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India's First Stealth Fighter To Fly In 4 Months
xmpcray writes "Less than four months from now, India's first stealth fighter will fly for the first time. It is called the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft, or FGFA, and is being developed in Russia by Sukhoi. Several of the technologies being developed for the stealth fighter have evolved from those used in the Sukhoi 30 MKI. Considered the most maneuverable fighter in the world, the Sukhoi 30 MKI uses thrust vectored engines, which deflect the exhaust from its engines to extreme angles, enabling the jet to pull off violent maneuvers like a flat spin — where the jet literally spins around on its axis."
That would be one way to mix a martini, yes.
The end of last year, a couple videos came out with an American F-15 pilot talking about what it was like going up against the Indian Air Force Su-30MKI. It was quite interesting, as the vectored thrust did offer additional maneuverability but it came at a cost. That isn't to say that this new jet and training wont overcome that advantage, but it was a glimpse into the world of air to air combat I don't think makes it out into the civilian world all that often. The clips were put up on youtube - I'll link to both.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKEa-R37PeU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ibgAQ7lv0w
Basically if I understand it correctly the vectored thrust allowed them to turn, but they would lose airspeed and altitude in the process. As the fighter types say - speed is life - and once it happened they were apparently easy pickings. This FlightGlobal writeup about it may do a better job of explaining.
But I wonder is how much longer this will matter. The Lockheed video on their DAS for the F-35 pretty much asserts that the system makes maneuverability irrelevant. I realize that it's a vendor sales presentation, but at the same time I know off-bore-sight missiles are pretty much a done deal. Stealthiness helps some, but I doubt it would be enough as these systems keep improving. It seems soon the primary factor in air to air combat will be the quality of radar and missiles that are available.
When I bring this up with current military folks, they say they think rules of engagement will keep it from going that far. I can see that in situations where one side has complete air superiority - but if it comes to evenly matched sides, I think ROE will be out the window when sticking to it means losing. The whole thing is rather disconcerting as we seem to be developing better ways to kill just as quickly as all our other tech is advancing but I don't see leaps in our ability to live peacefully or get along keeping up with it all.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
enabling the jet to pull off violent maneuvers like a flat spin â" where the jet literally spins around on its axis
But what everyone here really wants to know is this:
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Damn, those FPGA boards are costly!!!
A flat spin killed Goose.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
There's a pretty good software fix for combating stealth fighters. It involves radar information sharing between many radar sources. Take a little piece of the picture from many different radar sources, and share them, and someone's going to get enough of a picture to launch a missile at. Guess what the F-22 can do?
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
yes!
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I was told that a flat spin was a bad thing.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Although I'd rather everybody were coming to American companies for such technology — rather than to Russia, as the Indians did for this fighter — a strong India is good for US.
Their values are the closest to ours in that neighborhood and it is good to have a counterweight to the ambitious China.
And, hey, maybe, the Indians will share some of the load world-wide, that Americans (and the British) are currently managing almost entirely on our own. Perhaps, people will even begin blaming them (and burn their flag), when they screw up...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Why do stealth planes need maneuverability? Don't they rely on long-range engagement and hopefully not being detected? Also, ultimately, isn't the maneuverability dependent on the amount of g-force the pilot can withstand? As I can remember, pilots are currently the limiting factor on the maneuverability of fighter planes.
...=! Indian. ==Russian. That is all.
No, but I smell curry!
Stay close, my friend. Insha'Allah it's just the takeaway place up the street...
And if no one can see them, that means they are extra stealthy.
It's certainly a lot cheaper than actually making them.
Am I the only one that looked at the thing and thought "it doesn't look very stealthy." No, I'm not talking about the paint. Just the fact that the intakes and some other features look like they are going to be big scatterers and contribute significantly to RCS. My understanding is that vectored thrust also has a significant thermal and radar signature... This sort of seems like Russia trying maintain prestige and credibility against F-22 with someone else conveniently picking up a big chunk of the tab. Then again, India is probably buying them to neutralize Pakastani F-16's, so it may be worth the investment in their minds. I'd have a hard time believing that these would give even F-15E's or Super Hornets a tough time.
Almost all new fighter jets (and indeed most military vehicles) incorporate stealth elements. It's one of the considerations you have when designing a combat aircraft these days. It would be unusual for an aircraft to be designed that WASN'T stealthy. "Stealth Fighter" is really just a term used by the media.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Vectored exhaust also allows for some incredible stunts. There's a video of a Russian jet flying backwards briefly. It gains a lot of forward speed, then uses the exhaust to flip over.
just recalibrate the AWACS radar to look for a curry signature, goodbye Mohandras...
