That will come as a major surprise to the dozens of nations around the globe using one or other of those two aircraft, both of which seem to have demonstrated extreme reliability.

On what personal and/or practical experience do you make that assertion?

Having been closely involved with one of those aircraft, and had a lot of experience with the other, I would like to hear how you intend to back up that statement.

Unicorn

Kindly read the entire text before taking umbrage!

More for show than for actual warfighting.

“Move against the Pakistanis, and the spares are cut off”.

Who the heck cares if the AESA MTBF is ~2000 hours and that the uptime of the aircraft is blah blah blah…

If its politics which decides when India can use these aircraft and where and how these aircraft are to be deployed.

They will be a ten Billion$ albatross around India’s neck.

Nice for airshows, exercises, AFM Specials (:rolleyes: ) but a liability when it comes to actually waging war.

Good old Mahathir put it best. :rolleyes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSjgOcFdI9Y

And if you still thank that is “exaggeration” or whatever, please think what would happen if Australia were forced by circumstances, to develop an independent foreign policy – and where Australia had to show the middle finger to the US SD’s pompous bombast from time to time and do what is in its best interests, and then see what happens to spares & support from the US. You would be cut off at the knees!!

FYI- the Russians are offering full codevelopment of the Phazatron AESA on the MiG-35, to get it upto full rated specs. The US OTOH is not willing to transfer technology for the NG Radar.

Engines? The Su-30 MKI has even single crystal blades for its AL-31 FPs made at HAL. Do you seriously think the same will be offered for the Ge-414?

So which aircraft is India going to be more dependent on the source nation for spares, for all eternity?

The same nation which routinely hands over billions to its arch rival, which sponsors terrorism but is indispensable to US interests for the time being, and which India should suffer silently.

The implication was entirely in your imagination. I was not thinking of Russia.

I did not “clearly state that the US was undependable”. The point is that US arms supplies policies do not fit well with Indias aims. India wants independence in arms procurement, manufacture & use: the USA imposes restrictions on the use of weapons it supplies, to the extent that it would almost be true to say they are rented, rather than sold. India wants complete control over any technology it gets as a result of arms deals, & to be able to manufacture its own versions: after the well-publicised F-35 technology access problems the UK has had, it is not credible that India will get the access it wishes from the USA.

The basic problem is that in a US-India arms deal, the USA has the clout. India would be better off making deals with countries where India has the clout. That’s a good reason for buying from Israel, or (if the French would wake up & realise who has the upper hand in this matter) France, where the seller will agree to Indian terms because it needs the deal more than India does. That is not the case in dealing with the USA. Nothing to do with thinking the USA is malign, or inherently more undependable, just simple power relationships, & incentives. The USA is more likely to use arms sales to apply pressure, because it can, not because it’s worse than other countries.

Beautifully put. I know Scooter will disagree but..:p

DTI (Mc Graw Hill) has an article wherein it states British involvement in JSF meant that Britain could not collaborate with EADS etc over the Barracuda/ Neuron et al, since the agreements preclude the UK with working on stealth programs of a similar nature with other nations.

And the US is offering India the JSF! :rolleyes:

India is best served with giving the US the polite middle finger over similar political attempts to coerce its R&D spend and political choices, and stick to its own independent path. The US did its best to kill the LCA and ALH programs after the 1998 nuke tests as well. And the stupidity of Indian leaders (or the lure of lucre rather!) is such that they went running back once the contracts were open once more, some 4-5 years later.:rolleyes:

I think the EF (provided it comes with blanket guarantees of non intereference due to US pressure) and the Rafale, are the best choices for India,followed by the MiG-35. The Gripen has too much US content, and the F/A-18 and F-16 are going to be hangar queens. More for show than for actual warfighting.

“Move against the Pakistanis, and the spares are cut off”. :rolleyes:

What else have they done besides adding RAM to the compressor face? Where’s the edge-alignment? Does it have an AESA? Elaborate. Clearly you have more info to make such a bold statement.

Why dont you google up the ITAE conference papers presented by the Sukhoi team and read them?
It clearly mentioned radome treatment, cockpit canopy treatment etc etc to be done for the Su-35.
Also, why the heck does an AESA matter for RCS, given that even a PESA antenna when not scanning would have the same signature?

It uses a nuke. A 3.5 MT warhead..but you did make a good point that a system does exist.

Interesting comments RSM55.

But I must say- if you think India will settle for anything less than full TOT/ production rights, it seems very unlikely. The only time I can see that happening is if New Delhi funds both the PAK-FA and the MCA programs. The latter will allow Delhi to get a handle on fifth gen programs without compromising its aeronautical industry and also allow it to settle for “comanufacture” of the PAK-FA. But that and two programs also mean that India will not bankroll the PAK-FA to the extent Russia wants.

Any details about the radar etc- I failed to understand what you stated earlier. If I read you correctly, you were stating that the PAK-FA would be built in Russia but its electronics could be licensed to India?:confused:

Coming to the MiG-35 vs F/A-18 E/F- there simply, is little comparison. The former is the last development of a mature design and its sensors are still in the early phases of development.

If we are talking about the Cold war era, when the Soviet Union still existed then I have to challange the second claim that they lacked manufacturing technology. They were just as Advanced in some areas as the rest of the world.

Kindly understand nuance and read for comprehension, not skim it over. I was very clear in what I wrote. What I said was not absolute- but the issue of making the best of what you have.

But let me rewrite it, so that its clearer.

The issue is not of just possessing the technology. It is making it so available that it is available in every plant, and is easily transferrable. In the west this was easy, since CNC automata was available to all. In Russia , it took espionage to get specific machines to achieve certain tolerances. The point is that manufacturing in numbers is NOT the same as design ability or protoype production. The Russians have never lacked in ABILITY, but its a fact of life that their machinery and machine tool industry had issues meeting the demands of military processes.

Same way- IC manufactures requires specialised tools and machinery, from lithography eqpt to this, to that. Why do you think a Centralised system found it hard to cope? The West pulled ahead because it was decentralized. A US fighter would have memory made in Japan, boards made in SE Asia, components made in Europe, designed and integrated in US, with core processors from DARPA/Defence programs- later on even these went COTS. In contrast, Russian fighters were almost entirely built in the Soviet Union.
Who do you think has the advantage and who has the unsustainable pressure?

You need to spend some time with Russian fighter maint crews. Russian fighters are a combination of jaw dropping technological complexity and design elegance, and brutally simple KISS. Whereas a western fighter has that same level of complexity repeating throughout. The Russians prioritized making sure that their prioritization was taken care of without impinging too much on performance.

The aim was simple, keep it complex and “hard to manufacture” only where absolutely necessary- this approach simplifies maintenance, and also allows for rapid design transfer and production. Something essential for Russia as it went head to head with the entire NATO on its own.

IIRC the RDY-3 is just an RC-400 with a different name. Obviously I would interested to know if thats not the case.

Thales seems to be advertising both on their website, or has the RC-400 been removed?

Re: TMor

Darn Thales and aviation journalists!!! 😀

I read so many articles about Mk2 this and that…so whats this RDY3 now? A repackaged, powered up RC-400 as a lightweight RDY for light fighters..? So whats the point of the RC-400? Or is the RDY-3 a new RDY > RDY2.

Ok, any info about RBE-2, ranges, power outputs, TWS/detect numbers?