What do you mean? what is M. O? I don’t think any one react when you said F-22, PAK-FA were designed for different missions. Only when you said F-22 can’t do what it was intended to do that they react

M.O. is the abbreviation of Modus Operandi i.e. in the case given the peculiar mission pattern in which a plane is designed to operate as its main mission.

The main mission of the F-22 was offensive air superiority, in other words staying not just over the battle zone like F-15 but in the same enemy territory to prevent their own air force to even reach it, for this reason it was designed with some peculiar RCS reduction features that no other 5gen fighters about to enter service, F-35 first, even tried to reach.
Now, for operate into such a mission one plane would be expected, almost on my part, to be located i don’t say in the immediate vicinity of but almost in the same continent in which such conflict would possibly erupt.
Actually, they are all in American territory so IMHO or they have been destined to another primary mission from the one they were initially tough for or they are such complicated and difficult to support that they cannot be send too far from mainland (frankly, this one seems me quite an absurd one but still much less than some other counter arguments I have heard there).

The thing that amaze me is that someone can felt outraged by such a statement: they are after all the result of a project started in the eighties and that has taken about twenty years from then to come into,fruition so a more realistic consideration of what stealth can give you in terms of self protection and mission parameter against greatly improved and above all fully VLO menace conscious AD systems have to be considered just in the order of things.

That obviously if we are in the idea that stealth is, like all other technologies, a mean to an end not an end in itself or, to repeat the sarcasm here, a gift send by God from the Heaven to confirm the superiority of American civilization, like some guys paradropped there directly from F-16.net seem me to believe…

There are different level of stealth, depending the requirement , there would be different designs that will be best suited for the requirement. F-35 , B-2 , X-47 , JASSM are all stealthy, but they do not have the same RCS because their requirements are different. Some need range and payload , some need maneuverability, some need to have low cost.If you want area to improve then you have to give up some other area. Is that clear ?. PAK-FA trade off some of its stealth for better kinematics, while F-35 trade off some of its kinematics for better stealth. There is no free lunch.

So, how it come that when I say the same things you say pointing , as an example, on the design difference between the F-22 and models actually in production, pointing out the different M.O. of all of them i’m being assaulted ? Or even worse when I actually made a post to advice the same person you criticize to calm down a little so not to waste time on some minimal difference on overall RCS, I receive a hundreds line long response by a stealth fanatic, pointing on every single bullon placement difference between PAK-FA and the almighty F-35 in order to reaffirm the Godsend gift of Stealth Superiority to the American race?

So, what you say is certainly true, just let’s apply it to both sites as no one part in this whole forum is bias-free.

So, you take that official line at face value, but on the other hand would insist that the US administration was actually seriously providing money and weapons to the rebel groups (rather than the more likely suspects like e.g. Qatar) for the purposes of bringing down the regime?

From what I’ve gathered, some officials argued for that early on, but the administration was not convinced so apart from some minor local initiatives and Pentagon-ran train and equip programs which practically went nowhere, nothing much happened and most of it was aimed against IS and Al Qaeda (e.g. like that minor group in Idlib which got taken over by Al-Qaeda/Nusra Front; it seems that these groups were not allowed to fight the regime which resulted in a small number of rebels joining).

The CIA programs ran through Jordanian intelligence and probably funded by Saudi might be a different story, though, but details on those are sketchy. I’d expect the Jordanian intelligence to be the key player there as they have a vested interest on what happens on the other side of their border and are no friends of the Baathist regime (similar to e.g. Pakistani ISI and the support for various Mujahideen groups and later Taliban). I’m just annoyed how complex situations get compressed to ‘Russia good’, ‘US created IS/Taliban/whatever’.

Back on topic, the SAA are making some serious progress against IS East of Aleppo and have opened a new axis today. Perhaps IS would have to shift enough forces from Al Bab to meet the new threat thus allowing the Turkish supported FSA groups to actually make some real progress in Al-Bab. I wonder if the SAA advance is in some way coordinated with the Turkish side or there is a sort of the race before the lines are established.

Forwhat I get from various sorces it seems that the agreement was to allow SAA or better the Tiger Forces (the best units regime have) to take Al Bab.
Turkey is scared Al Bab would be an hard nut to crack for the militia the support without a strong involvement of their own units, so stopped any further advance.
Obvioulsy nothing is set on stone, Regime seem to be more interested in taking Deir Hafer and finally reach Eufrates.

I red about Mattis initiative about a comparison betweenF-35 (what model?) and an “updated” F/A-18 but seeems me just a way to justify themselves with the voters and put pressure to LoMart than a serious thing.

Certainly, seeing the mess they have made with the Muslim ban i wonder if they are instead going for a second round there.

And if all his executive orders shown the same ignorance of basics principle of Jurisprudence like the one about refugees, that have thrashed three of them in one blow, poor american cadets!

This would be impossible.
The russian military has a stealth proving ground where radar calibration against aircraft is done. Also at the russian airforce proving ground it will come against su-35 and su-30sm radars, this will show up.
Also India is also covering this aspect and wants stealth as a priority also.

We had a discussion some pages ago about the India inputs to the whole program, certainly they would do just a portion of the actual work as the plane is already a mature one but certainly the money they put into the program would serve to adequate the PAK-FA/FGFA to their own requisites.
IMHO they were behind the decision to build the three additional prototypes (-10,-11 & -12) and above all to accelerate the objekt 30 development with the introduction of a initial capacity model.
This because their requisites and operational doctrine put an emphasis on long range patrols and confrontation with China in a maritime environment in which the plane would operate more on their own than in the case of russian ones.
While initially it was thought that this would lead to two different planes, now it will, with all probability, end in two customized version of the same plane or better a first batch responding to initial russian specifics and a second version largely common to the two powers.
What your opinion about this, just my wild guessing or something well founded?

KGB, having found your ‘murican ecquivalent doesn’t mean anyone there is interested in that sort of male reproductive organ measurement context about respective RCS.
This also because it is in direct contradiction with that other your polemical argument, IMHO much more well founded, of VLO absolutism i.e. if I understand correctly what you mean with it the shifting between stealth being a mean to an end into being an end in itself.
So why such an heated debate about what would probably be a RCS difference of a pairs of tenths or even hundredth of square meters RCS?