The F22's much-hyped data link .. wait for it .. uses active transmissions, which can be listened for and detected and somewhat negates it's big selling point of a "stealth" advantage (without which, it barely performs as well as an F-15 or Su-27).
On that note, the Mig-31 (which makes no claim, nor needs too - check out its weapons, of stealth) has been using a digital data link to coordinate attacks and "cross-reference" for 30 years now. Yes, the F-22 is that far behind the times...
Does anybody know what does it mean?
And can I use vi on it?
Fantastic investment when the extent of enemy combatants' airpower are RPG's that can't hit anything above a few hundred feet, and much of your population has no running water.
Long term, are manned aircraft going to be still used for air superiority?
Cost effectiveness might be a key factor. Drone aircraft don't need to be manufactured to fly for years and thousands of missions. They could be made just good enough to survive 10 to 100 or so sorties, with a 10% failure rate considered acceptable for the first mission. Drone operators could train using simulators and a small number of better quality drone aircraft. For the missions needing drones to loiter over an area for a prolonged period, a different model of drone would be used - you don't need high speed jet interceptors if the enemy has no aircraft left. Also, drones wouldn't need to have the dogfighting performance of an F-35. They could be slower and less maneueverable - but packed with missiles and with a radar system capable of defeating stealth aircraft.
Drone aircraft wouldn't need to be "recalled" or inspected. If a fault is found that might cause a crash, no point in fixing it unless the problem is severe. You could manufacture thousands of them and leave them stored in special packing canisters. Unpack a few every few years and use them testing them to get empirical measurements of average 'shelf life'.
I think that with these and other cost saving measures, you could probably manufacture 3 to 5 drone aircraft for the cost of one manned aircraft with similar capabilities. The MQ-9 Reaper is about 1/3 the cost of the Apache helicopter it supplants. As long as you could guarantee that the drones would always work despite enemy jamming (possible with mesh networking, phase array communication antenna and one time pad encryption, I think) then they would be the only game in town.
Pakistan's AF is pretty much "neutralized" by India's existing fleet of Mirage 2000s and Su-30 variants. At Cope India (joint military exercise), the USAF F-16s were swept from the sky like turkeys at dick cheneys house (while the F-15s fared a bit better). The Indians had a 3.something to 1 kill ratio against the F-16, and considering that the USAF brought newer-model F-16s then Pakistan has, and are most likely better at flying them, it doesn't make the skies to "friendly" for the PAF if the shiznat hits the fan over there.
But does it run on Linux?
... set the MySQL root password to something other than blank.
www.zombieapocalypse.tv
India will become the new competition for the Russian and American, whether the state would like india japan too?
Well, thanks to China's 1-child policy we'll have a lot of Chinese males without a wife and looking to prove their masculinity.
In that space you'll have
1) a depopulated Russian Siberia, thanks to Russia's amazingly low re-population rate
2) a up and coming India
3) a USA either weak or actually strong (depending on how we come out of the recession) but unable or unwilling to withstand a real war. Remember that 1/2 the country is on record as thinking that the US is inherently bad.
China has also bought up most of the oil and sea lanes Japan tried to conquer during WWII.
That said, also due to China's 1 child policy, it is likely they will grow old BEFORE they can grow rich.
About all I can say about that is, you really don't know anything about India.
But since you think you know something about India... you'll never learn anything.
First, the F-22 has been built. Further production was stopped. But, was it congress that stopped it? Nope. It was Gates that did it. Personally, I think that he is right. This is designed to repel a first strike from another super power. It is thought that if said country does strike, it will be with one mighty hit designed to take out America entirely. And it will be a first launch. We will have nearly 200 f-22's. 200 or 400 or even 600 will not matter in that situation. Instead, Gates stopped it and is focused on getting us out of W's wars. Once we are done, we will go back to development. He wants to develop another bomber around 2016 (actually, it looks like he may speed it up) and wants more powerful ABLs. The current ABL is designed for about 700 miles forward. Shooting into space, it is expected to do take out most of the sats and multiple military space stations that an invader will have in the medium earth orbit. Also, Gates is fighting against losing more of our nuclear launchers. Personally, I agree with him. MAD kept America and USSR from going to war. Once another country feels that it can "win" a nuclear war, I think that we can expect one to start.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What the headline should say:
India will fly it's first Russian stealth fighter in four months.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Let's try spinning. That's a good trick.
They don't know better. So to them a coat of radar semi-reflecting paint is stealth.
BTW: The Sukhoi is not the most maneuverable fighter in the world. That title belongs to the F-22, who officially beat the Sukhoi last year.
