Some thoughts

Taking the F-22 as the standard to match (or beat), the following can be assumed.

The russians

Should have but couldn’t so they didn’t
Should have, could have but didn’t
Shouldn’t have, so they didn’t

And i’ll explain. It is more than obvious that the plane isn’t VLO by shaping alone. It has got the chin and some edge alignment, but is also fraught with things the americans tried desperately to avoid.

So, could the russians make a high performance plane (which the F-22 clearly is) and VLO shaping ? If they could, why didn’t they? Example: The T-50 ducts may be more efficient in feeding air to the engines, but they are mechanical and hence more complex than the F-22’s. So why go with the more complex route? The F-22 ducts are simpler and hence cheaper in the long run. So why not?

Performance? Well noone can accuse the F-22 of being a sloth. So we know that that design can achieve performance!
Cost ? Any mechanical solution is in the long run more expensive than a non mechanical solution, simply because of maintenance. So it wasn’t because of cost

So why was it?

Having a simpler, more close to the F-22 shape, would mean less trouble developing all the materials Jo Asakura suggests are going to be the main providers of the LO aspect of the plane. Might have been cheaper to go down the F-22 route too than developing all these materials.

Russians must know that EW guided missiles will have a problem with LO targets. To put it bluntly an F-22 can’t shoot down another F-22 with an Aim-120! CANNOT! The missile doesn’t have the ability to be fire and forget with a VLO target!

So why offering even rear aspect increased RCS if you know even a single spike more than the enemy can give him the advantage? Couldn’t or wouldn’t ? why?

Again, the F-22 has an increased weapons capacity of 6 Medium to long range weapons. These can allow for 6 medium to long range kills for a conventional target (ideal case) or 5 chances to force your target to reveal himself through evasive maneuvers so you can plant that last one into him. So you get a 5 opportunities for 1 kill for a VLO opponent.

The T-50 has 4 missiles, following the same logic that is 3 opportunities for 1 kill. Less effective, even if russian missiles are better than the 120s.

Again … why?

these are my thoughts …

As a though lateraly do you think one of the Pak-fa-6s is for Indian trials. Could be the plane they are getting first to test with. Wasnt it mentioned that India was getting their first bird in 2014, then 2016, 2017.

I read this thread almost every two days, and this is the first time I read the 6-1 and 6-2. Have I missed something?

where are references for these two prototypes?

In danger of being attacked here, it seems the cowlings of the engines are not painted, or covered or anything.

Safe to assume this is going to be the norm then?

Indeed the Skyray did serve for a few years under that designation. The Skynight also managed to hang around until the mid-60s, and it was redesignated the F-10. The variants in use during Vietnam were electronic warfare models known as EF-10Bs I believe.

I feel like a broken record, but if anyone can objectively point out what aircraft was a better alternative than the F-104 for Europe at the time frame it was chosen, then please be my guest…the next closest I can think of is the Mirage III, and even then as we’ve pointed out there are some areas (namely nuclear strike) where the F-104 comes out on top even if its not a “landslide.” The F-104 was the right aircraft for the time, and the accident rate was due primarily to the fact that it was simply so much more of of a handful than its predecessors in some countries, with many not having that “intermediate” step (ala F-100, Super Mystere, etc.) as someone else mentioned. It certainly had its flaws, but it wasn’t an inherently bad aircraft when comparing it to its contemporaries. Not perfect by any stretch, but not nearly as bad as some people want to believe.

It was not a bad aircraft, it was a very demanding aircraft. I believe the Greek airforce attrition rate was also very low for the type, although still higher than that of other types in its service.

There were pictures of the 055 around with Medvedev in the foreground, lying in a hangar and it could be seen that the nose aperture is not fitted.

aahhh, yes, I didn’t realise that was -5. thanks

As I said above, perhaps he has significant knowledge somewhere, but it sure isn’t aircraft or defense issues.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/joint-strike-fighter-program-a-failure-think-tank-20120208-1t91z.html

Someone around here has the official response issued by Australia’s defense ministry. It makes for amusing reading, but I think the above story adequately captures how their presentation went over. (hint, your audience walking out before you are half way through your spiel is not a good thing.)

When you reach a point where your audience is very well aware of you, and your position, and find listening to you for even 30 minutes to be a waste of time… that is called being discredited.

depends who the audience is made up of.. right ?

You wanna talk to an audience of politicians about corruption amongst them, see how many stay for the full talk then ?

They haven’t.

Those reports about FGFA being “more composite and stealth and yadada” are garbage.

I can’t help to laugh every time I see “brute strength” being attributed to the bird. Non-american solution= surely must be less intelligent.

No offence but perhaps you should laugh less and read more.

What I meant was that looking at the balance of strengths and weaknesses, the designers will throw more brute force on the strengths rather than fix the weaknesses.

if one of the strengths is “intelligence” they will sure throw more muscle on it. Which they do already as it is advertised as such.

It is funny how peoples misconceptions and biasses don’t allow them to understand properly.

I will say once more, asking questions about the T-50, doesn’t make anyone pro american.