You know how weapons trials is done? Its not just about separation test. There is also the software from weapons suite to deal with. Also Asymmetrical loading etc etc. The list is long.
Much to do before the weapons are launched from bays.
Anyway. Yes Aktubinsk is a black hole and so is Sukhoi these days.

yeah thanks, very aware of how weapons testing is done. That is why the question remains. We have seen the Pak-fa with external weapons for over a year now. I don’t think that a press release that pit testing or separation tests of the internal weapons bay is top secret. What it tell me is that there is still a considerable amount of flight testing remaining. The list is long, and we’ve seen the Pak-fa with AtG and various AtA loads on external pylons. Sugarcoating this by saying somehow these test are being conducted “in the black” is not going to fly. There has been a steady stream of information about flight testing, there is a obvious hole: no pics with internal bays open, no press releases, this is fact.

Look, actually US/west is taking a lot from the WP experience. And vice versa.
Think about IRST/high boresight IR missile or F-35’s ALIS itself .
Sweden/finland practises also have put a lot of useful teaching.

Again with this! The US had IRST systems in the 1950’s. They stopped using them due to radar improvements. The U.S.S.R used the systems the same way originally: as a way to aid radar lock on. Yes, the development of the OLS-29/27 was a step forward in IRST technology.

Which brings us to High off-boresight aam and HMS. As they say “success has many fathers”, so too does technological advances. The U.S. trialed the high off-borsight missile in the early 70’s as well as the HMS.
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-95.html
USAF had the Aim-82 (cancelled and merged with aim-95)

Aceval/Aimval led to the simulation and trialing of high off-boresight aam’s and the HMS. The results led to the cancellation of the Aim-95, they found that in “many v. many” fights, even the HOBS missiles and HMS did not significantly improve win/loss rate. So, the USAF pushed for the development of the AMRAAM to extend engagement ranges and avoid the merge. ACEVAL/AIMVAL showed that even having the more powerful and maneuverable fighter was not a guarantee of an acceptable kill ratio- even a 2-1 win/loss rate would have been failure for the F-15 which could not be procured in numbers approaching the Soviet inventory. The Soviets went the other way and fielded these systems, giving them an advantage in the merge, just as the AMRAAM would have given the F-15 an advantage in intermediate range engagements. Different doctrines. Thankfully we never had to find out who’s was correct.

BTW, exactly how is the F-35’s ALIS related to anything coming out of the Warsaw pact or anywhere?

It is a great pity that Czech pilots were not informed about MiG-23’s “horrible, horrible handling”. They even went as far as performing at airshows!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZpvnRib6jY

What do airshow performances a have to do with the fact that the Mig-23 had unfavorable handling characteristics. Why do you think the ML and the MLD had extensive changes to airframe, FCS? Could it be because the early models exhibited exactly what I stated: high speed directional instability, spin prone and dangerous in hard maneuvering?

The MLD was by all accounts a major improvement. But by ’82 ’83, the Mig-29 was replacing the -23 in frontal aviation regiments.

Eagle,

[
Ask anyone, I despise Israel. The United States is not the mule of that nation’s genocidal plan to reconstitute a biblical state by slow-slaughering the Palestinians in a Warsaw Ghetto like environment using 3 billion dollars per year of our FMS as IG Farbening equivalent war crime trial funding.

We gave real blood in WWII, to the tune of 400,000 lives to help Israel exist.

That is enough.

Especially as the ‘Israelis’ gave us Hart Cellar in return while demanding an _ethno state_ of their own. We could be helping the working poor into housing with 12,000 X 250,000 dollar home mortgage payoffs EVERY YEAR with that kind of money, better spent at home. We owe them nothing. And so I am no friend to the Zionist cause.

But.

You can count on the Israelis to give a no-shine opinion on anything military. They know they cannot afford to be playing wishful-thinking games with brochure figures against the overwhelming numbers of very hostile threats surrounding them on all sides.

Thus the Israelis humiliated Grumman when they tried to sell them on the F-14, trouncing it repeatedly with A-4 Ahits in one on one and one vs. many DACM fights which made ‘Top Gun’ look like an adolescent slumber party pillow fight.

