No no no you get me wrong. 😉

I’m not looking for news posts about what will happen or who says what. I’m just asking for the latest pics as they come along. Surely, with this accelerated program there will be new pics to see, if not now, very soon.

Further, it would be exciting to see the all round panoramic new glass cockpit and the radar that is being taken care of. With all this acceleration in the program and rapid large scale funding, exciting times are soon to come and we must be prepared for this blitzkreig of pictures that is about to follow.

And don’t be so paranoid. I’m not Pakistani and have absolutely nothing to be proud of the FC-1. Lets not even bring that plane to this discussion as its really about what matters – The Light Combat Aircraft, also variously known by the code name of LCA. 🙂

I hope for their own sake they do consider the FC-1; the crappy F-5 copy can only do so much. I know its never going to happen but I’d love to see the FC-1 in Brazil, production line and all.

Point is they didn’t – the cold war was just that – cold.

PLA-MKII’s Opinion:

F-22 is a gamble; if it can remain undetectable in the next two decades it was worth every penny. If it can’t then US air superiority will for the first time in a long time become contentious.

Wrong. Your fighter should rech high subsonic speeds. With a max cruise of M0.9 your are happy. Doesn’t hit for the Su-25. Stick to small and less complex aircraft. In a Su-25 you always carry the “NATO-Stinger hit my tail” bonus around.

And Chrom: If your enemy has low-level, BVR, supersonic fighters, than you have a problem. But if he hasn’t, you don’t need to waste money on that.

You really need to update your knowledge about fighter performance. You will be surprised how small and limited the mission envelope of a light supersonic aircraft is. The feature supersonic adds maintenance (esp. engine), training time, ground facilities and so and so on.

Depends on the parameters. For instance what light supersonic aircraft? An F-16 can be considered as such and can pull off a lot of missions. Further how do you define a “limited mission envelope”? A MiG-21 is good enough if you are intercepting Mirage IIIs or F-4s headed for your base. Chasing airliners? depends on how large your country is: Bangladesh for instance has successfully used its F-7s for that purpose. On the other hand, Brazil would have trouble doing the same because of the sheer size of the country.

Many many other factors have to be taken into account. Simplification is good but does poorly when combined with a know it all attitude. 😉

Off topic but I’d love to see an Su-27 version with large delta wings, high flying, fast moving beast of prey

The future of third world air forces seem so bleak. Seems there are three paths that are being taken – give up on your air force and go for a sam based defense, buy a very few stripped down modern planes or buy second hand old junk, preferably the type you have already been flying..

So does that mean that they’re using some composite materials?

I have no idea buddy. I was asking something similar. Basically three things come to my lay man mind:

1) Composites

2) WS-13 engines

3) Performance and weight enhancements from the DSI intakes.

Cheers