FalconDudeImpossible… I will explain why..
– an external installation of a podded FLIR would be immediately visible and would require a gimbal mount, complete rewiring and installation of a image output channel in the cockpit (usually an LCD display). Syrians are completely incapable of doing such upgrades, let alone in field conditions.
– using night vision goggles is impossible as neither SyAAF aircraft nor helicopters have NVG compatible lighting.. diodes and dials in their cockpits emit light at various frequencies and this light is getting amplified by the image intensifier tubes (system amplification of over 5,000 times with Gen3 tubes).. the automatic brightness control of the tubes has to constantly adapt to this light which means 1. you can’t see sh!t outside.. 2 . your tubes are experiencing burns, blemishes and other damage
– temporarily using a handheld thermal imager is impossible because it can’t see through glass – Syrian crews would have to fly with open cockpits 🙂In short, this option is BS..
Playing devil’s advocate here, it doesn’t take more than an IT guy to install an off the shelf night vision hell solution (like police and news choppers use). Of course that won’t give you targeting, but it does give you a solution. gimbal would be visible and quite a bit bigger than military versions though.
FalconDudeThese people? Like the Croatia and Montenegro who have joined or are seeking to join NATO? :rolleyes:
So what? European politics are extremely convoluted. Serbia might join NATO. Heck there may be a day in the near future that Russia joins the EU.
Sure, if Russia wanted to pretty well end the world they could, which is depressing when you think about it, that a State with Russia’s problems is so paranoid that it feels it needs that capability… but Russia is no dragon, and nobody is hunting Russia regardless.
They are not paranoid. The west is hunting Russia. They are still stuck in the 60’s fearing that the big bad russian bear will get them. I think you’ll find russian actions more pragmatist than think tank influenced, lobby paid for US ones.
FalconDudeIt is a simple statement of fact(s). What is “just” is very much in the eye of the beholder. Russia believes it has a mandate to exercise control over those states along its border that it once ruled… those states have a different view of matters. Who is “just” in this case?
The US feels it can intervene is places like Iraq, Iran, Yugoslavia, Afganistan, Libya..etc etc. These people think the US is just a bully. who is “just in that case?”
Setting aside the subjective for a moment and looking only at the objective… NATO, and the West in general are vastly more developed and capable than Russia. Should Russia persist in taking actions that appear threatening to NATO it can expect NATO to respond. Russia can’t possibly win an arms race, not qualitatively, and certainly not quantitatively.
I don’t know what they can do qualitatively or quantitatively, they can for sure, and beyond any reasonable doubt end us. All of us.
You know, some hunters seek glory and go deep in the forest, looking for a bear to kill. Sometimes they find the dragon.
FalconDudeEveryone is “biased” to one extent or another but in general people raised in free societies with more or less free media have a vastly less biased worldview than those raised immersed in state propaganda. (witness KGB and JSR for what that can result in)
NATO is the world’s most powerful military alliance… and they won’t allow their airspace to be subject to the whims of a Russian dictator with a penchant for invading his neighbors. Russia is resurgent as a military power, but in all other senses is a fading shadow of its Cold War height. We are talking about a state with a hydrocarbon-export based economy, the sum total of which is smaller than that of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the UK, Canada and of course the US… alone.
Think about that for a moment and consider the implications. There are 7 NATO states with economies larger than Russia’s. (the US alone has an economy 16x as large)
http://statisticstimes.com/economy/countries-by-projected-gdp.php
NATO has its issues without a doubt, but if pressed it has a latent capacity vastly greater than Russia can muster.
Everyone has made some significant blunders on the foreign stage, certainly that includes the US. With that said you won’t find anyone in NATO invading their neighbors in order to carve out little demi-states or in order to annex territory outright.
Nobody is saying Russia has no right to develop or purchase weapons. Certainly one can question the wisdom of a poor state pouring so much of its resources into weapons… but they have the right.
Where things become dicey is when Russia seems to have it in mind to try to intimidate its neighbors by challenging their borders, establishing air defense systems that range well into their territory, etc. All that will achieve is to drive NATO to increase its own capabilities, and given economic and technological realities, NATO will inevitably overmatch Russia.
