Yes, it can shorten takeoff runs and lower landing speeds. Gives you better control at low speeds.

Frankly it does not matter who you speak to, because they (in the military) can only speak in the way that makes good light of their establishment, will not betray opsec, or reveal anything about their procedures. Just because you got close to an MKI does not mean crap. I myself have “close” encounters with US military aircraft, just touching and being inside them, nothing about looking at innards. Even if you have a twin brother in the military, he will keep his mouth shut. In my experience only retired people will tell stories.

Like I said, you have no idea that grounding and cannibalization are practiced in all forces regardless of plane type, including the US. Heck it’s practiced in commercial aviation all the time. So don’t give me the BS that you are above these practices, considering that you got aircraft less maintenace friendly than most Western aircraft, Russian engines do not have a world class reputation for reliability, and you don’t have a spink spank record in plane attrition. OEM service agreements only cover defects on the manufacturer’s part, they don’t cover things like bird hits or pebbles getting into the engines. This is also considering that you have engines with 1000 hours service life but often do not reach that mark for various reasons. That is going to mean a lot of down time in repair.

here is an example of engine problems, their solutions and the way it affects the operability of the aircraft. Note that this is not an indictment on the IAF, but to make a point that problems do happen by accident or by manufacturer’s fault and regardless of cause they all result in serious downtime.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India published on 31March1993 the results of an in depth study on the operational performance and reliability of the MiG-29 aircraft.

This study was first reported in Aviation Week & Space Technology during 25July1994 (pg.49), and has been obtained by author from Mr. Pushpindar Singh, of the Society of Aerospace Studies, New Delhi.

By 1990 three squadrons were operational. Two Flight Data Ground Processing Units were included to help pilots debrief their utilization of flight controls and systems. Expectations were that single-seat aircraft would fly 15 hours per month (180 hrs/yr) and dual-seat aircraft 20 hours per month (240 hrs/yr).

There were extensive problems encountered in operational and maintenance due to the large number of pre-mature failures of engines, components, and systems. Of the total of 189 engines in service, 139 engines (74%) failed pre-maturely and had been withdraw from service by July 1992, thus effectively shutting down operations. 62 of these engines had not even accomplished 50% of their 300 hours first overhaul point. Thus the desired serviceability showed a steadily decreasing trend.

Engineering reports mainly attribute RD-33 failures to design/material deficiencies causing discolored engine oil (8), cracks in the nozzle guide vanes (31), and surprisingly, foreign object damage (FOD). The eight material deficient engines (discolored oil) were repaired by the contractor under warrantee provisions, but the engines had to be recycled to the manufacturer. The thirty-one engines with cracks in their nozzle guide vanes were fixed in the field by contractor teams and adjustments were made to the entire engine fleet. But even though the incidents reduced the occurrences of the cracks, they continued. But the FOD situation is the most interesting, especially after the inlet FOD doors received world press coverage, but there were other concerns about production quality control that led to problems.

The Indian Air Force procurement contract was concluded in September 1986, and the first engine was expected to go into overhaul in 1989. However, four engines prematurely came up for overhaul and no repair facility had been prepared. As time went on, 115 of the 122 engines (94%) prematurely failed and had to be re-cycled through engine depots in Russia at great cost. Backlogs were created and only 79 (65%) engines returned on schedule. Even when a regional Indian repair facility was completed in August 1994, the high failure rates continued and the majority of broken engines had to be sent back to Russian depots. Self-sufficiency was achieved in 1994, only after the operations tempo was significantly reduced on a permanent basis. In the process of refurbishing failed engines, the total technical life of most of the engine fleet was effectively reduced from 800 hours / 8 years to 400 hours / 4 years, at a minimum.

http://www.jeffooi.com/archives/2003/12/sukhoi_su30mkm.php

Sukhoi develops trouble, India stops payment
Sunday December 14 2003 00:00 IST

NEW DELHI: Worried over the high rate of engine failure of its frontline (Sukhoi) SU-30MKI, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has refused to accept the latest batch of multi-role Sukhoi fighters from Russia.

