In the Vietnam war, the F-4 carried 4 long range missiles, 4 VR missiles and NO cannon.
the pilots found themselves in quite a predicament when their missiles hit nothing and they ran out of ammo having not even cannons to defend themselves.
Agree, it would be like the MiG-29 all over again – an aircraft that meets performance requirements which should be achievable with a smaller, cheaper design. The T-50 has either a payload that is too small or an airframe that is too large – no matter what your opinion on the required number of missiles per fighter is, its efficiency is pretty poor either way.
The RuAF considers 4+2 AAMs to be sufficient? Fair enough, but then why build the T-50 that big – all it does is to increase the price tag and ensure that you still CAN’T actually buy a larger fleet to compensate for the smaller payload. Also, why add those ugly, draggy, radar-reflective conformal bays if you have, in principle, plenty of room to carry all 6 missiles inside the main weapons bays? It would be an uncharacteristically inelegant solution by Sukhoi standards.
Take into account the fact that to fulfil its mission of air superiority, a pair of F-15s has in its disposal a combined 12 MRAAMs and 4 SRAAMs
similarly to complete its mission a pair of T-50s has in its disposal 8 MRAAMs and 4 SRAAMs.
I am not even putting the two types in the same area or at the same time.
I am examining ability to perform mission in relation to payload.
If you want to make things harder, you could consider the T-50 going up against VLO targets which makes the lethality of the missiles deteriorate.
You have to remember than in terms of actually detecting a VLO target an F-15 with an AESA radar and a T-50 stand close. So the ability to direct a missile to a target is similar if not equivalent.
can you follow ?
PAK FA pilots drives all the way to Eastern Siberia, fires a few missiles at an intruding enemy stealth UAVs and come back to reload.:eek:
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