er, jackjack, when you say “it can fly at 110° AoA, that basically means it’s going “backwards”… nozzles are the first part of the aircraft in the air.. now, thrust vectoring or not, no plane flies like that… mostly it can flip to such value and then, regain normal flight through flipping back (forward or backwards)…

second, the link I gave you last time (march 7th)

http://www.aoe.vt.edu/~mason/Mason_f/F22.ppt

it’s from the prototype, yet, aerodynamically, it was even better suited for high AoA than the series model (so the numbers relative to high AoA behavior are obviously very similar or lesser for the production model)

No TV above 225kts IAS and no roll above 21-22° without TV to stabilize the thing…

hem.. yeah, whenever it finally is ready… if ever… 😉

It is interesting so many Serbian military plants survived NATO bombing campaign or entire above blabbing is fake. Anyway during Serbia’s integration with EU remaining Serbian military complex will fall thanks to “restructuring process” which eventually completes unfinished NATO effort! 🙂

er, that still remains to be seen.. EU counts several weapons manufacturers (and big ones), and anything bringing benefits into one new Eu member is welcomed, or either, the Eu will have to put more money to compensate…

anyway, from images that could be seen, lots of missiles/bombs were aimed at stuff having little to no direct military use

sferrin, the US have had some prototypes with canards, but no in service fighters, even if canards do give some advantages over classic “tail” system in certain configurations (high AoA, for example)

it’s like the delta fighters. the US have had a few (even in service with the F-102 and F-106 for example), still, they don’t use that formula, while, even for stealth, it would be certainly more interesting than some other shapes…

it’s always a compromise, and the fact that for the few fighters that made it into service the US didn’t choose any canard-equipped fighter doesn’t mean that canards are necessarily inferior… simply that they have chosen another way to do things, another compromise if you prefer

what I find a bit out of line is that a country receiving so heavy financial help to bring it to other european countries’ economical level doesn’t even take time to consider a european product…

when UK buys the JSF, it’s their money, their “business”… I’m not so sure it’s the same for the romanian “f-16 budget”

I don’t like the solution though.

Seems like a performance compromise. . . when the T-50 should have this as the undisputed strong point.

actually, when you go at speeds near and above mach1, you need to slow down the air coming in the engine, so that may be interesting for keeping the engine performance up at the same time

Oh not only is the difference night and day…its night and day on different planets.

Its a very different concept and technology of assembly. What you see on the F-22 is mostly the daily access panels that have gaps in them…and as I said the gaps are intentional because thats where the RAM sealants go. On the rest of the outer panels, the spaces are already covered with a different kind of RAM sealant which makes them pretty hard to even see. But the point is…there’s a lot of effort put into optimizing those panels and screws.

For example:

You will note that there is a material (probably a primer of some sort…I don’t know) applied along all the areas where there are screws and panels. I don’t pretend to know what this is…but you can bet that there is a treatment applied to those areas…ie…a RAM sealant. Now you can do this on the surface of that aircraft because of the technology and method of assembly. Where you see a seam…its there intentionally because under it there is a RAM sealant…and this is done for frequently accessed panels. For non-frequently accessed panels, the seams are covered over with a RAM sealant.

The T-50 uses the same technology as has been used for decades and clearly not one optimized for anything other than assembly.

so if I understand you correctly, when you see the “unfinished paint” pic of the F-22 with lines and rivets apparent, it’s doesn’t ring the bell that the irregularities on the T-50 bare metal skin will be greatly reduced or even nonexistent once the coating (RAM + paint) is applied? I don’t say the T-50 will be “invisible”, but I do say, maybe we shoudl all wait to see the final result before making such “final judgement” about plane’s RCS levels, no?

er.. maybe france should offer the Rafale C to the RAF? it would be a “cheap” option, compared to the typhoon under these conditions 😀

more seriously, the article is two years old, isn’t there anything more recent?