A fascinating fact is the Sukhoi was only considered the most maneuverable when Indian pilots were at the helm. India has very good pilots.
Can anyone else, for some reason, not picture an Indian guy in a stealth fighter?
"india's first " and "being built in Russia" cool next time around i would be saying "UK's First" built in "USA"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKEa-R37PeU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ibgAQ7lv0w
But from the Indian's point of view this American Colonel's review of the Indian Air Force and it's planes is as if the whole Indian nation's collective penis size has been put into question. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNie0HzPmaY
Look at that angry young lady news anchor. She's basically upset and concerned that American women are getting bigger dick than she is. :-)
Perhaps it is a sign that it is about time to stop this new weapon's race that the whole world is involved in since 2001?
Something Lockheed makes makes India's planes' maneuverability(sic) irrelevant? How so?
I very much doubt that maneouverability will become irrelevant. The last time someone put all their trust in weaponry at the expense of maneouverability it did not go so well for them.
Why does it matter if it is "worse"? I get really tired of this more equivalence people try to pull. "Oh there were bad thugs in the past so that excuses this thug now!" No, it doesn't. NEITHER is excusable. Did the US do some bad shit in central america? You bet your ass. However that doesn't mean that it is a good thing that there are now people doing bad shit there that aren't associated with America. They are still thugs, still assholes.
I mean this would be like saying you can't criticize Bush for his spying on Americans because people like Putin, Kim Jong Il, and so on do it worse. Ummm, just because they do it worse doesn't make it ok.
What amazes me are the people suckered in by his "socialist" stance. The guy is NOT a socialist. He's a totalitarian thug. He just uses socialist propaganda to get power. However because he spews rhetoric people like, they completely overlook what he actually does.
I spent 4 months backpacking through India in 2008. He's absolutely right.
Do they even sell grills there?
The Indians and Russians may call it the"Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft" but they are wrong it will not be a 5th generation fighter. Simply put if you use the F-22 as a yardstick there is no other publicly disclosed aircraft that comes close to qualifying as a 5fth generation aircraft the closest you really get is generation 4.5. The F-35 dose not really even come close. A comparison would be the Seawolf ssn and the Virgina ssn. The Virgina class submarine was designed and built at a later point than the Seawolf. However you could easily say the Seawolf is a superior boat The Seawolf and the F-22 were designed to take The Russians at the hight of their power and after the USSRs failure there is no need/very little need for the top shelf equipment. So we are left with the F-35 and Virginia good in the own right but not nearly as bad-ass as the F-22 and The Seawolf. Yes I know the F-35 and F-22 fill different roles so a direct comparison is a little off, but there is a reason why we wont sell the 22 to any other nation not even our closes allies. So back to my point. This fighter will not be a 5th generation aircraft. There is a quick way to tell when a true 5th generation aircraft comes out that isnt from the USA. The US air force would probably triple the number of 22's that they purchase.
In ten years fighter planes will be the size of bumble bees and be equiped with cyanide
Which only worked because the Argentinians weren't very good. Against a proper adversary, slamming on the brakes in a fight is an extremely bad idea and will get you killed rapidly. As they say, speed is life. It doesn't really help all that much to be behind the other guy when he has a couple hundred knots on you and is zooming away.
That's an outrageous claim. The Argentineans were not bad pilots in fact considering their equipment and the ineptitude of some of their leaders they gave the Royal Navy a proper spanking. The Argentines would not have succeeded in inflicting such heavy losses on the Royal Navy if they were bad pilots. The British were plan lucky they didn't loose any carriers. These guys were flying from bases on mainland Argentina to the Falklands which was at the very limit's of their range. The Argentine strikers were laden down with bombs, they had no effective ECM assets and very few air to surface missiles which meant they had to go in with dumb bombs and that made them fairly easy meat for SAMs. Since they didn't have any escorts either they also suffered heavily at the hands of the Harriers. Any attempt by the Argentines to operate fighters over the islands failed because once they got there the supersonic Mirage couldn't use the considerable speed and power advantages it had over the subsonic Harriers (read: the Harrier had no afterburners and the Mirages couldn't use theirs) because if they had done that the MIrages would have run out of fuel before getting home. Effectively the Argentinean Mirage pilots had 10 minutes max over target area before they had to return to base. All of this gave the more maneuverable Harrier a huge advantage. If the junta had actually had the brains to land heavy construction equipment along with the initial invasion forces and extended the Port Stanley runway ASAP (which foreign observers considered to be the obvious thing to do) the boot would have been on the other foot since it would have allowed for the forward deployment a portion the sizable fleet of Argentine AF Mirage fighters to the Falklands and they would have had no performance or patrol time restrictions. It has been argued that extending the runway would have been impossible because of local conditions. However, the British extended the Port Stanley runway after the war to allow F-4 operations out of Port Stanley so that argument is BS.
