T-50-4 draws near, I can feel it in the air.

I just happened to see this:
http://russianplanes.net/images/to89000/088728.jpg

The captions said it was shot this year, at Kubinka. Is this some kind of graveyard-ish part of the base? I haven’t seen parked 23’s in ages.

Therefore I think that Jö Asakura is right in saying Sukhoï won’t need to add a blocker or any other device, the complexity of the intakes and their lips being sufficient to keep radar signature low enough (sorry for the “no s-duct, no stealth” chorus).

The stealth-treated flexible diffuser is probably not the only thing keeping the intake/engine radar return low, the real ace up their sleeves being the very material that the compressor face is made of (what was it, a boron-magnesium-polycrystalline carbon nanofiber matrix composite?).

I see, so it’s the KNS. 😀 So I guess KnAAPO just mix KNS and 50-1 up there, or what? At any rate, the bay doors are partially open in that picture whatever the reason might be.

@ Dr. Snufflebug, I think it’s KNS. Do you have any pics of the 1.44’s w/bays? I’ve never seen them. Thanks.

Nobody outside of Mikoyan has as far as I know. Can’t find the source at the moment but I am positive that I read about the main bay being covered by a static panel, bolted shut to the airframe. They never proceeded with fitting it with the intended doors, even though the bay itself was in fact there.

The S-37 had a functional bay though, though never fitted with any sort of missile racks or similar.

We saw them open ? when ?

I’m not sure but I think he meant he’s content with what flateric said (expect no stunning photos) if at least a photo of them opened in-flight shows up, regardless of quality.

FYI they are (slightly) opened here:

Not sure why, could be a general actuator test. At any rate, that’s the 51 and this would imply that they, like the S-37/Su-47, have fully functional bays (sans launchers/racks) and that they had them even from the very beginning (unlike the MiG 1.44, where the doors were bolted shut).

4. russia need kzakhistan to send rockets into space now and no longer have money to do many space mission like china. russian space industry has went back in time.

This is not the right forum for this, but I wonder how you could possibly have arrived at this conclusion?

Russia has four (soon five) active spaceports, out of which ONE is in Kazakhstan and leased by Russia:

Add to that a bunch of international companies (with a significant Russian portion) that carry out all kinds of orbital satellite launches elsewhere, be it from mobile ICBM vehicles or from Sea Launch platforms… And nowadays Russian rockets are being launched at Kourou in French Guyana, too. Oh, need I mention that the French/ESA insisted on having the Soyuz there?

There was a total of 84 orbital launches in 2011, 35 of these were launched by Russia. China comes in a not-so-close second with 19 that same year, with USA clocking in at 18. The remaining ones were split between ESA, JAXA, ISRO and Iran.

So no, Russia has absolutely no problem sending spacecraft into orbit, with or without Kazakhstan. The aforementioned Plesetsk spaceport has been used since 1966, even. But the current infrastructure at Baikonur has been maintained by Russia for ages (it has very little to do with Kazakhstan, really), it’s an excellent spaceport and Russia has no intention of leaving it before 2050 (although Vostochny will take over some previously Baikonur-based operations). No problem there.

Hand the kazakhs a bunch of dough, stay in control of the largest spaceport in the world (that you built, to begin with). What’s the problem? 🙂

I saw that Real Sports on HBO where all of Russia’s star hockey players were killed from badly made crashing Russian airliners so no one wants to ride in them.

Lokomotiv Yaroslavl is a club team, not a national team. Sure, there were some stars there, but faaaaaaaar from “all of Russias star hockey players”.

The Yak-42 that crashed did so after striking a mast. A plane striking something will be in trouble regardless of model/origin. The reason for it striking the mast was pilot error and the airline operating the aircraft was found to be guilty of severe mismanagement and their licenses were retracted. The plane itself was not at fault.

I have flown on Russian-made airliners and they were excellent. Properly managed, they aren’t more accident prone than others. The main reasons for the poor safety record of some types are pretty much these:

The combination of these really yanked up the accident statistics. And apart from these we have the usual set of things unrelated to the type at hand, like CFIT accidents and so on, although unfit pilots obviously contribute to that as well.

For some types, the accident record also includes terrorist attacks, being shot down by SAMs, being flown by the VVS in conditions that a civilian airliner never has to go through etc.

If you look at Western airliners being subject to similar factors, the records are in fact similar as well. It is however rare to see them being operated in conditions like those, because of things like higher initial acquisition prices, embargoes against many nations and so on.

And the other way around, if you look at Soviet/Russian airliners operated by properly managed airlines like classic Soviet Aeroflot and the modern Russian one (2000s and on, they got knee deep in the s**t after the collapse of the USSR too) the statistics for Russian made aircraft look far better.

Just try to see the full picture.