Zvezda TV today showed video of those 10 new Mi-8’s we talked about last month and they now have their FLIR balls installed.

http://www.tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/novye_vertolety_dlya_vvs_1301.html

10 more are on order.

I was talking about the Ka-52. The pilot’s FLIR is gone, only the gunner’s FLIR is installed. On the prototypes there was a little GOES ball just for the pilot.

The Ansat is in no way shape of form a “high end” helicopter. In the current production configuration it’s not kitted for night time or bad weather flight at all.

They got rid of the little GOES ball for the pilot — a retarded decision. What’s the point of buying a high end helicopter like this if you’re going to go all cheap on the optics package?

All the more credence to my assertion its optimized for transonic and low mach speeds. Unless they have some D-30 class engine on it, this is no high mach cruiser like the T-50 and F-22.

“if T-50 is opitimized to live above M2 then why bother with the big surfaces. one big compound delta wing would surfice.”

Because its a beast of burden meant to fill two rolls for a country that can no longer afford both a dedicated interceptor and a dog fighter.

“btw, in these fighters, top mach # means very little by itself. push the engine out pass blade temp and you can up the mach. the point is how much drag you will get in turn and cruise and at what altitude.”

That trick works for both sides. Lets pretend the F-22 has a max speed of M1.8 and the PAK-FA tops out at M2.2. Remove the safeties and you can push the F-22 probably to M2 and the PAK-FA maybe to M2.3, but the gap remains much the same.

A max speed .3M better than the other guy is always a good thing to have.

The supercruise ability of European 4.5 gens is basically BS and has little to do with their aerodynamics. The Su-35 supercruises too, but we still say its still optimized for transonic and low mach nose pointing — same goes for the Eurocanards. The reason the Eurocanards were supercruising 10 years sooner is simply because they had better engines available to them that much sooner. The basic Al-31 has been more than a bit dated since the early 90’s. It’s late 70’s engine tech and the Russians went the entire decade of the 1990’s without anything better.

16 or 17.

9 series built and 7-8 pre-production models used for weapons and flight testing.

“Agreed, it has more supersonic potential with engine upgrades then either F-22/T-50, but i think thrust deficit will hold it back for a long time.”

No way in hell is it a better high mach performer than the T-50. This is not even debatable. The Chinese paper I linked to discussing the DSI intakes on this things also discusses the sort of performance you should expect from this sort of design. It is optimized for transonic flight, hence the canards. At any speed over mach 1 you will see performance degradation thanks to the intake design they selected. The T-50 on the other hand is all but meant to be a high mach cruiser with absurd escape speeds. It’s intakes in no way shape or form hamper high mach performance, and it has no canards instilling a weight penalty and adding drag. All else equal, the T-50 will have a better top speed, and this is not debatable. In fact, all else equal the T-50 should have a significantly higher top speed than the F-22 too.

As for superior stealth, I have to ask — based on what? The gigantic control surfaces or the utterly conventional rear? There is no eyeballing it. It might well be stealthier than the F-35 and the T-50, but anyone who claims with certainty like this to know is a lying SOB.