This story got the summary wrong. The Sukhoi 30 MKI is already deployed. The new generation fighter aircraft is a different aircraft.
Fuck India. Fuck Indians. Fuck you.
Guess what, dipshit. You're reading an American website.
The Sukhoi Su-30 MKI[1] (NATO reporting name Flanker-H) is a variant of the Sukhoi Su-30 jointly-developed by Russia's Sukhoi Corporation and India's Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) for the Indian Air Force (IAF).
This is common knowledge in many circles.
What happened four months ago that grounded them?
this plane looks suspiciously a lot like the F-22 Raptor. and since its a Russian company, I guess you can figure that cold war implication.
Something Lockheed makes makes India's planes' maneuverability irrelevant? How so?
The US military always thinks about beating everyone else. But I think we're reaching a significant change in what determines the winner of a war. Technology now disseminates too swiftly to be a permanent advantage for one side.
First, we had the shift from hunting/gathering to agriculture. This is an indirect effect of technology on warfare. Farmers aren't as fit and capable as the nomads at combat, but they have a much larger population, so they can still win. They also have the ability to stratify their society and create specialists, which eventually led to the second stage.
Second, we had technology directly affecting warfare. Through most of recorded history, the most significant advantages are due to technology. (Where one side has a 100X advantage over another.) In the ancient world, the Hittites had Steel, so they could dominate those with bronze weapons. In the age of exploration and colonization, Europeans with guns could outclass those with less technically advanced weapons. In World War I and II, technological advances came to include information technology, first through the breaking of codes, then through the development of surveillance and sensing technologies like RADAR and countermeasures like ECM.
I think we are entering a third stage in the history of warfare. Information technology has become so widespread and ubiquitous that its influence dominates. As a result technology no longer constitutes an overwhelming advantage. The other side will develop their own version very soon. Even if an opponent doesn't have access to the same level of technology, much of the rest of the world is now industrialized to the extent that small organizations have access to enough information and resources to improvise and confound even the technical and resource advantages of a superpower.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, they do. but those "grills" are not used to grilling cows, but to act as security fences in the houses..on windows etc...:) Hey india is NOT a monolithic country, so muslims and christians eat cows..and christians and some hindus eat pork :)
It had to be said.
Is the same stealth technology they use on their moon sattelites? http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/08/29/2047237/Communication-Lost-With-Indian-Moon-Satellite?art_pos=1
India has slightly modified Ghandi's 3 step program:
1. First they laugh at you
2. Then you build a stealth fighter
3. Then you win?
Which axis? Probably the axis of evil for all the editor knows...
That would be the British then.
The Hawker Siddley Harrier was the worlds first operational Vectored Thrust Aircraft.
The Russian copy was like the F35 grossly overweight and really failed to make an impact.
Then who were one of the biggest users of the Harrier?
That would be the US Marine Corps then.
When a Harrier Pilot 'Viffed' they would not as has been said loose height. Exactly the opposite. In a dogfight, height is more important than speed especially if the ground is in close proximity. One harrier test pilot I once met was able to Viff and also roll at the same time thus avoiding any countermeasures taken by the following aircraft.
As someone who worked in the Harrier Flight Test at Hawkers in the 1970's at Dunsfold (where Top Gear is Filmed) I do have some first hand experience in how the Harrier worked and was operated.
First, we had the shift from hunting/gathering to agriculture.
You know, its not always necessary to start at the beginning.....
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The Vulcan bomber raid did minimal damage.
Your first post must run on Linux!
You overreach.
Technology will continue to be a giant advantage for the next 30 years or so, at least. I question your understanding of military technology portfolios.
World War I was a war of attrition. WWII, also, but to a lesser degree.
IT is not so predominant among the worlds' armies that it dominates. Understanding a technology doesn't mean the ability to solve engineering/production challenges, weaponize it, train troops, and then operate the new capability.
In fact, we are coming to a moment in time where the sophistication of our capabilities may render obsolete various styles of warfare. The "fog of war" is dying a slow death.
cold war called and wants their conventional battlefield back
God's gift to chicks
i guess we shouldn't have seen this coming
Their 5-th gen planes are Su-47 and Sukhoi PAK FA (look them up, India is participating financially in PAK FA project, Su-47 is all Russian). They aren't quite there yet, but I've seen Su-47 doing aerobatics and it's an impressive piece of machinery. Problem is, just like F-22 with which it's supposed to compete it's extremely expensive, and it's no match to Russian stealth capable anti-aircraft systems from S400 onwards, which are much cheaper to produce and run. But then, neither is F-22. :-)
Man, those christians - they eat everything !
