Putin as credible source on combat aviation?! Ok, LOL.

yup. much more creidble than any one else. and his statement was backed years later by another airforce head.

How these two are related to PAK FA?!

materials are blamed for reducing topspeed. where there is no such thing.

I find it kind of amusing that some have such a hard time accepting the possibility that the PAK FA’s max speed will be ~mach 2.

Look at other recent designs, whether Eurofighter, Gripen, Rafale, F-22, F-35, or Super Hornet… not one of these designs claims a top speed above mach 2, and it certainly isn’t because the design teams couldn’t have produced such a design if it had been specified. (every single one of these designs is replacing fighters that at least on paper were faster)

Regardless of their theoretical top speed, 3rd and 4th generation fighters didn’t operate above (or generally even near) mach 2. At the same time producing a mach 2+ fighter required significant design trade-offs.

If indeed the PAK FA has a top speed of mach 2 it would be perfectly consistent with the decisions made by essentially every other design team since the early 1980s.

Did MIG lowered the topspeed of MIG-35 when it create this raised huge cockpit and change the fuselage to aluminium-lithium.
even the heavier MIG-29K is rated at Mach 2. only fighters that are areodynamcially and materially deficient have limitations.

MIG-29K topspeed is 2200km/hr and 58000 feet celiing. T-50 is Mach 3+ and closer to 80k ceiling class fighter.
http://www.migavia.ru/index.php/en/production/new-unified-family-of-the-fighters/mig-29k-mig-29kub

Why? The decision was taken that year to relax a minor part of the specification, and the engineering team would presumably have followed the revised guideline. Is there any serious evidence that the decision had been secretly reversed? Had this happened, I hate to imagine the hiatus this would have imposed on the development programme.

Material and manufacturing technology has improved alot in 12 years . material cannot be excuse for Limit topspeed and no one should put that much faith on public statements. 5G fighter is always about element of surprise.

Russia is already using a large number of UAVs for reconnaissance, target designation and damage assessment. I think RuMoD mentioned that they were using at least 70 drones every day to monitor the situation in Syria. This is the most important thing UAVs bring to the table. UCAVs would be useful in some ways with that high endurance, but they are also slow and carry a light payload. I fail to see how those would transform anything

I havent seen bunker busting and thermoboric bombs in UCAV in size that can make a difference. smaller individual targets attack chopper with 30mm cannon and rockets more efficient. they dont need large runways.
Plus you will always need big radars and pods of fighters for self protection. plus UCAV are not reliable for high tempo operations where load and reload several times a day for fast strikes. do UCAV steep dive for attack?. Fighters have much bigger payloads they dont need so much sorties.
UCAV is more hinderance than transform anything in current form.

What will be the position of the US vis a vis France? Which one is more likely to go eye-to-eye with China? Which is one is running FoN patrols in the SCS? Which one has a ‘Pivot to Asia’ as the driving policy of the military-economic-political strategy? What is real objective behind the trilateral & quadrilateral naval exercises involving the US, India, Japan, Australia in the Indian Ocean?

This Pivot to Asia is complete BS. US will continue to receive the largest Chinese real estate investment, it will continue welcome largest number of Chinese students. US companies will continue to employee Chinese, there will be enormous trade deficits as Americans love Apple products. Just ask Apple CEO. France does not have tight relationship with China. infact Chinese depends on French more than French depend on Chinese. Turbomeca is French. and French not building too many phone sets, laptops and batteries in China.

When the chips are down and India urgently needs 100 AShMs and 1000 PGMs delivered quickly and quietly (or publicly, for that matter), which state is more likely (and able) to respond in say… 2025?

You will need to get in line to recieve the bombs depend on the interests at the time for your puny 36 aircraft fighter fleet.
Just like Turks/Israeli/Arabs have to wait there turn after buying 3000 US made fighters/helicopters. The flow of strikes will be centrally controlled.

Using Egypt, UAE, or whoever else you have in mind, as a datum, is a fundamental flawed approach that ignores the strategic equations in play in Asia. ‘Who can tell how relations will evolve’.. well there are plenty of cues available if look hard enough. And in any case, ‘nobody knows the future’ doesn’t help make the case for the Rafale. After all, you can’t say for certain that ‘strings’ won’t emerge in the future from China via France, can you?

Egypt, UAE are far more important than India.

This sounds like wishful thinking, if not pure fantasy.

Even if we go back to the MiG-21, around 11,500 were built in 25 years – an average of less than 500 a year.

The production rates for more modern types are much smaller.

Around 1,600 MiG-29 have been built in 35 years – an average of around 50 a year.

Around 800 Su-27 have been built in 33 years – an average of around 25 a year.

India and China built up to 530 Flankers from Russian engines and parts. 800 number is too low for Flanker. My conservative estimate is upto 150 Flanker class fighters can be built per in Russia at maximum production.
More important than fighter production is bomb and missile production for saturated standoff strikes.

You can look at my post history about Modi. Modi cannot make India Military/Industrial power. infact he will make it more dependent on imported components by signing with every one and at the techical labor will not be properly trained to master full cycle industries.
profile of FDI.

http://profit.ndtv.com/news/budget/article-fdi-into-india-rises-40-in-april-december-1282152
Among the sectors, the computer hardware and software segment attracted the highest FDI of $5.30 billion during the period under review, followed by the services sector ($4.25 billion) and the trading business ($2.71 billion).