iirc the RDI was a bit delayed so india went with RDM and never has changed it. a future upg would obviously need the RDY2 since RDI is outdated now. A MFD oriented cockpit, Mica, RDY2 and ICMSmk3 would keep them relevant for another 15 yrs I guess.

any credible photo or sketch of the T-50 would be appreciated. I found this lil bird on another forum.

http://www.warfare.ru/0702ey70/update/jan2005/2/vityaz.jpg

:p

excerpt from Janes confirms that Pak-FA-Lite is for Indian spec.

Russia thinks lighter on new fighter

Henry Ivanov JDW Correspondent
Moscow

The Russian Air Force is taking steps to reduce the weight of its future fifth-generation multirole fighter aircraft being created under project PAKFA (Pestpektivnyi Kompleks Frontovoi Aviatsii).

Three years ago the Russian Defence Ministry selected the Sukhoi T-50 design over the lighter RSK MiG’s 1.42 for PAKFA but is now looking at changes to meet an Indian requirement.

At a press briefing on 17 January Russian Air Force Commander General Vladimir Mikhailov said the PAKFA development “is proceeding well and generally on time”.

Gen Mikhailov admitted a shortage of funding, “but this [has less to do with] the defence ministry and more to do with Sukhoi, which chose to work in parallel on the passenger aircraft, the Russian Regional Jet”. “They needed funds to start this project and so had to take some funds from the war plane; hence these funding problems,” he said.
……..

Gen Mikhailov said that the T-50 prototype will make its first flight in 2007.

“[Any doubt is] out of the question. We can even manage to make it at the end of 2006,” he said, adding that the aerodynamic form has been shaped and wind-tested. The only recent change was that I decreased the earlier specified speed by M0.15, down to M2.0.”

…….

“In addition we have decided to make a lighter version of the plane with the same avionics to reduce costs and the same engine, but one rather than two.”

Gen Mikhailov said that there were few possible situations when a fighter developed to carry 12 missiles attacks 12 targets, making the lighter version almost “as efficient [and] its acquisition price and cost/efficiency as well as airfield performance will be better”.

The move to a smaller aircraft is driven by India, which requested a lighter design after being offered the T-50 for joint development in December 2004.

According to Russian sources, Indian Air Force Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi has met with Gen Mikhailov to harmonise the specification of the fifth-generation fighter that could be developed by the countries.

I quoted the Flug revue article which clearly mentions the weakness of eyerie in the 15 degree quadrants front and back. the rotodone radars(E3) and the triangular radars(phalcon) dont have such drawbacks.

> 50 seater a.c

but what is the mission endurance of this thing ? can it fly 500km from its base and stay on station for 8 hrs and fly back ? pakistan has no AAR to sustain this. and it surely wont be flying from islamabad or lahore more like samugli(quetta) or another place far to the west.

> datalinks

mig29 and su30 have it, a better one is being developed for Tejas and will probably be installed on the whole fleet in due course. there have been indian specified work on phalcon to prepare for existing & planned iaf systems

the 737 can land in airports the 767 cant. think some smaller bases in central asia, eastern europe, africa , latin america to fight colonial wars.