Express Network

Another hole in the sky

Sukhoi Engine snags impacted Indo-Russian defence ties

SAIKAT DATTA

New Delhi, September 6: The MiG-21s may be prone to accidents but India’s latest, state-of-the-art Sukhoi-30 fleet is now under a cloud.
The SU-30, which arrived in June 1997, is in trouble as the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been forced to withdraw nearly 40 engines due to wear and tear, raising questions on its quality and causing hiccups in Indo-Russian defence ties. India maintains a fleet of 28 Sukhois — 18 are the original SU-30K from 1997 slated for an upgrade and 10 SU-30 MKI which arrived last year — based at Lohegaon Air Force station, Pune.

Rated among the best fighter aircraft in the world, the SU-30 has been bogged with complaints of engines being withdrawn before it is time to overhaul them. Powered by twin AL-31 engines, the SU-30K engines have a life span of 3,500 flying hours. The upgraded SU-30 MKI’s engine life was increased to a 1,000 flying hours as per the contract between India and Russia.

But with the fleet clocking an average of a mere 1,000 flying hours, its engines have been bogged down by teething problems attributed to design problems.

It is learnt the engines started developing problems during the trial phase when IAF pilots started flying them at steep angles. The fact that the Sukhoi-30 has two engines on board, has prevented a major mishap so far, say sources.

Each engine has a life that is measured in hours spent flying, taking off and landing. To maintain them, the engines are subjected to periodic overhauling which is calculated as Time Between Overhauls (TBO). However, a majority of Su-30 engines were withdrawn even before they completed their TBO as an anxious Air Headquarters scrambled for answers.

The IAF HQ sent teams to evaluate the high rate of engine failure. The teams also attributed the high rate of failure to pilots’ handling.

According to HQ sources, the fighter pilots were flying a combat aircraft of such a weight and dimension for the first time. Used to lighter, smaller aircraft like the MiG series, Mirages and Jaguars, they were flying an aircraft which weighs nearly 28 tons (heavier than a AN-32 transport aircraft) .

New Delhi also took up the issue with the Russians. In fact, as both sides went back to the original contract both sides developed major differences. New Delhi pointed out to the Russians that it had not included the life of the engines during the trial phase.

The Russians differed, leading to several rounds of negotiations before the original manufacturers came around to New Delhi’s point of view. The nearly Rs 6,000-crore deal envisages the delivery of 50 aircraft from Russia while a 140 will be manufactured under license from Russia by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=31069

yes, there are examples of christian purity movments to prevent sience, but those are more of independent occasions and usually extreme christian movments have remained minor players…

It hardly isolated and independent. I won’t consider the Inquisition an isolated incident.

The fear is so widespread that intellectuals like Galileo are afraid to speak or publish their works in fear of being branded as a witch or heretic. Under the Church that time, the fear of free speech is even worst than a Communist country, and the punishments even more grievious (burning alive in the stake after being tortured in the rack vs. the gulag).

The religious playfield in europe has constantly changed, as thougth remaining nominally same christian by heritage, the philoshophyes and views towards power have constantly changed in terms of two catholic churches but more oftenly in multible of protestant movments. Those areas of europe, stalling whit puritan catholism like Iberian penisula and eastern slavics (orthodoxs are greeak-catholics so I like to drawn the term little bit out of its contest and use it as term for the orginal christian churches) werent exactly most potent players in field of innovations.

yes, but after 16th century, there begun real religious hurricane in europe as protestant movments rose and died and slowly begun way to the new enlighment-philoshophyes begun to rise and devote sciences evolution, approximately same time as China become stagnate…

I would consider it more like the 17th Century. Even at the 16th Century, the Chinese could still deal with the Europeans, like the way Koxinga took the Dutch out of Taiwan. Rationalism in the 17th century led to revolutionary ideas like the Republic and began to tear down the three main instruments of repressive power in Europe, being first the Monarchies, second the Church, and third, the feudal nobilities.

propaply, but then again, whitout generalization, we would have to determ the same thing to each cultural phase of china, why did it rose and what made others more viable.

