Have you noticed that all the current PAk-fa models flying have gold infused glass on their IRST balls, just as the cockpit is on the Pak-fa, F-22, F-35, if this small IRST ball at the front was so critical to stealth then the whole cockpit on all planes would be far more significant.
The IRST below on the F-35 is clear see through, allowing the reflection back on any metal surfaces, more then the Pak-fa.
Have look on the Pak-fa thread and see the latest photos of the gold infused IRST

First off none of them are gold infused, it used to be an iridium treatment that gave the gold tint. They’ve moved beyond that now.

The EOTS sits behind a sapphire treated faceted window. Most of the hardware is up inside the aircraft, not hanging down behind the faceted window as well.

Yeager is fully retired from military test flying, after having maintained that status for three decades after his official retirement from the Air Force. On October 14, 1997, on the 50th anniversary of his historic flight past Mach 1, he flew a new Glamorous Glennis III, an F-15D Eagle, past Mach 1. The chase plane for the flight was an F-16 Fighting Falcon piloted by Bob Hoover, a legendary air-show pilot who had been Yeager’s wingman for the first supersonic flight.

He flew the F-20 and and the F-15 so why would he not have flown the F-16?

He did, has about 100 hours in the F-16. Incidentally, not a fan of the F-16 either.

However, you are confusing his military career with some consulting work he did post retirement and P.R. flights like the F-15. He retired from the USAF in 1975. His last flight command was in 1968. He flew as a Northrop consultant and due to his fame, flew the F-15, -16, and apparently the YF-23. He is, and most likely will be, the most celebrated military pilot the U.S. ever produced. He also is a person of strong opinions (as I stated on the first page). He is enamored with the F-15E, everything else is a waste of money to him. That is all, and we’ve now spend four pages parsing three words he tweeted. Well done Key pubs posters!

Actually, this is a rumor at it best. Someone said to someone that somone sold someone something. But you won’t find any good photo or video of this thing, especially during its operation.

It happened, denying it is pointless.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/24/us/in-a-shadowy-marketplace-america-buys-russian-arms.html?pagewanted=all

Back in 1990s i’ve heard the rumor that Belorussia sold S-300 to US. But never seen any solid evidence that US has at least one operational S-300. And it looks like – nobody have seen them. Only rumours.

Not a rumor-
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/russian-grumble-reaches-us-army-28153/

I forget where the other one acquired is from. Should not be a surprise. Former Soviet areas had a fire sale of weapons, both legal and illegal sales, disappearance of hardware following the dissolution.

F-22 and F-15 have the same sustained turn rate value ( just saying) , 4.5 gen probably not as maneuverable as we like to believe

At Mach .8 30,000 feet. One data point a comparison does not make- needless to say.

It’s one of the problems with trying to make definitive comparisons with very limited hard values. Trying to compare flight envelopes with two data points akin to the old “blindfolded man trying to describe an elephant by feeling his trunk”.

Of course current pilot say both planes are wonderful. With the political climate in Washington if they didnt, they would be thrown out of the service!!!!

Unfortunately for you, that simply does not hold water. Until recently, the pilots who were speaking about the F-35’s capabilities were Norwegian, and Dutch. The Heritage Foundation survey was 31 pilots (no names), not to mention. Did the two F-22 pilots who spoke on 60 minutes about the F-22 “Raptor cough” face repercussions?

Again your argument is a logic fail. As Djcross pointed out, your interpreting Yeager’s statements to what you want. Can he be correct? Sure, if he is referring to the current waste in aqusition, the suitability of the F-15E to meet the current needs of bombing “the third camel from the left”. It’s perspective. When he stated that the F-20 was a better fighter than the F-16, was he correct? Partially-in 1983, when he made that statement. The F-20 had a higher climb rate, sortie rate, bvr capable. The issue was, the USAF was not buying the F-16 as a pure fighter. There is no doubt the US made the correct choice, the F-16 had more growth potential and was the better multirole aircraft.

the conclusion from the iraq campaign is that it was on par with f-16, except f-16 flew far more sorties,
cheaper, and with more sloppy planning

It would be helpful if you looked things up instead of making things up.

“F-117’s flew 2% of sorties and hit 40% of strategic targets”
Here are both assessments of the Gulf air war-
http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-100927-061.pdf
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2006/MR343.pdf

F-16’s flew a lot of sorties…. Against targets mostly in KTO, with dumb bombs. If there was one aircraft had disappointing performance in the gulf war, it was the F-16. Immediately following the Gulf War, the USAF began the large scale introduction of targeting pods and AMRAAM to the F-16 fleet.

I find it rather interesting because in this kind of thread sometimes we get to read very interesting and informative post from knowledgeable people like Andraxxus

I get where you are coming from. Without the flight manuals for all, it is hard to make definitive comparisons. Using the available information to model aircraft performance without: information on the airfoil, total drag, net thrust means that assumptions have to be made. I too, enjoy reading Andraxxus, but I’m sure he would admit that there would be significant deviation between modeled and observed performance.

Interesting paper from NASA, 1973 on performance modeling vs flight test (predicted performance was within 5%, but this was for level flight and a constant power setting)
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/pdf/87819main_H-723.pdf