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
Please read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Generation_Fighter_Aircraft
You, sir, are my hero. Don't be surprised to see this idea to be picked up by film industry soon! :)
As a result technology no longer constitutes an overwhelming advantage.
It depends on whether you include "necessary technical and manufacturing infrastructure" in the definition of technology.
Forget India, it's China, with their massive manufacturing capability that you have to worry about.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Actually, I'm sure that a flat spin would qualify more for 'stirred' than 'shaken'. You'll need to perform a multi-axis tumble in order to mix a really cool martini.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Pakistani and/or Chinese nukes make maneuverability irrelevant
I worked on a modern SAM site for a couple of years as an operator (the guy who actually tracks the targets and pushes the fire button), so hear this.
Most SAM systems use a different radar to "identify" that a target exists in their missile engagement zone (you can identify these by their constantly rotating nature) and a different radar to actually track & lock a target. The tracking radar does not spin but rather follows the locked target as the target flies. Depending on the SAM system and technology, you CAN use multiple tracking radars for better triangulation and/or to combat ECM or other anti-tracking technologies. You can even use multiple fire batteries if they are spread far enough for even better than better triangulation. The caveat is that of all the fire batteries interconnected, only the Master battery can do this, the slaves can't. Additionally, the slave fire batteries must not be currently tracking and/or engaging other targets for this to work.
The importance of stealth technology is to remain unseen by the radar that identifies a valid signature in the sky and then passes the target to the tracking radar. If you are identified as an aircraft but can't be tracked by the tracking radar, then usually the target is assigned to airborne forces to intercept or ground small arms (including stinger missiles and manual tracking flak cannons). Remaining completely undetected is what stealth technology is all about.
Well, the Germans had their 130 km (80 miles) Gun in 1918. Probably because airplanes and rocket propelled missiles were not very good at that point. So, he might have mentioned rocket science instead of super guns...
His point is not without merit, an aircraft carrier is a big, extremely valuable target. A potential enemy only has to find one weakness. Much like the impregnable forts of the Maginot line or Eben Emael which were rendered useless by new tactics and weapons.
Am I the only one who read that as FPGA the first time around?
Woopty Doo Basil, what does it all mean?!
The Harrier isn't that great of a fighter. With it's high wing loading and low speed, only the ridiculously high thrust to weight ratio saves it in a dogfight.
However the Harriers were equipped with the new all-aspect sidewinders, while the Argentinians were stuck with older rear-aspect only weapons. Along with vastly improved accuracy, they allowed the British the massive advantage of being able to take head-on shots.
Do I look like I give a damn?
"Less than four months from now, India's first stealth fighter will fly for the first time.
I foresee a /. DUP article in less than four months time...
SIGLOST && SIGUNUSED && SIGQUIT
Suggestions:
Thuggee
Phansigar
Kalinator
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
I think ROE will be out the window when sticking to it means losing.
And then there was the Vietnam war, a war that arrived after missiles obsoleted gun technology...we lost quite a few pilots before we remembered - again - that inflexible tactics are as deadly as inflexible strategies, and duct-taped a gun onto the F-4.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Man, those christians - they eat everything !
--
# apt-get pussy
Yummmm I want to be a Christian
Maybe I should have added that the moves the British Empire made were dictated by "business interests" - to provide yet another example of what happens when bad policy doesn't go out the window fast enough?
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
Once they figure out how to get rid of the scent of curry wafting from the after burners.
Hope is the currency of fools
Just don't do it near any air pockets unless you want it shaken, not stirred.
You would a get a lot more respect if people from your country bathed once a decade.
But would it be considered shaking or stirring?
After watching the show battlestar galactica where the pilots of those sharp looking shuttles, were doing cool maneuvers, I thought it would be nice to have extreme maneuvers done like that but with our planes....I didn't even know India had an air force, let alone one consisting of the coolest jet! Shouldn't they focus on feeding more of their people though...I always tend to think of India as impoverished, for some reason
The article is either completely mistaken or an outright lie. This fighter doesn't even have stealth technology. Its based on a Russian design and doesn't even have any stealth elements. For instance, the huge vertical tail fins are bound to reflect radar as are the huge old style air intakes. On thing you will notice on US designs is the air intakes are placed on the top of the aircraft to avoid radar bouncing off of the compressor fans. Like wise US designs use slanted tail fins to make a lower radar profile.
