Hm, another instance of a non-existing (or barely) Chinese firm claiming firm orders, like with all the Antonov stories or the huge domestic airliner orders?

Always found that tendency weird.

Weird non-existent or “semi”-existent Chinese firms apparently signing huge contracts here and there is a very interesting phenomenon, yeah. As are all the times they’ve landed a deal or signed a contract for one thing but wound up doing something completely different in the end (Varyag etc, or all the shell pseudo-private companies set up in Australia etcetera for the sole purpose of siphoning out technology.) You have hundreds of these things in the military sphere, but it’s rampant elsewhere as well, and it’s not always about tech either.

Here in Scandinavia it’s the ten-year anniversary right now of a gigantic Chinese scam of the same kind, that fell upon a smallish city in Sweden of all effing places. Kinda hilarious, to be honest. Use Google translate:
http://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/smaland/fanerdun-1

It didn’t work out because the Chinese scam was uncovered before any major money were spent, but it sure made the naive local officials look bad for having bought it hook, line and sinker.

these are lies

Z-10 is Chinese. Kamov helicopters have two rotors and are large. not their style

Kamov’s specialty has always been the co-axial rotors, yes, but they have designed and built helicopters with conventional and tandem rotor configurations as well, in all imaginable sizes. The contemporary Ka-62 is an example as good as any.

The Z-10 is a straight Kamov “generic AH” design that was projected, drawn up etc. in Russia as the pr. 941 attack helicopter, then it was sold to China:
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-built-chinese-z10-helicopter-2013-3?r=US&IR=T&IR=T
http://aviationweek.com/blog/chinese-attack-helicopters-secret-russian-roots
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/china-calling-top-10-chinese-joint-aircraft-projects-414513/

You’re welcome.

Chinese flankers are legal that is why Russia doesn’t complain. Even if they are illegal, what can Russia do? they cannot stop it.

But even if they cannot stop it, that doesn’t constitute any sort of high ground for you and your arguments, now does it?

On topic: the Lavi story is very interesting indeed. I had only the haziest knowledge of this aircraft before and basically just thought it was an F-16 with retrofitted canards and that’s it. Thanks OP.

They just look like bunch of numbers to me.

Which of these version will have full LO features ?

A Su-33 with LO features, now wouldn’t that be something… 😉

Tu-160s do not carry conventional bombs.. They are conceptually close to the original B-1A..

If I’m not entirely mistaken, the revolving missile launchers can be removed and replaced with straight bomb racks, that was in its specs to begin with. I don’t know if they have ever even trialled that setup though.

…

Big question…….why do the Ukrainians not just release the radar surveillance data? What do they have to hide by not releasing the untampered-with radar data?

I don’t think they’ve been withholding data because it would implicate them as direct culprits in this somehow (be it that ludicrous fighter jet story or the “covering behind civilian jets” story), I think they’re withholding it because it would show they were carrying out air strikes all over the place and that would eventually have some ramifications for them.

I mean, it would show that a proper aerial campaign was going on at the very same time, with all that would entail in terms of the aerial bombardment of cities in the region, in terms of prompting the rebels to pursue ever more potent AA assets, in terms of the situation in the Eastern Ukrainian sky over those fateful days in July and so on.

In short, I believe they’re withholding this data in order to downplay the severity of the war as it were, because if it all would be out there they might find it difficult to motivate having kept the airspace open to civilian flights and you’d have people question the way the so-called “anti-terrorist operation” was carried out. That “absolutely no tangible threats above 30,000 feet” or whatever thing would get all muddy, too.

Please do note that I believe Russia’s ultimately responsible for the MH17 disaster, from a legal point of view, and they’re the ones who should admit they screwed up by sending a potent SAM system into this warzone… But still – it’s a god damn mess down there and I get the feeling that Ukraine’s really determined not to have anybody shed much light on how that “anti-terrorist operation” was conceived and carried out, because it would mess things up in terms of proportions, responses and so on. Any objective observer knows that it was handled badly by everyone involved, and that all sides helped escalate it way too far. Don’t expect to find such reflections presented “officially” just yet though, it’ll take another half a decade or so. As always.