Man, with all due respect that sounds like an entitled rant. Who cares how powerful NATO is or what kind of economy Russia has. Nobody has a monopoly in being just!
FalconDudeI would put it a bit differently: This is why NATO is working on methods of countering not only the S-400, but other future SAM systems. The forward deployment of S-400 systems to locations where their coverage footprint extends deep into NATO airspace has probably acted as a ‘wake up call’ to the West. The S-400 and its successors will not be allowed to create no-go zones for NATO air operations.
The S-500 is allegedly only just starting trials, so is probably some way from deployment. All the indications suggest that it is a THAAD-style ABM system.
Have you ever considered the possibility that you may be biased? -not try to insult here. I am genuinely asking this. Have you considered the possibility that all NATO bred people may be biased?
The very thing you are saying is absurd. “will not be allowed to create no-go zones for NATO air operations”! What is NATO ? the bearer of God’s will? The incarnation of Archangel Michael? The representative of God on earth?
Russia has as much right to create no-go zones as NATO has. There is no functional difference between the two and historically I think USA (sometimes dragging NATO with it) has intervened in foreign affairs far more than Russia.
I think we should take it a step further us NATO members, let’s outright demand that Russia is NOT allowed to create any weapons whatsoever, not use them, not make them, not think about them.. .because they used to be communists and communism is bad! There .. fixed the whole issue outright.
FalconDudeAwfully quiet in here now? Obviously the US bombing of the Syrian troops (and their behavior at UN afterwards) was a dick move but now an aid convoy was bombed. Chances are – that was either Russian or Syrian AF. US is now officially stating that Russia were behind it using two Su-24M’s.
Russians on the other hand claim that the convoy caught fire by itself… Sure, sure.
Equally disgraceful.
I don’t like games where people die needlessly.
FalconDudeHellenic Army Apache AH-64D attack helicopter crashes into the Aegean, pilots unhurt
http://echelon-defense.com/2016/09/20/hellenic-army-apache-ah-64d-attack-helicopter-crashes-into-the-aegean-pilots-unhurt/
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FalconDudeThe Krueger devices and the larger flaps are unified with the MiG-29M/M2/35 birds btw.
I guess they are there to accommodate for the increased weight of the aircraft?
FalconDudeI have no problem with you asking, there are interesting docs out there re. the plane and most of us just want to know more, my frustration is mostly to the obvious suspects who just clutter up the forum with obvious agenda-fueled nonsense and fanboyism.
Btw, Su-47 was modified with different internal bays during its life as well, so it played quite an important role in leading up to T-50.
I had picked up on that myself actually, the first thing I had noticed was the similarity of the WB doors between the two planes. Is it accurate that there were only two frames for the Su-47 and the second one never flew or was completed?
FalconDudeIt should perhaps be pointed out that an aircraft testing LO-related technologies need not itself be particularly stealthy – designing for low RCS has consequences in other respects (structures, aerodynamics etc.) that can be tested without the aircraft having all the trappings of an actual stealth aircraft. If the question you are trying to answer is not ‘what’s its RCS’ (for which you’d probably be better off sticking a model on a pole) but ‘what’s the aero-acoustic environment inside an open weapons bay with a certain door design’, for example.
Are there any photos of the Su-47 on a pole or in an anechoic chamber? The F-22 is tested in a chamber designed by the Howland company, there are photos readily available. So was the F-35.
FalconDudeIf you were here for “all of these years”, then you would have been in the PAK-FA S-Ducks Holy Crusade.
Also, S-ducts and FSW have no issue on being on the same aircraft.
already mentioned that I was not satisfied with the “answers” given during the “holy crusade”
FalconDudeWhy not? You don’t build a 20-ton empty weight aircraft with internal weapons bays just to study FSWs either. If only the latter (and nothing else) was your objective you’d end up with something like the X-29, i.e. the lightest and smallest possible airframe that will suffice to cover the performance envelope required to get the answers you are looking for. You’d also – again like the X-29 – take advantage of your parts bin far more extensively, rather than developing and building everything other than the canopy from scratch.
