Ignore the trolling and report it folks, those of us interested in T-50 and russian aviation in general have no need to prove anything to some pathetic yankee trolls with a psychological problem to put it mildly- what else would you call the obsession to downplay and deride anything non-US- (either that or some paid shill), just don’t waste your time on it. There are far, far more interesting things to discuss.

Thanks for clarifying the situation at KnAAZ, they like to get their birds into the air in winter time when it’s -30C anyway (makes sense actually) 🙂

While I won’t necessarily disagree with you, I have to point out that if one is sceptical, one isn’t by definition anti-russian equipment junkie.

When it comes to planes, one would have to admit, that some russian equipment had great deficiencies when compared to western counterparts.

to name a few that have cropped up in the past, engine life, radar performance, radar modes (TWS/RWS for example) etc etc.

That doesn’t mean they are not great designs or effective even. What it means is, that people have a legitimate reason to ask questions.

Like the one I asked repeatedly for example about the gap between the bay doors.
Others have asked about the engines, others about the avionics. Others challenge the RCS .. whatever it is .. you can’t stop people from making questions about issues they feel merit discussion.

Obviously that doesn’t cover trolling, but …

I think the question remains. Will the PAK FA be competitive and relative by the time it enters service?

In reality it seems the US has made leaps in the areas of engine design and avionics. Is the PAK FA program catching up?

these are the ones that matter the most I think..

I have serious questions, some of which I raised in previous posts about the design of the T-50.
To me the aircraft remains a mystery; reason being that I haven’t got enough faith in the Russian industrial base to have a “ground-breaking” technological reason behind every design decision of the plane.

Nonetheless to compare it with the silent eagle is a step too far I think. The T-50 seems to be intended to have a significantly improved performance over all existing aircraft that fly today, including the F-22. I am not sure if its engines are going to end up being more powerful than the Raptor’s but even if not, it seems to be trying hard to be better aerodynamically.

^ It’s a line from Dr. Strangelove (“Mr. President, we must not allow a mine shaft gap!”) but playing off the double meaning of ‘gap’ in this context. 🙂

aaaaahhhhh…. nice one mate 😉

He’s talking about the Kh-58UShKE. It’s a new missile with folding wings, explicitly stated by the maker to be compatible for launch by the UVKU-50 missile ejection system fitted in the T-50’s main bays.

http://www.ktrv.ru/production/68/653/804/

Thanks man, that was something I didn’t know about.

Can the F-22 carry 4 Kh-58s?

No? Ok then.

As to the rest of your rant, lol. Nobody is saying gaps don’t make a difference. We are saying it is clearly not a manufacturing “problem” but a part of the bay doors design. Why? We don’t know. But there were claims it was just a crappy big gap between the doors, which it is clearly not.

Yes and there were also claims that it is still at an early age and the gap will be covered eventually !! It depends what you choose to read it seems.

We are all agreeing that gaps do make a difference yet we choose to conveniently trust that apparently they will have no effect on this particular design and talking about it is automatically deemed anti-T-50 ! how nice.

and as far as 4 Kh-58s .. I haven’t seen them in the bay. Has anyone else ? And by the way hasn’t the Kh-28 been replaced by the 31 ? I thought it was.

As i last updated, it is on “flight station”. Should fly before MAKS.

Always makes me laugh.

Yeah me too, and I am the one who suggested it!!! go figure, right?

In actual fact I did say that gaps and incontinuities are something that US designers tended to avoid like hell, because they introduce undesired scattering effects especially in relation to creeping wave behaviour. Something that continually seems to elude you guys.

And I proposed that either Sukhoi doesn’t care or knows and can’t do anything about it! My near exact words..

If you want to add something meaningful perhaps you could elaborate more on your (educated and deeply scientific(!?)) opinions about why the gaps are not important in the design of T-50.

I would be more than happy to hear it.

And I’d rather avoid mentioning of imaginary things or solutions like the fabled square nozzles that the T-50 woulda-coulda-shoulda sport !! like during the discussion of why the T-50/F-35 have round nozzles and associated issues.

At this point I’d like to point out that until I ( my big ego I know!) started asking again about the weapon capacity of the central bays, a lot of people where under the impression that the T-50 would be carrying more weapons than the F-22 ,which was established (by paralay and some of you guys if I am not mistaken) that there are “only two missiles per bay, live with it! “.

You better tell my IR guided missile in advance that your aircraft is VLO because she does not know.. 🙂

IR is useful, but it can’t cover all aspects of battle. And besides, most IR sensors, can’t provide a vector, at most they can provide distance. it is hard to plot an intercept course for a missile if you don’t know the vector of the target. And it has to be pretty close to leave enough kinetic energy in the missile to hit it.

Point being, if you are unaware someone is out there, and even if you are, your ER missiles refuse to lock on, you are a moving target until you get close. You can choose to disengage, but when you are defending, that may not be an option.