In China the same three elements, the monarchy (absolute rule of the Emperor), the religion (the massive influence of the Confucianists), and feudal nobilities. Like in Europe, all three work to support and strengthen each other and their power bases.

I must add that feudalism itself is very detrimental to progress. One of the real advantages of the Americas had been that it started with a clean slate, and thus, you don’t have feudalism. The closest thing to feudalism in the US are the cotton plantations owning slaves, but the Civil War took care of that.

Once you have land reform, that set the next stage of progress which is to lead into industrial revolution. Japan’s early modernization is characterized by breaking the feudal power of the daimyo and the samurai class; Taiwan’s economic miracle was sparked by a dazzling land reform campaign by using US aid money to buy all the lands from the landowners and gave the lands to the farmers. The landowners, having plenty of capital from said deals, began to invest in factories.

In many other countries, breaking up feudalism is done in a much more bloodier way, like the French beheading their nobility during their Revolution with the Guilottine, while Communists in Russia and China executed the land owners. If you are rich, you’re dead. Wars also took their share of the feudal barons.

Yes, but when the authoritanity continues for centuryes and becomes ultimate fundamental and that power holders remain in power for long time…

In China, these dynasties could last for hundreds of years. Such as the Qing which lasted from the 16th Century all the way to the dawn of the 20th Century.

off course dynamic and short lived tyrranies can speed up innovative, as does propaply all changes of powerstructure that benefits those minds whit new and fresh idea to become power. In Hitlers reing and in many other like the idea of Europes devolpment comes into microscope; You need innovatives to gain supermacy from your immediate threads, thus achieving a power enough to colonize foreing and alien cultures…after this is acjhieved, fresh ideas and innovative becomes more of a thread to ones power, not nesseserity…

The point remaining, Hitler was an exception but he did speed up progress. Earlier than that, we could say Napoleon.

In China’s case it was the Qin Shi Huang Di, the first Emperor of the unified China (assuming the Shang and the Chou are no means unified). He was a ruthless tyrant but an innovator, starting grandoise projects like the Great Wall, and his attempt to unify all the different languages and dialects into a common language, and his attempt to rationalize the written language. But then he was pretty extreme in his methods, like burning books and burying scholars alive. His dynasty did not last long after his death; generals rebelled and ended his bloodline forever.

Of course, you know him as the guy with the Terra Cotta army.

Education, i think is straighlty relevant from the innovate athmosphere of the domain. In US and in general west, I can see glooming sings of stagnation and decay, thougth not so immediate yet, but still glooming. Wery threathening are the news from US were some masterminds are working effectively against evolution theory and along whit it against all science in order to reinstall their Christian ideas of world creation par whit bible’s writings.

Some of the Bible people, Jehovah’s Witnesses for example, believed that the universe is less than 10,000 years old. Dinosaur fossils must be the work of the Devil.

I do believe that the future of a nation is determined right in the classroom.

Or in other words go back hundrres of years in terms of civilication. When any empire beguns to fight against devolpment and progress of human evolution, they are going wrong, Thougth Im not saying that US is condescend yet that level, but there is fear of that. (So Hats of to all Americans fighting against religious-rigthwingers)

But you got point there, thougth I migth look more into the future prospects of capitalism and can Asia become world power whit old clothes or do it need a changes…

Its current technological supremacy is for the US to lose. The US has already lost vital leads in automobile technology, in many areas of electronics, and is now only in parity along many areas. Even in commercial aviation this is clearly under assault.

For me, the right wing and the Bush administration, particularly right at the very top, is the same reflection of the Ming Emperor (not Zhu Di, the guy who commissioned Zheng He’s voyages; the next guy that replaced him after he died) and his Confucian cronies.

