😉

Sustained turn is actually more important than instantaneous turning, because air combat is not just a dramatic top gun scene.

The interception phase is more important than the dogfight itself, the capability for the interceptors to enter in a merge with enough height/speed advantage is actually the most important factor in a combat.

Under the interception phase (on whichever plane, F15/16/35 etc..) the plane won’t waste height and speed persecuting the target, because if they do that they will never meet their target, or they will enter into the merge under bad conditions.

Performance wise both are in the same class in general, when related to the avionics and weaponary the US-fighter has still the edge.

Numbers were and still are the main factor for a successful air campaign, how many planes you have?, how many missiles you have up there?, how many missiles can you launch?, Numbers, not the fancy mythical uber radars and the uber “slammer” missile myth…such fancy tales about “superradars” (like the over-hyping over AESA) or “super missiles” (like the “slammer” :rolleyes:) have been repeated since ever, when the main critical factor was always to outnumber the enemy.

For nowdays technology fighters can’t been command centers, no matter how “netcentric’d” are them, net centric capabilities are ok, but the main advantage is that the information goes to the command outposts, for confirmation or to gather new information, pilots don’t take decisions, they are just vectors with missiles

The real deal with net centric capabilities is that each fighter does not need very big transmission systems to make the information to reach the command outposts, since the information jumps from fighter to fighter to reach until it reach the command outpost.

If you are imaging a single pilot in a gripen directing an interception, you got a very wrong picture of the reality

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Regarding the sustained turn of the F22, you guys should check some videos, i’m not sure if the plane is actually doing 9 gs, you actually can get higher turn rates at 5-4 gs and at lower speed, all the Raptor’s videos are at very low speed, most likely below M0.5, yes you can reach higher turn rate at such speed and at lower g-loads

Well, i’m talking about the 16A, not the 16/79

Edit, ahhh haha, okok, check better the graphic, :), is 1500m – 9gs, and 5000m at 5gs, check it better

The 16a 5g envelopment is worse, although the 9gs one is much better if i recall correctly

Hint: The 9gs envelopment is pretty small

Slanted AESA installations have nothing to do with LO, but inherently low gain and processing of signals coming from off-bore angles.
Swashplate design is conceived as an attempt to remedy this shortcoming and give AESA constant azimuth/elevation coverage, something so far being privilege of MSA systems, only.
Therefore, Swashplate AESA layout is a next step in AESA type radar development, indeed.

Can you elaborate a bit more on that?, i’m not a radar expert, but i have been told that the slanted array is to keep the contact over the target on maneuvers, much like the typical IRST placement, also russians have said this for their canted aesas (at least for the pazotron case), i trust them better than all the stealth yadadada on most popular sources.

The gain/off-bore performances could be true as well, but i would like to know from where you are taking this argument

For the gripen’s case i would assume the weight of the array is too heavy to be fit into a conventional multi-axis mount, and instead to slant the array and rotate it.

I think you are overrating your “z pins” there, matt.

Is not dealing with the main composites problem, the resin, is the resin the one that cracks, no the fibers.

Actually, the trend is to produce smaller fibers (the nanotubes thingy) to be more homogeneous with the resin, they key for composites is there, the z pins is more like a patch solution for the nowdays capability, and i don’t think is that critical.

Remember, the F22 program was meant to have 50% of composites, which was cut down to 25%

About indians, i don’t know, i can tell why the g-loads goals were decreased, why only 6gs were achieved on tests, probably is money probably is technology, probably the designers were way to optimists, i can tell.

Composites are ok and all that, but composites are not very good dealing with compressive forces, well, many materials have relative bad performance under compression, but composites are specially bad because the fibers can only have determined orientations, i think depends a lot on the resin, but is not like the resin is concrete 😀

Anyway, the pictures above are a bit misleading, if i see in one way, then the engine bays must be very close, but with a large area outwards, if i see it on the other side, then there is some kind of weird structure on the fuselage border, these elements are probably not from the su-27/35, i’m not sure which side of the pakfa i’m looking at, probably are not pakfa’s elements.

. Why do you think when a group of Russian women is cooking something on the table manually has to be from the upcoming high-tech PAK-FA????

Quality inspection?, i’m not sure i never had been involved in composites production

I seriously think that domestic issues from the USA should be discussed only by USA citizens, same as when the USA citizens should stop to love to fit their big noses on other nations problems…

So i wont say anything about if is right or wrong, just will say how i see the things without political stuff that i don’t really care, saying they are trading social programs for the F22 is ridiculous IMO, they cut the 22, and are accelerating the F35, so i don’t think they are choosing between the 22 and a monster social program that surely involves way lot more resources…

I bet they found they would need more than 1 F22 to replace each F15, something that you can’t say for the F-15/F-4 transition, in which the Eagle was pretty successful even with the A model, the issue is between the 35 and the 22, not between the 22 and a social program, which…i really don’t know, and don’t care…

Regarding the pictures and models, “mr. pogo” is probably playing with you all…i really don’t see why they should reveal the plane, no pressure on the government since the thing was shown to some politicians, no industrial pressure since the F35 is still light years away, the AESA was a nice thing though, i think they will play that game, and won’t show it, there will be news “the pakfa first flight”, “the pakfa first missile test”, etc…but they won’t show the plane…

The problem is that, there is not, and should not be a “firing sequence”

It’s, as well, ridiculously complex, IMO, the problem could be solved with a long pylon holding 2 missiles close to the door, although, i still see some limitations.

Anyway, i would just wait and see what happens, and this can show us that a “bigger bay” is not better if is not well designed