In the book I have on Russian interceptors, a Mig-31 pilot who intercepted a Blackbird said at their closing rate he had mere seconds to make a head-on intercept, which was the only way possible.

He said if told to fire he would as there simply was zero time for any second thoughts.

He said the only time he turned on his radar, the Blackbird turned and departed at a very high speed.

One odd thing is the book gives quite complete data for Mig-31 performance but only spotty infor on the Mig-25.

The Book I have for the info I got was Yefim Gordons Famous Russian Aircraft MiG-31, now sadly out of print the last time I looked online at Waterstones website.

Thank you!

And thank you again to Jo for his tireless work in digging all this juicy stuff (even if i’m oblivious to most of it).
All i can do is post a picture.
(c)Evgeny Volkov@ russianplanes:

Smart looking picture of T-50 55. I hope that is the standard color scheme for all future test and in service PAK-FAs.

Posted today at the Top.81-Forum, this is one of the first two serial J-15s in full PLANAF markings. Identified were so far the numbers 102 and 103 (as shown).

:p

I am sure that Japan will be worried now that the J-15s are in serial production and are also flying, as well as the new air defense zone that China has setup. By the way do you have the web link to the forum that you mention in the post Deino?

Many thanks ClanWorrior.

My point is that it is not derived from or related to the Yak-141 lift system, as you suggested.

Auxiliary lift engines, as on Yak-141, have been around for many years, in prototypes built & flown in a few countries (I can think of three German types which flew in the 1960s, for example), but the F-35B lift fan is a novel concept. It’s not a separate engine.

Hawker Aircraft were going to put the Rolls Royce RB-108 lift fan into the Harrier but stuck with the Pegasus engine as that was more advanced in design terms. That was back in the 1960s. Oh by the way the whole concept of vertical take of was made by a Frenchman called Michael Wibult who designed a set of centrifugal flow turbojets.

Brand new PAK-FA assembly line to be constructed @ KnAAPO, set to cost ~US$780m. Prototype Type 30 engines scheduled to enter (flight?) testing in 2016:

http://www.ato.ru/content/sukhoi-fighters-will-remain-backbone-russian-air-force

Great news for the PAK-FA program and for Sukhoi and Russia in particular.

Well swerve, are you being cynical there at all?

Perhaps I misread the article, it looked like they were trying to get an IOC by 2015 (and the Tornado is supposed to bow out years after that…..)

Am i naive or confused or both?

Toan, there was a time when I thought EF2000 had Stormshadow, Alarm and all manner of goodies but that wasn’t in this century…..

ClanWarrior- RAPTOR won’t fit under the Typhoon in the same way as it does on Tornado I don’t think…

In the short term the Litening 3 poses a limited reconnaissance capability, a mass memory is installed on the pod and the MMI is adapted to support such functions. A common ICD for Gen 3 & 4 LDPs and RecceLite was supposed to be part of P2Ea, dunno whether it’s still current or whether it has been further postponed. Raptor probably doesn’t fit.

Thank’s guys. I did not know that the Litening 3 had a reconnaissance capability, I always thought that it was for targeting only. Pity about RAPTOR not being able to fit.

Back-to-back/Side-by-Trials with Storm Shadow and Taurus? With the number of IPA available it’s a wonder how they can perform sufficiently without conflicting schedules.

They will probably use RAF and Luftwaffe Typhoons for the trials. What are the differences between Storm Shadow and Taurus? Do they use different navigation systems?

Why did the RAF buy the 40-50 year old RC-135, instead of developing a Joint European ELINT/SIGNT aircraft based on an Airbus design?