The first similarity is being way out of touch with the rest of the world and living in illusion about their supremacy being forever, while the rot is eating at the foundation. It is amazing to think that the right wing still thinks the US being ahead in areas where they actually are not.

The second is being involved in military campaigns that drained the money away (the Ming fighting the Mongols, fighting in Korea against the Japanese, fighting in Vietnam and so on).

The third similarity is benig surrounded by a certain faction of people who reinforces that isolation and illusions, who promulgates a “we are not accountable to the world” philosophy, while at the same time, trying to put down a faction who promotes diplomatic engagement as a way to deal with problems.

The fourth is the question of religion over science. An important issue is stem cell research, which is fundamental breakthrough in medical science and because of “ethical” issues, facing barriers put up by the Bush government

Yes Mods, I would certainly like to know why.

Fine , do what it takes to win, but how does Olympic medals translate into better Pilots ?
The Olympic theory was brought in by an idiot whom , instead of questioning the person who made the ” PLAAF has low flight hours” statement to prove it using facts and figures, decided to bring in an insane twist to the argument.

Nope, I know what it takes to make Olympic winners, and you need to allocate precious (for some) resources for the same. If your (favourite) nation thinks the international stature it gets ,is worth it then fine, it’s their choice. But please do not link it with pilot training

It does show that if a country is serious in attaining the goal, they are quite serious about it. Not to mention there is an thinner line between sports training and military training in a communist country.

Multiples are something that are covered in a couple of years(if you have noticed) with India’s fast consumption growth figures .

Certain multiples are not covered in a matter of years, since you’re obviously looking at only one aspect and could not mention the rest.

And why would we need such high unproductive reserves sitting in our banks doing nothing ? We don’t have to keep our currency pegged artificially low for one. What’s Germany’s reserves ? Japan’s ?

Why don’t you address that directly? That’s only one aspect, and there are others.

Why do you have lots of reserves? Because the influx of money is so much faster than how you can spend it. The same happens with Japan which is just ahead at 900 billion. And both countries are already putting excess dollars into US Treasure Bonds and infrastructure projects.

Ah well, the third cousin of my uncle’s nephew’s brother in law is in the Air Force so I have inside connections.

Nice, But how many Chinese Flanker Pilots have you spoken to ?
There’s a pic around somewhere of GeorgeJ sticking his nose into unnecessary places

That mention of mine is for sarcasm. It means how many times I’ve heard people claim they got connections.

BTW, if I really have connections I won’t put risk anyone by mentioning it online.

No no, see, they’re denying that they have plans to buy and rebuild a carrier. They can say that truthfully and with a completely straight face. Why? They already bought the thing 😀

They also bought two other carriers and turned them into theme parks.

Wrong. Every country which has a superb sports infrastructure is represented on the charts, including the only third worlder in the top ten list.The second Third worlder , Cuba , comes in at number 11.

If all you think is that you need infrastructure is all it takes, then I guess you have a whiner’s loser argument. If you got to win, you do what it takes.

Yes China is ahead of India in Economics and has completly routed
India :rolleyes: Because you have a lead of a couple of years ? So in the 5000 year history of India and China , the Chinese currently have a lead of a few years. What was the Chinese consumption figures a couple of years back ? :rolleyes:

In social and economic metrics, China is ahead of India not in increments, but in multiples. That is something you can get basic economic and social data, such as the CIA Fact Book, the World Bank, and various business and economic journals. Like for example, when do you expect for India, who now has over 100 billion in foreign reserves, to match China’s 800 billion plus in reserves, growing at a rate of 100 billion annually? Not counting Hong Kong SAR which adds another 110-120 billiion. That’s not something you can overcome in a few years.

Difference is the Indians are the richest immigrants in the US . White Collar H1B visa excuse or not.

