More details(in English) on the L-39 modernization.
http://www.avirs.ua/Production/L_39A.html

The modernized cockpit.

The Ukrainians could have made a pretty penny on the Soviet aircraft overhaul/upgrade market but that opportunity has mostly passed.

But we are all dying to read yours and quadbike’s latest “expert” opinions and fantasies. :rolleyes:

JSR is optimistic but more or less correct…all you have to do is switch on your TV and put 2 and 2 together

I frankly don’t care whether you’re dying for anything.:rolleyes:

Or use common sense and past experience. JSR is suggesting that due to more units sold and more funding available Russian products will automatically leave all Western competitors obsolete and their producers bankrupt in a few years.

How many units are sold doesn’t determine the technical capability of a product. Else Russia’s own defence industry ought to have been wiped out in the 90s along with that of the entire CIS. The fact that hundreds of BARS and Irbis radars will be manufactured isn’t going to automatically elevate NIIR and NIIP’s products above those of Thales, BAE or Selex. They have decades of accumulated experience and knowledge base and are already working on next-gen technologies. The quantities produced may suffer from defence cuts, but the actual development of next-gen technology (and its availability on the export market) won’t stop.

See frigate programs like the FREMM, for instance. Numbers built are smaller than in the past but they remain on the cutting-edge and are sought after in the export market. Countries will continue to finance defence R & D even if they cut procurements.

And note that there is a considerable market that is either averse or reluctant to buy Russian products at all, where the likes of IAI, EADS, BAE etc. can always expect sales opportunities. Most of the Americas, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, Australia, much of the Middle East etc.

Probably a good idea.

True. I doubt any of us has any appetite for JSR’s constant unending predictions of how every defence industry in the world except that of great Mother Russia is doomed.:rolleyes:

10 years down the line he’ll probably be making the same ‘… will collapse in 10 years’ predictions.:D

Israel will fall behind just like Sweden auto industry. both in skilled manpower and money for new R&D. when you dont have giant pool of state money and technical people its far harder to fill up the technical gaps in broad spectrum of technologies. AESA is not hardware alone but software i dont think EU & Israel systems will approach Russia AESA systems.

see intel craig barrett example. when u bring a leader followers come after.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/firewall/2010/08/20/intels-mcafee-deal-a-national-security-nightmare/

Having had a head start of several years starting with all the European naval radars and Israeli AWACS and SAM radars it’s likely that the present capability of Israeli/European AESA exceeds that of Russia.

Of course, funding may change that in the near future. That’s something the Europeans are running out of and Russia has plenty of. Russian bureaus have been catching up rapidly in the last few years.

Given Turkey’s rapid defence modernization becoming more like them wouldn’t be bad at all.;)

I also wouldn’t mind if we dumped both the PAK-FA and MRTA(Wonder what the Russians would do to replace their An-12s then:D) as well as the price-inflated Mi-17 deal and went all Western/Asian.

A KFX-style partnership for a 5th gen fighter, join the Embraer C-390 programme for a medium transport(as it is it’s likely to get off the ground years before an MRTA prototype is built), the Fennec for a light helo and a HAL-Eurocopter partnership and licence-built Sikorsky S-92s(they already have an agreement with Tata to source home-built cabins) for medium helos.:cool:

Hopefully with China operationalizing both an F-35 tier AND a Raptor tier plane the MoD will finally approve restarting F/A-22 production using the stored production tooling.

All reports what I have read say that their warheads are still large when compared to other countries, and they haven’t really tested any weapon designs like other countries. How can they reach same level with other countries without testing anything?

http://bos.sagepub.com/content/68/4/96.full.pdf+html

It took Chinese at least 7 tests to make sure their miniaturized warheads (for JL-2, DF-31 and DF-21) work like they were designed to, and one of those tests (May 22, 1992) was around 1MT in yield.
http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/china_missile_1.pdf?_=1339023443

Mr. Vajpayee made a huge mistake in announcing a moratorium in nuclear testing after Pokhran. The Congress certainly won’t ever have the guts to test; they refused for over 20 years after Smiling Buddha and never even authorized its weaponisation.:mad:

And with the idiotically negotiated nuclear deal we can’t even do sub-critical tests to refine warhead designs!:(

The tugboat did not have to lend any help to the ship, it was there as procedure.

Also no one is offering it to India.

True. A new one will have to be built(providing employment for another troubled Russian shipyard) and it’ll cost a few hundred mil extra!:dev2: