MarcellogoHow can you determent how close the Eagle was..? You are aware that through Camera objectiv can be highly deceptive when it comes to measuring ranges.
If this was Say Lavrov, or Shougn on a VIP trip, one can understand this.As would have been the exact case if Vica Verca.
VICE VERSA, HAAVARLA, VICE VERSA!
It’s “the opposite instead” in Latin Language, not the name of some east-european pornstar.
MarcellogoIn other words, they benefit more than an FMS customer. And that is somehow negative?
Anyway, Japan, Korea, Israel, Belgium, Singapore (soon) as “customers”, pretty robust sales for an aircraft declared failed and dead many time over in the media and on defense forums such as this.
The perception vs reality dissonance is most clearly demonstrated by your own nation. The Five Star Movement was openly hostile to the F-35, announcing publicly that if elected, they would end Italian participation in the program. Now as they part of the coalition government, we seeing a very public 180 coming out about the F-35. Perhaps hearing briefings from the military and seeing the industrial participation changed some minds?
Not at all and in what i have written you wouldn’t find anything like this, It’s just you that are in an hyper-defensive mode and see in any consideration made about F-35 a personal attack.
What should then be Halloweene reaction about my way more witty remark about F-104 in comparison?
Relax, the airplane has reached IOC, it’s in production and it would have all possibilities to be evaluated for what it is.
About the 5star, well, I’ve not voted for it and neither for Lega but I look at them both with a small amount of hope and optimism, better them with all their limits that the ones we had before (independently by the political collocation of them).
However, it’s like having to choose between Trump and Clinton: you take the one you evaluate would made the least damages.
AFAIK they have however just confirmed the existing orders and said they would NOT made any more of them during the actual mandate, not exactly a 180° turn in my book .
MarcellogoIn a way, yes. If all of the bad press were true then customers would not be buying it.
Since they are buying it, then that says volumes about it’s quality.
To be fully onest the absolutely majority of them are not customers but development patners
@hallowene
Quality of a plane is measured by its efficiency in a system to perform designed set missions at a certain cost. (i am including in cost relaiabilitiy, number of sorties etc.). That’s why it depends on surrrounding systems, adversaries etc. Saying “this plane has no chance against that one” or “this plane is better because it is sold” is pretty oversimple. There are o course local tactical issues AND a fighter market is always a political one. MAny F-104G were sold. Success?
.
According to the parameters put on by yourself, in mine own country air force they surely were and F-104S even more, while G-91Y and above all Tornado were not.
Hourly cost (in italian lira)
MarcellogoVERA is an ESM system, Passive radars or better said “non -cooperative multistatic” radars are completely different things.
They are systems like our AULOS, american SILENT SENTRY, chinese DWL002 or iranian ALIM:they are chains of receiver-only radio-waves detection and ranging (i use this instead of acronym RADAR so to make clear how they act) antennas that detect all radio emission sources in their surrounding and depict a sort of electronic map of them, as soon as a plane enter in the area covered by the system it is registered by the variation it cause to the background signal.
It (or better said they) function very well against stealth as It work independently from the target own RCS (they all look as black dots on a white screen) but the overall performances of the system are those of an EW system not of a AD radar: they are 2D only except in same peculiar environment (like to say a city like Turin or Zagreb,or Beirut and Damascus i.e. on a plain but with mountains nearby), have a long refresh rate and above all it work excellently against low quote, well at medium quote but awfully against high quote target.
MarcellogoP.S: italics are my personal modification of the translator result in hope of made it more clear, bold and underlined one is my personal pointing out of the main issue there (and to any informations you get from producers’ sources).
Marcellogo[USER=”40269″]FBW[/USER]
I was most surprised by the continuing depot issues considering the rhetoric from up high about increasing mission capable rates. That and mean time to repair requirements being relaxed.
Allow me to reply with the (translated trough Google) words I just found on this month’s issue of our main defence related magazine. (RID- n°2 Febbraio 2019)
…returning to the burden of maintenance for F-35, which is advertised to be much more maintainable than F-117 or F-22, not to mention the forbiddingly heavy B-2, we will still have to wait some time to get real data i.e. calculated on frames with already a few hours of flight on the field and not the actual ones directly performed by the company or by ad hoc experimental departments for the development of specific tactics and methods of use and not by AF average maintenance crews.
MarcellogoActually not, they have clearance for carrying but the serial production of it have still to begin.
Basic version of R-37 was intended for MiG-31M and advanced Flankers in Air Defence role,
First one was not put in production and for Flankers they were not considered essential.
BM would carry just 4 of both S-33S than S-37,, so they kept the former until the more advanced version of the latter will be available.
In any case they still count on MiG-31 as a new contract have just been signed to deeply modernize all remaining ones in depot, not just B but even previous DMZ (to Mig-31K) and A nd AM versions (to a BsM equivalent).
MarcellogoU-TURN alert, U-TURN Alert, U-TURN alert!!!
MOSCOW, January 29. / TASS /. The systems of the newest Russian heavy assault unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) “Hunter” are being tested on board the 5th generation fighter Su-57 due to the delayed flight tests of the device itself. This was announced on Wednesday TASS source in the military-industrial complex.
“On the third prototype of the Su-57, Okhotnik’s onboard radio-electronic systems are installed, they are tested in flight on this fighter. The UAV does not fly, its first flight dates have been shifted since last year,” the agency’s source said. He explained that “the testing of the UAV systems on the Su-57, in the absence of flight tests of the apparatus itself, allows not stopping work on other components of the Okhotnik design work.
The source noted that the tests are carried out at the Novosibirsk Aviation Plant “Sukhoi”. “The onboard – onboard communication between the onboard radio electronic equipment (avionics) of the Hunter on the Su-57 in flight and the equipment of the Hunter itself on the plant strip) is also being tested. – said the source. He did not specify the dates for the start of flight tests of the Hunter.
The United Aircraft Corporation did not comment on the TASS information provided by the source.
———–
So, all considerations made about Su-57 directly controlling Okhotnik drone made (by me also) basing ourself just on the pictogram on 3th prototype have to be considered as purely speculative assumptions according to the above article.
Sigh!
Marcellogo[USER=”1724″]djcross[/USER]
Yes, the fact that such a prototype has been put forth in a very short time should not let us think all problems has already been sorted out.
The same fact that Mig specialist previously working on SKAT has been transferred at Novosibirsk however means that it has not sprang out of nowhere but has an already set base of knowledge and expertise to start from.
Flying wings are a quite extreme plane form that would need a lot of work to be mastered but surely the russian State Trials development process, although time consuming, is one of the best way to deal with this kind of teething problems.
Also because, as the downfall of USN UCLASS program, that I was referring to in my humorous/sarcastic response to Blackwood, clearly show how the problem with UCAV is not just technical but also, if not even more, operative and doctrinal in nature: it is a completely new thing, so you have to found a role for it and in the same time you have to ascertain if it is technically feasible and operatively convenient to perform it with the technology you possess.
[USER=”77292″]LMFS[/USER]
Let’s add also Altius/Altair as an HALE ISR platform and the news that they would keep working on the MiG Skat so to have a lighter UCAV also.
Maybe it is a better approach: instead of trying to develop a single item able to perform all missions an UCAV possibly could, let’s try different more specialized ones with different degrees of performances but also complexity and cost.
So if something turn out to be unfeasible or just of problematic development with actual technological level you can delay or even cancel it without affecting the others.
Above all it is the approach they use by default, so I surely expect them to keep on that line in developing something in a field where problems can rise up from an infinity of different critical points.
Marcellogo[USER=”77292″]LMFS[/USER]
I have already made a distinction between strike planes/drones and ISR platform that have to loiter for a long time in a certain zone.
