft and no one has called it yet, its name is “Shin Shin”.

In addition, Japan has stated that its not going to go anywhere. The funds for that are going to upgrading the F-15 fleet.