(Those jobs are going to India anyways 😀 )

I see many immigrants generally doing well in the US. By the way, do you happen to be an Indian immigrant tycoon? if not, why are you hiding in their coattails? What is there to be so proud about your “richest” when you have hundreds of millions of the same countrymen wallowing in destitute poverty back home.

yes but its still a sosial-psycholocial phenemmenon. I didnt mean that it wouldnt have deep impact on individual life o its believers, but in the end it can be anylyzed and studyed just like any other religion, and basicly its (in that level) par with all other religions. In west, or europe, one have to remember that the antiqic ethics and philosophyes worked whit pair along the chiristianity and the culture mixed up whit natural believers of northern parts of the continent as the christianity spreaded.

But to the issue, You say it yourself, Confusiaism leads to authorithanity more potentially than lets say average religions. In christianity, the most important thesis is that ‘give the emperator what is his and give god, what is his’ thus provding the ‘material’ reing free hands.

You think Christianity helped?

Christians burned down the library of Alexandria, and with it, much of the knowledge…and science…of the Ancient World. That threw back the world by centuries.

Let us not forget how they treated innovators, free thinkers.

—Stretched in the rack
—forced into the Iron Maiden
—Burned at the stake

Europe only began to really progress when secularism started to sweep in Europe. Even in the 16th Century, the Europeans didn’t have techs any better than the Chinese.

But back to china…. If we consider chinese geography we can quicly drawn conclusion that its rather wide area of easy communication routes, by those big rivers that have also been the craddle of chinese civilisation. Easy access is also akey factore to create united realm more easyer than in Europe, where difficoult mountains cuts most natural trade routes and multible of penisulas and near by islands allows small realms to born and prosper whit natural defenses, thus making it extremely hard and effortfull task to create empires. Small kindoms, usually backed whit totally diferent ethnical back-ground, thanks to migration of peoples, had change to devolp each into similar levels than neighbours and thougth some migth win other, some other migth win you.

You have to read early Chinese history from the protohistory and the different cultures that originated right to the Warring States period to fully understand what happened.

We allready have made it clear that europes dominance over others was first hand, a direct result of europes superior technology, expecially wartechnology. In china otherhand the athmosphere led into opposite direction whit aging empire, whit cultural life favouring authoricracy and singleman rule, whit no immediate thread led onto stagnation as the empire was more vounerable to single mad mans decissions, ones that no european leader had afford to make or face anxision. There are no direct evidence of this, but if thinking general level its quite propaple

Yes.

But always remember, there is a vital exception that authoritarian rule does not create technological progress. In fact, we saw extremely rapid progress in that one exception. That was Adolf Hitler.

yes but twisting the words of some subjective perspective like the habitants of that age had, hardly makes one empire into world power. In This thread im trying to find reason why is the European based world a first true global dominator. There is no reason to twist words to confuse the issue.

I would say that if they were able to dominate there hemisphere, culturally, politically and economically, they are a world power in their right.

So perhaps we can now discuss wheter Asia and/or China has true change to become the next power, and what the future global power hegemony can achieve in terms of human devolpment, whats next, a true period of peace? Sosial revolution lead by asian power, Or has the US led world change to survive as a thousand year emperium???

Conditions are very ripe that the 21st Century would go to Asia, thanks to the interrelated dynamics between China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, which will spread to the other Asian nations. There is the factor of Russia and India too.

But the reason I say so is because of one factor. Education. The Asians are doing better in math and science, followed by Europe and the Americans trailing behind. In fact more and more the innovators in America are in fact, immigrants. If you want to pooh pooh the value of mathematics and science in our quest to develop the next generation of scientists, engineers, and technicians, go right ahead. Right now, China graduates five times more engineers than the US and rules in programming competitions (IBM listed a Shanghai university as tops in programming).

While in the US, we are producing nothing but lawyers, fast food workers, liberal arts graduates, and various other litigants. At the rate we are losing manufacturing ability, someday we won’t even know how to make a sock.

Forget about wars in Iraq, or super expensive military projects. If the US wants to secure its dominance in the next century—put the effort on the schools.