Saying the Su-47 is solely a FSW demonstrator akin to claiming the only purpose of the YF-23 was to validate anthracite paint :rolleyes:
Well, the Su-47 besides the S-ducts and the IWB had no other characteristics relating to VLO. Round front fuselage, ~90° vertical surfaces near the rear stabs and FWS related angles. So it’s a bit weird that they chose that design to study s-duct EW behaviour specifically. And all the effort that went into the control laws for that FSW; I don’t know.
Anyway, I’ll take your word for it.
I’m certainly no fan of the F-35 and have criticized it before, but few if any of its issues are of LM’s engineers’ doing. Most of its faults are inherent in the (incredibly tough and partially paradoxical) brief it was designed against and in fact LM can be argued to have done a creditable job of squaring this circle in purely technical terms. Much of the bad press is also a case of them becoming victims of their own marketing that is prone to making apples and oranges comparisons. The one engineering problem I can think of right now which could apparently be classed as “incompetence” is the initial tail hook design on the F-35C – hardly the same as designing a VLO airframe without taking care of engine face reflection, even though you’ve previously developed and tested a solution.
Perhaps. as I said, I am happy with what I got from this discussion, so I won’t pursue this any longer.
FalconDudeThe Su-47 photo is right above the mention of S-ducts.
And I am not making much of an assumption, the use of radar blockers is not new, and has been shown to meet RCS requirements on a number of other platforms.
The T-50 already has had faults- structural problems that took a long time to address, but are now in the past. Forgetting about engine face reflection, is not a fault that just happens.Same with the engine nozzles:
Point: Su-47 photo above the mention of S-ducts. Check (I agree)
Counterpoint: It is a bit off the beaten path to incorporate two elements in an experimental design. They wanted to study S-duct RCS performance and FSW at the same time on the same frame?
Point: Use of radar blockers in not new. Check (I agree)
Counterpoint: Don’t have any. I am waiting to see them on the T-50
Point: Forgetting about engine face reflection, is not a fault that just happens.
Counterpoint: I….can’t tell, don’t know. On one hand we have all criticised the many -apparent- shortcomings of the F-35. This too came out of a very experienced and successful design house, yet… on the other hand we want to put faith in the fact that …it is not a fault that just happens.
Nonetheless, I drop it now, because you were kind enough to offer me some answers for the first time all these years.. so I am happy.
FalconDudeNope. For Russia its the other way around. Sukhoi risk bankrupcy if they put too much emphicy on VLO. That is where the risk is greatest. Sukhoi and VKS has allways followed the “function follow form” approach. We still see spanking new Su-30/34/35s being stored outside in blistering cold winter and all else climate conditions.
The large MLG still follow VKS doctrines. VKS allways put their jets on a wartime condition. That way their toys do not break down, when **** hits the fan. IMO no hangar queens.This fact is well known.
The fact may be well known, but the level of Radar performance is well known. RCS of around 0.1m^2 and perhaps a bit lower is something that newer Radars can reliably pick up. Granted these Radars haven’t replaced the existing infrastructure around the world yet, but they will eventually. You get yourself in a huge disadvantage if you sacrifice RCS performance for ability to take off from dirt fields.
FalconDudeOk, for the millionth time:
-Sukhoi internal documents clearly point out the use of S-ducts in earlier experimentation with RCS reduction:
http://savepic.su/4731816.jpg
-The Su-47, with its S-ducts.
-Numerous indications radar blocker variants are being pursued.To claim that engine reflection is going to be a problem, is basically to ignore the blatant evidence S-ducts were investigated, tested, and moved on from, and to blindly assume Sukhoi just happened to forget about all that work, and became suddenly unaware of engine face radar reflective. No offense but these assertions are beyond asinine.
There are compromises inherent to any design re. RCS vs performance, subsystems etc, and that is natural, but engine-face problems are not one of them.
I don’t want to play devil’s advocate, and your answer (thank you btw) clears up where you are coming from; but you are also making one assumption.
That just because something was investigated and moved on from, something better (or equally good) must have been found. It is not like Sukhoi has not designed planes with faults before. The second assumption is that the Su-47 was built to investigate low RCS. Maybe it was built to investigate forward swept wings, so the s-ducts in Su-47 point may not be valid after all.
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