I really like how everyone in government and media treats Pakistan as the villain here, while studiously avoiding all mention of the fact that it’s China who will try to copy this stuff to compete commercially and militarily with the US. Americans are all wringing their hands at this Pakistani transgression, yet we continue to treat China as a favored trading partner and pour billions into their economy via Wal Mart and by forging “partnerships” with them in which they buy our technology rather than our products, all while they bluster and threaten and develop weapon systems whose sole purpose is to combat our own forces.

nope… this is what we call it…:cool:

“Badly photoshopped man in stockings” ?

It was this incident in which their Adnan AWACS (an Il-76 modification) crashed during a military parade. Originally it was claimed that the aircraft collided with an F-5, but later reports state that it had an engine fire and began emergency landing procedures, and the ensuing maneuvers caused the rotodome to detach and strike the tail of the aircraft.

Yes correct. That would be the term ‘relaxed stability’ or lack of it.
That is not the same ‘stability’ we are talking about.

Vertical stabilizers provide lateral stability, preventing uncommanded yaw. Ventral fins supplement the vertical stabilizers, and are needed if the vertical stabilizers are too small as may be the case on the J-20.

In the case of the Flanker the ventral fins assist in maintaining lateral stability during post-stall “maneuvers” because the vertical stabilizers are masked by the airframe.

“Relaxed stability” is all about the aircraft’s longitudinal stability, its tendency to pitch. That is completely different.

No way the F-22 is more stable than the flanker design, this is well documented..

Which stability are you referring to there?

I don’t know if someone could scan the picture of the RBE2-AESA in the latest Air & Cosmos. it’s a very interesting one because the actual antenna is photoshopped out, unlike the previous “official pics” which had many ones counting the TR modules on the plate…

That’s because the official pics were photoshopped as well.

The IED planters were likely found by the UAV operating by itself with no external cueing.

What that footage shows is UAVs taking out targets out in the open, with plenty of time to evaluate the situation before deciding to fire.

Even if your “no external cueing” conjecture is true, the UAV operators know where to look, the IED planters are operating in clear terrain, they are not attempting to hide since they think nobody is watching, and there are no friendly troops anywhere in the vicinity.

Basically you found footage of UAVs doing exactly what they are well suited for, which really has little to do with close air support of troops in contact.

Not sure what the USMC view on this would be as it would tend to sideline the F35B from the CAS role, from my reading?

It wouldn’t sideline the F-35B any more than the AH-64 sidelines the F-16. The idea they are arguing for is really a CAS/COIN aircraft for low intensity conflicts, to fill the gap between fast jets and attack helicopters. The objections it is based on are not new at all: fast jets are too fast, too expensive to operate, and have too little persistence; helicopters are too slow, have too little payload, and can’t operate well at high altitudes.

The CAS mission that F-16s etc today and the F-35 tomorrow are good at is really battlefield CAS against large maneuver units, not low intensity CAS like this LAAR would be employed in.

The danger with all of this is that whenever you field an aircraft, it tends to get used whether the situation warrants it or not. Thus you have OH-58s getting shot down in Iraq because they try to act like attack helicopters, you had USMC OV-10s getting shot down in Kuwait in 1991 because they tried to operate in a “real war” environment, etc. So if we do wind up fielding a LAAR, we need to ensure it gets used only where appropriate, and resist the temptation to treat it as an all-around attack aircraft.

Somebody missed the old adage that you can’t win a war on airpower alone…

But you also can’t win without it.