OSA can only reach 5,000 m = c.16,500 ft.

9K33M3 Osa reaches ~42,000 ft at the very extreme of its envelope and it was introduced in the early 1980’s. The TELAR looked about the same but the missiles (that are hidden from plain view) changed massively over its service life. There’s no way one could “assume” that they’d have some super-early variety of missile in those launchers, given that Ukraine most probably inherited late versions of the missiles to begin with, but especially not when it was dead obvious that the rebels were beginning to receive substantial help from Russia by that point of the conflict.

I’m saying that Eastern Ukraine was a dangerous place to fly in, pretty much like Yemen is today where the rebels who essentially back the previous president managed to get captured S-75’s up and running on a few occasions. Not to mention the gear they were given by the Iranians. Scary stuff.

It sounds to me like they’re pretty much just releasing the same findings over and over again. It was obvious already back in 2014, and we’ve had like what, three-four reports now in the past two years from the various instances investigating this and they all say the same thing.

Gotta say Russia is absolutely terrible at handling mistakes they’ve made though, they prefer to muddy the waters, quietly give anyone responsible the boot and then pretend to be entirely oblivious to everything. That’s a recurring thing, unfortunately, you see it when they’ve messed up elsewhere as well. It’s a really crappy “culture” if you will, that doesn’t do them any favors.

Everybody makes mistakes and none of the events surrounding this or the civil war are particularly unique or difficult to understand per se (civil war, weapons, training and logistics support of different sides, lots of political posturing, big strategical issues, blah blah blah), but it doesn’t exactly generate a whole lot of sympathy when you just shove it under the rug like they consistently do.

I have to add one thing though, and that is that there have been several instances of lower-level command and authorities in Russia hiding or attempting to hide mess-ups from the bigger boys upstairs, a fact that has led to some massive lay-offs and reshuffles in several government bodies, military districts and branches in the past years. It might very well be that they are confused for real about what happened, or at least that they were at the time, and now they don’t quite know how to wiggle themselves out of this grand mess because it would highlight many more issues other than the original disaster itself, with ramifications they prefer to deal with in their own way and pace rather than having it all blowing up in their faces in an instant. Just a thought…

Regarding the airspace issues, I must mention that I vividly recall reading a well-made report by a western OSINT team that came out in June-ish 2014 that clearly stated that the rebel folks were among other things driving around with at least one captured Osa vehicle, see here:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/c2/d5/59/c2d559188aaf1374574afa4d3b1ef155.jpg

That one reliably takes down planes above 30,000 ft, and even though it probably hadn’t downed any Ukrainian aircraft at that stage, the mere indication of that (and the over-run SAM regiments) and the fact that some 13-14 planes and helicopters had been shot down in the months prior by various means should be reason enough to be wary. Not to mention the improbable but nevertheless real threat of strays of all kinds. I think several airlines took it upon themselves to re-draw their routes in light of that, well prior to the MH17 catastrophe, but I might be mistaken.

The Russian government should take responsibility for this major miscalculation, apologize and pay compensation. They should’ve done that a good while ago already. I hope they will, eventually.

edit: Found the report, it was done by ARES:
http://armamentresearch.com/Uploads/Research%20Report%20No.%203%20-%20Raising%20Red%20Flags.pdf

First dedicated SAM vehicles started showing up rebel ranks in early July. They show a Strela-10 and an Osa. By that point it was also clear that Russia was intent on supporting them with pretty much anything they’d need in terms of gear (up until that point they were mostly just looting armories and seizing gear in combat) to keep the Ukrainian Armed Forces at bay, something which later on (in August I believe) was extended to direct involvement by Russian troops in the clashes.

I think that the Russian government still denies being directly involved, or at the very least they attempt to downplay it, but none of that is exactly a secret. Not that it matters much though, and it’s not that relevant as far as the topic goes – that particular part is just like any other civil war, coups and counter-coups and so on and so forth. Foreign meddling galore… They really lack that CIA finesse though, that is for sure.

I had to check my calendar… No, it’s definitely 2016, not 2010. Odd.