And so it is, that while IAI/IMI literally, physically, cannot integrate most of their own weapons systems (Spice, Pythons, Delilah, Popeye, Derby etc.) into the F-35’s small weapons bays and _knowing_ how poor a maneuvering platform it already is at present loaded states, what do they want to integrate, first, as external stores? EFTs and CFTs that’s what.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/israel-to-boost-range-of-future-f-35-fleet-220748/

http://goo.gl/Z9E4Lx

And now you start to understand why the USAF chose to show up at the EAA with a warplane that has no business being there given the test and modification schedule needed for IOC and then lied about ‘how great a set of legs it has’.

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/9BE2/production/_84260993_iran_nuclear_624.gif

Because the same distance from Eglin to Oshkosh can be overlaid as a radial on a map connecting Tehran, Arak, Fordo, Isfahan and Bushehr as the primary Iranian nuclear facilities with Ramat David or Hatzor in central Israel. These are the shortest routes but not the ones most likely to have success, especially if it’s a glorified tanker drag. The best choice then, especially with heavy weapons able to penetrate 8-23m roof thicknesses like those of the central production hall at Natanz, lies on a circuitous routing trhough Turkish airspace and down from Orumiyeh fully another 400nm over-fence to central Iran. Total RADIAL, one way, distance thus being something like 1,206nm.

Of course, with Erdogan off the reservation, this is all subject to change. But in any case, it is ludicrous to assume that you can fly tankers over Arab states which you need STEALTH to transit with a fighter as surprise initiative and DCA avoidance. Not once. But for multiple dozens of sorties. Because you have to use heavyweight penetrators just to seal the bunker doors.

This is the kind of interpolative research you have to do before you take the USAFs greed-is-good word for _anything whatsoever_. Because they have not been our nation’s defenders in decades. But they will shine-on the F-35 to Israel, just to have the latter’s ‘real warfighters!’ sung praise acceptance of the Adir.

Reported- go back to the tin hat anti-Semitic place from whence you came. Your posts are gibberish and offensive, not to mention the worst type of regurgitation of refuted garbage this forum can do without

It would be a great counter to F-4E AIM-7M combination; 4x similarly ranged BVR missiles, arguably better radar, better maneuverability and far better acceleration on a smaller airframe.
Because again, it faced much more modern adversaries.

What model of Mig-23 are you referring to? The -23 had horrible, horrible handling characteristics until the MLD. It had fantastic acceleration and…. that was about it. poor visibility, poor radar, instability, prone to spins, the list is endless.

You can’t base an argument on “war isn’t fair” and chose a specific time to make such comparsion; a time that would support your claims. Lets talk about 1990 then? A time when;

-All Su-27/30s were flying with R-27RE/TE + R-73s, but F-15A/Cs were still flying with AIM-7M+AIM-9Ms.
-All MiG-29s were flying with R-27R/T and R-73s, some even had internal ECM whereas F-16s had pathetic radar and they were even lacking BVR capability altogether, solely capable of using AIM-9M.
-MiG-31 had Zaslon, only PESA fighter radar back then, againist ageing F-14s with its AWG-9, and it was faster and longer ranged (supersonic) then its contemporary.
-Majority of MiG-23s were upgraded to ML/MLD levels, with true look-down shoot down radar and better R-24 missiles.

In fact, apart from legacy F-4E and Tornadoes with AIM-7s and Mirages with Super 530s, no airforce in Europe had fighters with BVR capability.

If all hell broke lose back in that day, it would be an easy “walk over” by Soviet airforce againist NATO.

This is a highly questionable argument. The Su-27 wasn’t even fully operational, and had issues with radar throughout the early years of deployment. The -29 nominally had BVR capability, every single pilot who has ever flown the early Mig-29 from western air forces made the same comments: you could fly or you could fight with the Mig-29. The MMI made it very hard to do both at the same time, and the heads down scope made BVR shots a pleasant fantasy. I’m not saying that NATO would have won, in the air I think it would have been somewhat of a draw due to Warpac numerical superiority. There is NO doubt that NATO had a vastly more effective system in the E-3 Sentry over GCI and overwhelming advantage in AAR which was a significant force multiplier. How many sorties would frontal aviation equipped with Mig-29’s have been able to mount with the aircraft returning to base to refuel every 1-1 1/2 hours. I think that you and JSR might agree on this, no one, not even Soviet era officers would agree that the air war over AFCENT would have been a “walk over”. 12 squadrons of F-15C would have made it a bloodbath on both sides.

Addition- RAF was still flying FGR.2’s in 1990 as well as F.3 Phantoms. The 33rd TFW was already equipped with Amraam by 1990, and had been evaluating them since 1988. (official service entry was 1991, but 33rd TFW was using them already).