Personally, I would be happy to debate America vs the Hitler’s, Stalin’s, Mussolini’s, Tojo’s, and Sadam’s of the World any day! (talk about shortsighted)

Indeed.

The mistreatment at Abu Graib, while completely unacceptable, is downright gentle compared to the things the Japanese, Koreans, and Vietnameses did to American POWs. I get so sick of idiots calling American treatment of Iraqi prisoners “torture.” That not only shows a ridiculously poor intellect, and ignorance of history, but it is also a hateful insult to people who actually were subjected to torture.

Love the design, but absolutely hate the unusually thick canopy bows.

Perhaps they’re a cost-saving measure over a one-piece canopy, which would look so much better. But why do they need to be so thick? It looks like they would cover several degrees of visibility for the pilot.

Do you think that those in guantanimo bay think US government is any better?

You’re right, Garry. 6-8 million citizens dead (from execution and the gulags) on one hand, and on the other hand, nearly 800 prisoners at Gitmo, who are treated so horribly and starved, that many of them have gained weight during their stay.

You’re right, it’s exactly the same thing.

To say the Russians are evil because of what Stalin did to them is to claim Jewish people are evil because of what Adolph Hitler did to them.

Just to clarify, I have the highest respect for the Russian people as a whole. Russians are some of the toughest, most resolute, determined, and resourceful people in all of history, in my opinion. I don’t at all view them as evil. What was evil was the Soviet system of government, which severely oppressed and subjugated its people (and neighboring peoples).

I was wondering would the new thrust vertoring engines be much of an advantage at say dodging a missile at the last second?if the pilot saw the smoke trail of a missile heading right for him would the aircraft be capable of dodging the likes of an R73 or a python and make the missile lose its lock on the target?

The Marine Corps (and presumably the Brits, and other users of the jet) use a technique in their Harriers called “VIFFing” (VIFF=Vector In Forward Flight) as a part of their ACM tactics. It’s considered somewhat useful in getting into firing position (or out of an opponent’s firing arc), but as other posters have mentioned, modern AAMs are too manueverable to be dodged “at the last second” as you describe in your question, in most instances at least.

F-16 fly very fast……really well their’s news for us. That General must be from U.S intelligence!

He said that in response to reporters who were stupid enough to believe that a farmer really did bring down an Apache with a bolt-action rifle a couple years ago. They were asking if the same thing could have happened in this case.

I think the Ferret design would actually have been more plausible for the time period. It has the faceted surfaces which were indicative of the technology available then, due to the limits of computer power in the design processes of the time. The F-19 design used more of the curved surfaces which were only just coming into the realm of possibility (again, due to limited computer processing power).

Just my opinion — I could be way off.

That reminds me — does anyone else remember the “F-19 Stealth Fighter” computer flight sim put out by MicroProse in the late 80s? Even though it’s archaic by today’s standards, it remains one of my all-time favorites just for the fun factor, and the fact that it was more of a thinking sim than an action sim. Many of the missions depended on your ability to remain stealthy and undetected, which required careful preflight route planning to avoid the denser concentrations of air defense units. A lot more fun sometimes to sneak around, take a single shot, then slip away, rather than blazing in at full afterburner rippling off missiles.

Well I see the Russians less geopoliticaly-minded and more business oriented at this point in time.

Perhaps, but I think the Politkovskaya and Litvinenko families might disagree. Of course, those actions by Putin might not technically be deemed geopolitical in nature. More of a “think globally, act locally” kind of thing.

At any rate, I realize that this is deviating from the topic at hand.