Just another example of the Indian press exaggerating to try and make India look like a technologically advanced nation, when its still way behind. And of course, this fight is really a Russian fighter. Its funny to me that although a lot of software gets outsourced to India, it has to be brought back to the US to be done right. Likewise, to do a military aircraft correctly, it has to be outsourced to the Russians.
I think the myth that India has advanced technology wise to the level of a developed nation is starting to be broken.
Move along.
There is an interesting post regarding stealth elements of sukhoi planes in a blog on the aviation week website: link. Supposedly, they apply radar absorbent material directly to the compressor blades and use spray-on RAM on the external stores. This alone does not make it a stealth plane, but the reduced signature is very useful when combined with jammers. The link about the "Have Glass" program contains further info about this kind of stealth features in russian and western planes.
It's a derivative of the SU-27, which isn't at all stealthy (note the exposed engine intakes and right-angled vertical tails). Also, the original article doesn't mention stealth at all, just supercruise and maneuverability.
Is only way to mix a martini. Don't want to bruise the gin ya' know.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Hmmm, let's see how it all stacks up on the stealth-o-meter. We'll compare against the F-117 which is still the yardstick, the new F-22, and the FGFA:
1) remove all right angles
Right angles better control surfaces are natural corner cubes that reflect radar back to the broadcaster. They need to be removed at all costs.
F-117: every surface is facetted, with no right angles anywhere at all
F-22: no major right angles, the vertical stabs are tilted to remove them
FGFA: two major right angles, plus radar trap between them
2) cover the engine faces
When they're turned on and spinning, the first stage compressor fan makes a superb radar reflector. It is vital to ensure it is not visible from the front.
F-117: engine intakes covered with radar barriers
F-22: s-curves in the intakes hide the engines
FGFA: straight-through intakes expose the engine faces
3) radar has to be LPI
Your radar receives some tiny amount of the broadcast energy when it reflects off the enemy, dropping with r^4. The enemy, on the other hand, gets much more energy from your signal, dropping with r^2. It is vital to ensure that your radar system is not detectable on on RWR.
F-117: no radar
F-22: AESA LPI radar, doesn't even repeat the same frequency _during_ a pulse
FGFA: Current systems use a PESA radar, new radar is unknown
4) internal weapons bay
Weapons generally have the same problems as the airframe, but are smaller. However, they are often loaded in packs that aggregate their return. For stealth, it is vital that the weapons be stored internally, out of view.
F-117: all weapons carried internally
F-22: all weapons normally carried internally, "overload" capacity on the wings but generally not used
FGFA: unknown
Stealthy? Hmmm, we'll see.
Maury
is here.
Enjoy!
That must be what they lost the Chandrayaan-1!
Somebody accidentally hit the prototype stealth button, and POW, satellite gone.
If my combat flight simming experience is worth anything, you should consider your stealth to be a backup asset and not a strategy-changing feature of the aircraft. You still stay the hell away from ground radar and strike other aircraft from as far away as you can. There isn't a big difference in fighting with a stealth aircraft and a non-stealthy one, the stealth just gives you a bit more of a safety margin.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Um... how will we know when it's flying?
you my friend are an idiot. just because some countries decide to not withstand bullying, they do not belong to axis of evil. idiot.
The F35 is a global project with several countries footing the development bill, and many US allies purchasing it for their own air forces...
Not only that, but some allies will be building it themselves. Turkey will produce most of their F-35's at their own factory, and Israel has expressed interest in doing the same thing.
The only stumbling block in exports seems to be the software code. The UK threatened to pull out of the program at one time because the US wouldn't completely share the source code. The Department of Defense thought the UK's export controls weren't strong enough, and that they'd end up sharing secrets with unauthorized countries.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I very much doubt that maneouverability will become irrelevant. The last time someone put all their trust in weaponry at the expense of maneouverability it did not go so well for them.
I've got an even more recent example for you of "technology X makes practice Y obsolete", and it also deals with fighter planes. In the late 50's, various eggheads in defense think tanks said that the era of dogfighting was over, that air to air missiles were all that mattered. They said turn rate, acceleration, energy manueverability, and guns were no longer factors. So the Navy didn't even put a canon in the F-4.
Ten years later, "obsolete" MiG-17's were shooting down F-4's, often armed with nothing more than a canon. Seems our missiles had a nasty habit of missing their targets, and then our pilots, with no dogfighting skills and no canons for close-combat, were getting chewed up by 20 year old fighters that had no missiles and no radar.
USAF put a canon in their version of the F-4, the Navy started Top Gun to teach dogfighting again, and in the wake of the Vietnam War, we took the lessons learned and produced the Teen series of fighters... the F-14, F-15, and soon after, the F-16 and F/A-18, the finest fighters ever made. The Vietnam experience also shaped the A-10, the best ground attack aircraft ever made, period.
