The other T-50 plan view is much more accurate, that one is just an old (and inaccurate) Su-47 drawing edited to have normal wings.

Ah, didn’t realise – I was fooled by the fact that it was more comrehensive (i.e. not just a plan view) and wrongly assumed that it was more recent. Actually, I should have realised as the Berkut’s nose doesn’t droop much (or at all – I’ll have to dig out some pics to check).

What about a rocket dampening system as used by the Soviets to air-drop armour? The pilot could activate it if the chopper gets into trouble and combined with even partially sucessful auto-rotation it could slow the fall enough to save lives. Again it depends on the crew being alive enough to activate it but better than nothing surely. Or maybe you could just stick a great big parachute onto the chopper…

As much as I like the idea of a Su-30MKG (MKH…?) with all kinds of western kit integrated into the airframe; well its not going to happen is it?

Although Greece does operate a certain amount of Russian kit (and likes most of it) aircraft are a different matter aren’t they?

Not to mention the fact that Greece gets quite a bit of military aid from the US, so there’s your ‘anti’ lobby right there.

Still, it would be cool… Maybe they could integrate the Norwegian NSM anti-ship missle into their new flankers and make Jonesy all happy and smiley too.

An interesting piece of news and yet another example of the dumbing down process to which the BBC has been subjected for the last few years. The article was written by a diplomatic correspondent – although quite what qualifications he has in order to hold that title is certainly not clear from this article. I suspect that his political stance was of greater significance at his job interview than his knowledge of diplomacy or international politics…. Either that or the poor guy wrote the article in a hurry based on reports from the AP website and didn’t have time to give it due consderration.

So, INk, perhaps that insisting with our arguments is annoyng and not convincting but by that? I can say that i try to say what i think as wrong or right about the frogfoot or the A-10. SK has his own opinion about but, i try to say that his arguments are simply not matching even the war lessons known.

I’m sorry nuke1, I didn’t quite grasp what you’re getting at. Perhaps you could explain more clearly.

😀 You buy an expensive aircraft only, when you have an usefull task for it to fullfill and nothing other at hand. What can the Su-39 do for the Ivory Coast? What is the enemy and what are the targets? Not even own pilots for that. 😡

Q. What can Su-39 do for the Ivory Coast?

A. Theoretically everything. CAS, CAP, Intercept, Recconisence, deep penetration etc etc. Theoretically! Which is what I was getting at. otherwise they’d have to buy a series of aircraft or one expensive multi-role aircraft. Either way, Su-39 would (theoretically) be able to fulfil their needs against all possible local opposition at a lower cost than the expensive, multirole fast jet.