Good. That is what they deserve for dealing with Russia in the first place! Russia makes a lot of money off of these two countries and they never seem to learn so good for Russia.

And if that wasn’t biased and anti-russian post…. Ignoring the long history of good deals for both sides is just amazing. I also support flex297 in his opinion that Rosoboronexport is playing games with MiG.

Not really, because the basic design is ~3 tons heavier compared to the F-15.
Even extra volume is not for free because it is part of the 9g structure.
So your claim does show, that you have learned nothing from the answers before.

And your claims does show that you cannot read Russian so you don’t have access to some very good info.

So, you tell me they designed the aircraft and – surprise – had extra volume left? Why did they make it so large in the first place?
Given that the engine was purpose-built (means the airframe scales the engine and not the other way round like the F-16,F-104 or F-4), they could easily have reduced the weight by using a single drop tanks, semi-recessing the larger missiles and arriving at lower weights.
But note that both designs (Su-27, MiG-29) of that time suffer from overweight, if pitched against similarly performing aircraft of the West. Reason is in my eyes not any inability of the involved designers, but (like with many Soviet-time designs) strange specifications.

Yes that is the case, and the reason is the blended wing/body design. The result came as surprise, because the second range requirement which was supposed to be achieved with drop tanks, can be done with internal fuel.
I attached page from a book that support my statement( in Russian, sorry).

But when combat is on the doorstep, the F-15 drops its tanks and suddenly comes out with less weight, less drag and better performance than the Suchoi 27, which has to carry its empty fuselage volume all the way through combat and back home.

Which is the only point against fighters like Su-27, that don’t carry drop tanks. Because from take-off to the moment Su-27 will close to the target, the performance will be better than F-15 with drop tanks. And i don’t know how you end up with your conclusion that F-15 without drop tanks will be superior to Su-27? Maybe the sole reason is your obsession with semi-recessed missiles?
And if i modify your statement a little: all fighters before Su-27 was not capable of operating at max range without drop tanks, and all modern stealth fighters are design to operate without ones.

Answer by the designers of all supersonic aircraft before and since anywhere in the world (except stealthy designs): the F-15.
Answer by the designers of the Su-35: the F-15.

So there is a petition from all designers of supersonic fighers that F-15 is superior?
Also there is one from Su-35 designers?

If a design should not use drop tanks, you need to design for volume from the beginning, with all resulting disadvantages (primarily weight, but also size).

And as it was said before, this is not the case for Su-27. The ammount of fuel that Su-27 carry is result from the blended wing/body design.

They give range for 1.5m2 target as 340 km and deployment time of less than 40 minutes. Yes, quite nice radar system.

Just because it has an average paint scheme it does not mean that the vessel is well maintained and that its crew is properly maintained

Maybe you need to re-read my post. Person that died was not from ship’s crew, but i guess in other navies sailors are superhuman and they cannot die from suffocation. And the photos are in enough resolution to be seen that the ship is well maintained.

Nice pics………….looks almost new! Personally, I would like to see more of the island and flight deck. Do you have anymore?

Here are few deck pictures. To see all go to: http://pilot.strizhi.info/photos/v/Gorshkov/?g2_page=1

Does anyone know why the Russian air force is so keen on single-pilot fighters?

And why they will need two-pilot fighter? If you look at the way USSR intended to use their fighters, both in PVO and VVS, you will see that they used to be guided to the target by ground GCI network. There are examples like Yak-25, Yak-28, Tu-128, MiG-31 and in small numbers Su-30, that two-seaters were used. But they all were interceptors with long or somewhat longe range. I don’t see a point of a two-seater MiG-21 or MiG-23. Even MiG-29 or Su-27 can do their job without second pilot.

Similar problems leads to similar solution. Even if the final aircraft somewhat looks like F-22, it’s more an interpretation than imitation.