For the rest I have the impression that they ar planning to get the okhotnik finished as soon as possible and cheap enough to be produced at a fast rate, maybe i’m wrong but i’ll wait and see.
Marcellogo[USER=”77292″]LMFS[/USER]
??? For a SAM the only way to see the rear part of an incoming plane is when it pass over the system itself or almost within such an angle in which engine is not covered by the wings or the body of the plane itself.
Even in such last case (as passing directly over an enemy SAM site would be either quite idiotic or particularly unfortunate) the plane will be moving away from the SAM site anyway so you woldn’t benefitno doppler effect there, engagement range of both radar and missiles would be so reduced of an amount superior to the relative gain in RCS due to the use of F-35/Su-57 style round nozzles instead of B-2 covered exhaust .
The faulty in reasoning there is that you are considering a exposed nozzle as something having not any RCS measures at all on it and not as an equivalent to the ones that above mentioned planed already have or even better as in this case there are not tail surfaces to consider.
They could have however a greater vulnerability when confronted by enemy fighters that can pursue them at a greater speed than theirs (as in this case you get doppler beam sharpening effect), hence my belief than they would always operate together with Su-57 both controlling than protecting them,
For what I know they have in any case decided to develop a lighter drone directly derived by SKAT for ISR missions and in this case I expect it to have a complete engine cover, given its primary mission would require loitering around instead.
In any case time would tell, they are just at the first prototype.
MarcellogoLet’s start from the sure data: 20-ton class (be it loaded or MTOW), flying wing and a single engine.
It means a little more than a Su-17 or MiG-27 with an engine of the same category (although much more modern) but without the possibility of going supersonic.
So even is seems as wide as a Flanker/Su-57 it’s in reality much more lighter (flying wings are quite deceiving in this regard as they have a very little body), so to be produced in big quantities.
At the same time it would have a great fuel fraction, allowing it to reach great distances (3500-4000 kmts) while carrying in its internal bay weapons that wouldn’t fit in Su-57’s ones.
Although being able to locate and engage their own target by themselves they would in the same time not operating autonomously but in strict coordination /under direct control of Su-57 or even more conventional fighters that would also act as their escort .
Summing all those thing together, as already expressed in humorous form I didn’t expect serial Okholnik to end up much more different from what the prototype already show, no obyekt 30 (better to use it on A2A planes ) but the already proven and cheap Al31/41 , some improvement in rear RCS but without installing a complete engine cover, above all at expense of TVC.
It is not an Hale recon plane that have to loiter hours above the battlefield but a deep strike/battle area interdiction drone that have to flight straight to its own objectives, drop bombs/missiles and came back a.s.a.p.
Also because for what I see its expected rear RCS already now is absolutely comparable or better with all the probability already inferior of those of F-35 and Su-57.
MarcellogoNeither the EDIT button work… (angry emoticon there) .
MarcellogoSssstt, Blackwood! I will reveal you a big,big secret…
They are doing it by purpose.
They are showing it without the rear cover, in order to get all western aeronautical experts, armchair generals, F-16net troll posters, eyeball mk1 RCS evaluators and so on to come at your same conclusions and so begin debating between them if it is three-quarter, two thirds or half of a six- fifth of stealth, so forgetting in the meantime to develop an equivalent program (i mean, after that one that started like an UCAV and took ten years to end up as a tanker, remember?).
After they will have completed the last prototype they need, they will take it to the Black Hole (i.e. Akhubinsk) and mount the cover in secret (and probably conclude that it is not worth the extra cost and loss of performance to protect a rear that would be seen by enemy radars just for the time of a 180° turn before hauling out ass)…
MarcellogoF-15E are with or without conformal ones?
Given that no one of them have ever operatively flied without them on, such datas, like the one on max speed, should be taken with a ton of salt.
About substitution/passage to ANG seems me that the most probable thing is that they are determined by the average age/weariness of the planes and not by type, so F-35A would substitute the older ones i.e. the F-15C first and not the F-16 and the A-10 as was thought.
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