As far as i can make out , there were (maby) 3 recognizable fighter-bomber variants of the Mig-17 in service in USSR.

First one is the Mig-17AS equipped with the AS-21 weapons system , several batches of them were built starting in 1955( i think airwar.ru says 170 in all if my memory serves me right). Recognizable by( when fitted) the pylon situated INBOARD of the drop tank attachment between it and the landing gear leg (dont confuse it with LIM-6 or SI-19 and the likes pylon position) . This pylon has a vertical leading edge. I have a very fuzzy screenshot of one of these planes , so better here’s a link for a wonderful series on russian aircraft on youtube ( this is part 3/5 of this particular series), i have a very bad connection right now so i cant see this vid again to see exactly where this Mig-17AS footage is , but i think is in the second half …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrQDtuN8wo0&feature=related

Second is the fighter-bomber CONVERSION , which i think started in 1958-59 , go to the airwar.ru article on Mig-17AS ,the pic with number 15 is such a conversion , and also if you know about the Dillingen incident , that seems to be such a fighter-bomber Mig-17 conversion aswell. The extra pylon ( again when fitted ) inboard of the drop tanks attachment now has a raked leading edge.( you can also see couple of proper AS pics there )
http://www.airwar.ru/enc/fighter/mig17ib.html

Third one ,( now its getting interesting!) aparently the idea of it started in 1969 probably specifically for S-24 carriage, and tests were carried in 1972-73 i think. We all know the pics of Mig-17s from DOSAAF with a pylon OUTBOARD of the drop tanks , which looks like a special fairing where a Mig-21 style pylon was atached ( BDZ-60-21UM). Well i think that’s the one. It’s labeled Mig-17AS in various places i saw , but is it ?
Second half of the article:
http://www.airwar.ru/weapon/anur/s24.html
Some pics here
http://www.radikal.ru/USERS/tg-mig/suac-ljambir-?pg=4

Nopw , speaking of inboard pylons , i know for sure at least one romanian Mig-17 converted with pylons mounted in ( it seems) the same position as on LIM-6 , but the arangement looks like the russian 1972-73 type conversion!!! ( Nr.448 , can’t find pics of it on net yet , but i definitely have it in one of my books …)

All this info i tried to put head to head from various sources , internet, OKB Mikoyan book ( and several other others books too), i hope i didnt made errors ( or at least not many of them! ) if someone else is more knowledgeable on this matter please feel free to correct me…

Ex-CIA chief: Strike on Iran seems more likely now

A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.

Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, says that during his tenure a strike was “way down the list” of options. But he tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that such action now “seems inexorable.”

He predicts Iran will build its program to the point where it’s just below having an actual weapon. Hayden says that would be as destabilizing to the region as the real thing.
Full Story

Now what , they want another war ? oh for gods sake …:confused:

I think becasue they’re newly built and unpainted yet ( and they can even be new J-10Bs!:))

Holly cow look a this …60 page PAK-FA book by A. Fomin!:eek:
http://take-off.ru/main/45/481

Does anyone know how can i get on Aeromedia’s website please?:confused:

JP Vieira ,go from this page on …

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=98990&page=34

Anyway ,any news about possible subsequent test flights after june 17? Its been two weeks plus again with no word … Thanks.:)

Well maby these figures are know to some of you , but somewhat new for me . In the august AFM( or is it CA ? gee i gotta check) article on F-22, the important bits that jumped in my eyes are :

APG-77 det.range for a fighter size targer is 180+nm( about or over 330km+), it doesnt say how big is that fighter target tho , is it 1, 3 or 5m2…

ALR-94 picks up a radar emission at 250nm . At 100+ nm the think can feed data to the radar so that APG-77 can use a very sharp ( narrow? ) beam to locate the target. I wonder if this is the infamous LPI ?

The biggest eyebrow raiser for me was that in 2004 aparently a Raptor experienced inadvertent heavy G force , which i quote ” exceeded the 7.3G exploitation limit” , which caused the aircraft to be severely stressed and to be grounded forever. So Raptor is rated only for 7.3G ???

Very interesting read. ( even if i personally i’m full up to my neck of reading page after page and number after number filled with every bloody american airplane , unit, whatever …Only buy them for the trickle of international stuff they somethimes write about)

Rare shot of Su-20s during the bush war…
The UM-3K would seem to indicate late 1980s (I thought Su-20s were WFU by then). :confused:
Any educated guesses on serials? 😀

More precissely, the single seaters look like Su-22 Fitter-F, like those Peru and Lybia have( judging by the fin root configuration and the undernose fairing). As for the two-seater , its hard to identify the subversion from only the front , but if anything ,imo my bets would be on a contemporary ( to the Su-22s) Su-22U trainer …but it can be easily a later version …

My 2 cents…:)

IIRC Raptor’s empty weight during early development stage was like 15 tons. Let’s wait and see how much will the T-50 weight when it’s ready to be introduced.

You are reffering to YF-22 , right ? well that aircraft wasnt even closely representative for the F-22A today( apart for the general concept , shape , arangement etc )…I find unusually hard to find some specs for YF-22, but in one place is stated about 15,4t empty …(and about 16,8t for YF-23 )

It seem the general consensus is T-50-1 is much closer to the eventual configuration of the mature aircraft than the YF-22 was compared to F-22…