And now... once again, we're tossing aside lessons hard-learned, and buying into the notion that a new technology will make dogfighting obsolete. The Navy and Marine Corps/Royal Navy versions of the F-35, once again, will not even include a built-in canon.
We never learn.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
"Submarines have several drawbacks"
One of which is that, against modern aerial ASW systems, they have no defense at all. They can attempt to fire off torpedoes at other subs or even surface ships, but once detected, are helpless against helos and fixed wing aircraft. If they're detected, their only option is to run or go dead quiet and pray that their countermeasures will throw off the air-dropped torpedoes that are coming after them.
Behind all the "there are subs and there are targets" bravado from the bubblehead community lies the truth that subs are indeed a threat, but the fact is, they're also incredibly vulnerable too.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
And a tank costs a lot more than a pickup truck. So what? If the F-22 can maintain, say, a 20:1 kill ratio against other aircraft, then the 5:1 cost disparity is more than justified.
That extraordinary ratio is from USAF-directed simulations, under their rules of engagement, not real world combat. And we know they'd never exaggerate the F-22's effectiveness, now would they?
The Raptor, while impressive on paper is indeed a lemon, especially with it's software problems. No fighter, no matter how potent, is any good to you when it averages a 50% uptime, and costs so much that you can't afford it in sufficient quantities. Reliability and quantity count in warfare, bigtime. Ask the Germans about this. Their Tiger Tank was a wonder on paper. Too bad it was broken down all the time, and too bad that it was so expensive the Germans could only build a few of them. Meanwhile, the Russians and Americans churned out cheap and reliable tanks by the thousands, and ate the Germans alive. Read a book called Arms of Destruction, a book that ranks the best land weapons of WWII. The lessons are applicable to all types of weaponry. The author makes a point that seems to elude the Department of Defense these days; that capabilities of a weapon mean nothing if that weapon isn't sufficiently available in wartime. It's kind of hard to fulfill that need if you can't buy enough of them, and the ones you do have keep breaking down. And that's the F-22 in a nutshell.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
It's an Indian aircraft, so of course you just follow the curry smell.
The 007 movie collection has pulled the wool over the eyes of modern martini drinkers. True aficionados know that a martini is to be stirred and not shaken (or at least they fully understand the tradeoffs between the two). And no, it has nothing to do with "bruising the gin", those people don't know what they're talking about either. Some could make a case for the increased water dilution and ice shards in shaking. But the real reason to stir a martini is so that you can serve it crystal clear in a cocktail glass; a shaken drink will be cloudy with bubbles unless you allow it to sit for >30sec after shaking.
And don't even get me started on the topic of vodka "martinis" ;-)
When was the last time you saw a major naval battle between surface ships, particularly battleships? It doesn't happen anymore because submarines and aircraft carriers made it obsolete.
Not really. In 1988, there was a big naval battle in the Persian Gulf... Operation Praying Mantis. It was the largest naval battle since Leyte Gulf in WWII. It just didn't get much press stateside. And while my carrier (the Enterprise) had aircraft involved, the battle was largely between surface forces. We sent an A-6 to pop off some Skippers at the Iranian frigates (which were then-recent ships and British-built, very capable warships), but much of the combat was conducted by our destroyers and frigates. It was in fact the first time US naval forces fired ship-to-ship missiles in combat.
And as for aircraft making surface warfare obsolete, note that our surface ships shot down an Iranian F-4, and the rest of their aircraft would flee as soon as painted by radar.
Surface warfare is very much still relevant. What isn't is the old notion of two ships lining up and firing canons at each other.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
When 100kW solid-state lasers are manufactured in a size/weight ratio that is acceptable for modern aircraft, unmanned aircraft will become dominant. Lasers engage at the speed of light, and with relay optics on other unmanned aircraft, non-line-of-sight and beyond the horizon engagements become routine. Early detection systems, radars, and air-to-air missiles cannot compete with the speed-of-light. As a result, pilots will no longer be willing to engage enemy aircraft platforms if directed energy systems are present, and unmanned aircraft and lasers will become the new air dominance combination.
Sidenote: the capability has already been demonstrated for chemical lasers (have the power, the range, and the focus but the large "magazine" of chemicals is the the problem), solid state lasers (no magazine needed, but focus and miniaturization are issues), and relay optics.
Times change and empires grow and then die. It has happened to every single empire since the beginning of time and I don't think America will be very different. England basically gave the Americans all their cash so they could get supplies to survive the Germans, thus the Uk was broke after WWII and the USA came out pretty well financially, something upon which they capitalised. Now the USA owes China a good chunk of all it owns, and while the USA is an incredibly resilient country and very innovative, it also will take some doing to remain ahead of the pack for the rest of this century, and the others don't have to spend as much on their militaries as the USA does to be able to deter USA force.
