It reminds me of the older Cobras that carried a light caliber turret.

To be more precise, there are 2 old guys that you really should not touch, the other guy is Mig23xxx. These two “know all, no fault” guys belong to another planet.

Please do not cheerlead. We are familiar with both individuals and at times they have caused problems because of the language barrier. We don’t need to drag up archived nightmares. With only 3 total posts don’t leave us with the impression you simply joined the forum to cheerlead. 🙁

Be careful how you compare things, the Su-35 is largely a paper tiger at this point while the Eurocanards you downplay are both deployed in numbers and used in the real world.

EJ 200 and M-88 are rated at their public specifications, which can be exceeded in wartime. The Rafale can essentially hot rod the motors at least 10% more than the published specs by using overrides. I don’t think Typhoon allows the pilot to do so. But it has always been the case that both engines were measured conservatively.

The Al-31 is a well understood engine by intelligence experts. You don’t override the baseline Al-31 settings and for all it’s ruggedness in maneuvers it requires much more hands on maintenance. It also breaks when it is abused.

Interesting. Never heard of such “steam” system before. Are there any startup vids or Pics on this?

I have read that the Al-31’s use electric start, which wouldn’t explain the steam. It’s normal for a puff of steam out the tail as the condensate is pushed out on startup. It’s pretty easy to see the smoke from a cartridge start.

I hope they remove the Argentine posts to their relative threads, too.

T-50 is in between the sizes of MiG-29 and Su-27. It enjoys much larger engines than an Su-27, internalized weapons, integrated ECCM, is visually tougher to spot, integrates electro optical sensors all around it, and is stealth. Not bad for a smaller package.