Only because US are currently the only country that has refineries set up for Venezuelan crude. But that will change, China is already building their own.

While aside his political ambitions Huge C. cannot evade the fact that the USA is much closer than China and hence his profit would be much better (especially as his whole spendy policy is linked to the crude oil profits).

Additionally, he might find out that China is not much a better ally than the USA. China is not likely to commit to Venezuela because they have such an affinity to Chavez but rather because they see advantages for their country, which translates into USD saved for crude oil.
In the end, the political visions will not be prioritized over the naked economic facts.

By the way: between the China and Venezuela is the Panama canal, which is officially controlled by Panama, but guess what China’s leadership would bet on this in times of crisis.

Now you’re getting silly. Of course there’s a US ambassador! What do you think, there’s a war on? Trade continues, Venezuelans buy US products, the USA buys Venezuelan oil, people travel back & forth unhindered. A bit of government ranting doesn’t change any of that.

Actually, the USA and Colombia are by far the biggest trade partners of Venezuela, while Bolivia and Cuba hardly make it into top ten. It looks stirring trouble with the biggest importers/exporters is the key element of Venezuela’s foreign policy.

Except the MiG-25 and 29… The F-14… J-10 etc, etc.

Oh man, you quote the worst examples.
If you had said “the F-16″* I would conceded that it sometimes work, but all your examples are essentially fishy:

Good for you you didn’t mention the Suchoi 27, too.

“Great Leaps” don’t work as things are complicated.
What works is the the great leap in small steps, building something step by step with careful increase in capability, starting with rather simple “Block 1” solutions first and increasing complexity if the systems are understood.

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*Reason: Less than 5 years between FF and EIS and still using considerable amount of new technology while re-defining the concept of modern agile combat aircraft.

Typical air superiority mission take-off, full internal fuel, full internal AAMs, guns, chaff, flare, no external stuff.

Assumed 0.35 fuel fraction, 120kg gun ammo, 4 MR-AAM (220kg each) and 2 SR-AAM (100kg each), I see an OEW of ~15t. Less than F-22. In the class of the F-35A.

And they’ll be happy to do it below 25 metric tonnes.

OEW or NTOW?

First of all what makes you think the Russians can’t make a full stealth fighter that can also supercruise? The US made two in the late eighties (YF-22 and YF-23) and todays home computers have much better processing capability than some of the super computers of the 70s and 80s.
[Comment: So if the Americans built two, Russia must be able to build one, as they are half as capable???]
The F-22 is not being exported yet so there is no need for the Russian AF to have the PAK-FA in service… except pride and export sales. The Russians have long had a tradition of getting similar or even better performance from their planes at much lower prices. Even if the PAK-FA costs the same as the F-22 per unit it will be Russians spending money on their own Aviation industry. They might only buy 200 as well and maintain fleet numbers by not retiring the Mig-31 and keeping 300 Su-27BMs and maybe buying 3-400 Mig-35s.

I don’t give much on opinions about those topics because these are highly biased and often rather based on wishful thinking and pride than on facts (which are rare). I just look at what basically was achieved. And here I see the big nothing since the Suchoi 27. This aircraft was constantly modernized and has now arrived at its ultimate version, just as the F-16F/F, the F-18E/F and the F-15E.
But apart from that nothing has come out of Russia and your assumption that they are eye-level with US industry is pure speculation. The civil side – although being much promising from a business point of view – has seen continued decline and now has to start pretty much from the scratch to compete with US/European competitors.

The later Russian designs actually were much more expensive when you look at the relative costs (per unit, excluding development).

I know some people don’t believe it, but when we look at technology (not performance) the Soviet/Russian industry was trailing 10 years (in some fields more, in some less) behind the US aviation industry in 1990. The 10 years after 1990 were basically a huge loss (in terms of capability as capability declines when it is not maintained). So where do we stand now?
Russia had secretly spent billions on research and now surpasses US industry with the power of will? Common, that is just plain naive.

And Garry: if it was the calculation power that let’s things come together, the Chinese must have built an F-22 successor by now (considering that all the laptops come from China nowadays).

i’M GUSSING IT WOULD look a lot like the saturn design , a bit of raptor , a bit of f-23 and a bit of flanker thrown in . The basic design is based on computational analysis of aerodynamic laws etc etc and given similarities in requirments (Supercriuse =/> then 1.5 , clean , stealth etc) the design approach can be very similar to what is known to excel in the required envelope ..

While the achievement of supercruise requires lots of detailed solutions to get down drag in transonic regime. Additionally, it requires dedicated engine technology. Making that all stealthy will add additional headache.

In the end, you need an aircraft that can be operated by the air force and afforded by the nation, and will be operational within a realistic time-frame. It should be useful to other nations, too. The now a decade old Joint Strike Fighter will need another half decade to become operational, assuming a similar time frame for the PAK-FA it won’t get operational before the end of next decade.

To be honest, I can’t see this coming. With the F-22/F-35 the USA has set a mark other nations might achieve one day, but will probably not attempt as the associated costs a too high. The USA enjoyed a lead in aviation technology when Cold War ended, and now enjoys an even bigger lead.

Russia will built a rather conventional aircraft similar in specifications to the Eurofighter Typhoon and rely on other weapon systems to beat stealthy contemporaries, most likely ground based net-centric air defense.

Come on…whit out afterburners , big deal, i mean thats all?? that plane has such huge T/W and cant beat any REAL record?

Issues with stealth? man what you think , you need supercomputers for that?, that the russians cant reach the “gaussians” (HA!) stealth concepts?, at least on the stealthy field they arent designing a f-117 and to reach the 22s stealth level isnt a great challenge

Your lack of proper English writing fits well to your complete lack of aviation knowledge.