There's the possibility that 6th generation = UAV. They already fly armed missions. (But perhaps you'd need some "conventional" 5th gen planes for the odd mission where you really need a pilot present to make a judgment call.)
In fact, we are coming to a moment in time where the sophistication of our capabilities may render obsolete various styles of warfare. The "fog of war" is dying a slow death.
Then why can't the US find/kill Bin Laden?
No actually the axis of a moronic white pig who happens to be convinced that his nation is not EVIL despite a history of slavery, racism and conquest.
After all the money spent on the moon shot and the stealth fighters why not throw a dollars at the 500,000,000 people living in extreme poverty in your country?
Sure, it's great to feel national pride at technological advances. But people in civilized countries take take pride at knowing that hundreds of millions of their fellow citizens are starving to death and living in slums and shit holes.
Ah, yes, you say, ..."that is true. But that is because it is wish of the giant elephant-headed god who rides on a mouse that all these people be dirt-poor. There really is nothing that we can do about the situation until the giant elephant-headed god who rides on a mouse changes his mind.
And he hasn't spoken in 3500 years! And if you understood India you wouldn't make such stupid and racist statements about our beloved poverty".
when I see it.
The Soviet fleet had the Kiev and, I think, the Minsk. Both aircraft carriers. So, yes, the Russians obviously saw a use for them.
While I was (vaguely) aware that Bond's version was more tongue-in-cheek than connoisseur, I thank you for the in-depth information. :) And I now have a craving for a martini...
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
All ships have some utility, as long as they stay afloat. That is after the area around them is secured by subs and anti-air/anti-missile cruisers. I.e. subs come first, long before anything else.
Technology will continue to be a giant advantage for the next 30 years or so, at least.
I agree. 30 years is a historical eyeblink.
I question your understanding of military technology portfolios.
Then obviously you missed my point. It's not just the relative level of information and technical power that differing *militaries* have. It's the level of tech that *individuals* have access to.
World War I was a war of attrition. WWII, also, but to a lesser degree.
But there were numerous examples of technological asymmetry, even in WWII. Polish cavalry vs. the German Blitzkrieg. Bolt action rifles vs. submachine guns.
IT is not so predominant among the worlds' armies that it dominates.
There is still a lot of inequality. However, you're missing my point. My point is that IT has had a certain effect on the entire *world*.
Understanding a technology doesn't mean the ability to solve engineering/production challenges, weaponize it, train troops, and then operate the new capability.
But understanding a technology is a prerequisite to all you just spoke of. And even if you can't match the tech and industrial infrastructure, you can understand it well enough to devise a countermeasure. (IEDs vs. armored Hummers, then used propane tanks full of explosive catapulted to the top of MRAPs.)
I think you've missed my point. Information technology is reaching the point where information flows too freely for technological asymmetries to last very long, and this is accelerating all the time. We will soon reach the point where any technological advantages is too short lived to be useful. It's the singularity for technological advantages.
It will be pretty easy to locate, because of the curry scented JP4...
Which axis? Probably the axis of evil for all the editor knows...
Dude I love you and your axis of evil! I thought about making an evil comment but I would get in to trouble breaking the Official Secrets Act. Can we discuss this over Kashmir/curry?
All cows eat grass!
This is GREAT! Now India can protect its starving millions from their enemies. *
No, the problem was not with India's Democracy per se, the problem was with their Democracy being penetrated throughout by KGB. It began in the 1950-ies and was complete over subsequent decades. The rest of the world got the chance to learn about it (and other KGB secrets) in the 1990-ies, when Mitrokhin archive became public, but the US government, no doubt, knew all along and could not trust the Indian, despite all the sympathy for their Democracy and culture...
It was not that long ago — in all likelihood, there still remain busy politicians and government workers in India, who either never got off Russian payroll, or could be blackmailed by Russia into new cooperation...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I like my martinis shaken, not stirred.
Depending on who you believe, he could well be long dead. But they don't want you to think that. Even if he's not long dead, they don't actually want to catch him, he's too useful a bogeyman.
No actually the axis of a moronic white pig who happens to be convinced that his nation is not EVIL despite a history of slavery, racism and conquest.
Uh, what was that about racism again?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
So, the third stage is to sign the enemy up for as many facebook/twitter alerts as possible and wait for the notification emails to dDoS their infrastructure?
A.I. Research. The peculiar science in which we know the question and we know the answer, but can't show the working