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."

Comments

Re:Interesting stuff

[interkin3tic]

But I wonder is how much longer this will matter. The Lockheed video on their DAS [youtube.com] 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.

Something Lockheed makes makes India's planes' maneuverability irrelevant? How so? We're going to be fighting each other or something? Is Lockheed going to be selling their stuff to Pakistan?

Re:Interesting stuff

[ScentCone]

we now only have a guy like Hugo Chavez who tries to rig elections

And... sends troops across borders, and provides weapons and cash to murderous FARC militants, and jails his political opponents, and provides support to places like Cuba (who jail their own people for trying to leave). Chavez is a lot more than an election-rigger. He's a totalitarian socialist thug who has oil cash to play with.

Re:Interesting stuff

[phantomfive]

Yeah man, talk bad about Chavez all you want, most of it's deserved, but once again, if you consider how much better the region is compared to some of the other leaders in the past, he's like a little kitten.

I mean, come on, has he destroyed entire villages? Has he tied up his own son in a bag and thrown him in the river as punishment for insubordination? Has he killed nuns? These are the kinds of things you expect from a good latin American dictator. I don't even think there's any evidence of him torturing people. The dictators have gotten soft.

Re:Interesting stuff

[BlackSabbath]

Hahaha! Spoken like a true gringo! Dude, get your head out of your arse for just a second and ask, well, just about ANYONE from just about anywhere in South or Central America who was born before 1980, about your country's wonderful record in that region over say the last 100 years. From arming, funding and training murderous bastards to propping up dictators that "disappeared" thousands of their own people, to rigging elections, to assassinating elected leaders. Oh yeah, Hugo has a wonderful precedent, in fact, almost "template" to follow that was created by your country.
Tthere's only so much hypocrisy the rest of the world can handle. Or is this yet another case of do as I say, not as I do?

Jeez Louise!

Re:Long term

[ShooterNeo]

First of all, these drones are drones. There's still a pilot - who isn't in the plane.

Second, you can get MORE piloting skill using drones. AND you can push the aircraft much harder. The reason is obvious. Your ace pilots won't get killed. Morover, even in a hot shooting war, a fighter pilot won't be in an actual dogfight more than a few minutes of a mission (most of the time is taken up getting to the combat zone, finding a target, etc). So, you could have your weaker, less talented pilots handle flying the drone fighters to the battle and have your ace pilots take over when the aircraft is in range of an enemy fighter.

Finally, the cost difference

Imagine a piloted aircraft up against 5 or 10 to one odds (because the country that pays for drones and doesn't have to pay for all those costs I mentioned in the post above can spend that money buying more drones). Every one of those drone aircraft has a pilot at the stick just as good as he is, or better. The drones can pull as many Gs as their airframe can take.

Outcome is obvious.

Re:Interesting stuff

[eln]

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. When was the last time you saw two armies face each other across a field in two long lines and start firing at each other? Not since the invention of the rifled barrel made that tactic obsolete. Similarly, in theory better smart missile and radar technology will eventually make dogfighting obsolete.

Trench warfare was once the future of warfare. Standing in a line firing muskets at each other was once the height of battle tactics. Weapons and tactics become obsolete in warfare all the time. Virtually every war is fought differently than the previous ones. So, while people may be wrong about any particular thing becoming the "future of warfare", they're very often right about tactics and weapons becoming obsolete. If you hold on to old and outmoded battle tactics and weapons and prepare for the next war as if it will be fought like the last one, you get run over.

Dangerous Thinking

[Roger W Moore]

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.

Re:Dangerous Thinking

[Nefarious Wheel]

Friend of mine served in the USN for about 14 years as a sparks. Much of that on the Onslo, not that that matters. But he said they tried to sink an aircraft carrier back when they were doing atmospheric nuclear tests, and they couldn't sink the bastard. Nowdays I hear nuclear carriers have an extremely high rate water flow across the deck they can start up that can minimise the damage by radiation of anything short of a direct hit by a large yield weapon, at least to the point where the carrier can remain operational to some extent. Yes, a thermonuclear weapon could probably kill it but I'd suggest that before that happened their weapons would be away and their ordinance spent. Bad dust up scenario, but I bet it will be a long time before carriers are actually irrelevant. This is very second-hand, but I'd be interested in hearing any counter or corroborative stories.

Re:Dangerous Thinking

[IgnoramusMaximus]

I am not so sure. You seem to forget that carrier fleets are as much a result of political posturing as necessity and are a direct outgrowth of US experiences in the WWII in the Pacific, which is to put it diplomatically a classic case of "fighting the last war". Also the US has never been truly tested on the seas against anyone but militarily 3rd-rate, impoverished countries. I seem to recall a saying the submariners are rather fond of, to the effect that in case of a serious modern naval conflict there would be only two classes of ships at seas: submarines and ... "targets"!

Something else to ponder: the Soviet Union never invested in the massive carriers, focusing rather heavily on fast, long-range submarines instead. Presumably they also had "people thinking about fleet deployment for a living", don't you think? Or do you suppose they were all idiots, far beneath the American Super-Men, The Masters of the Universe?

Re:Dangerous Thinking

[Shakrai]

Also the US has never been truly tested on the seas against anyone but militarily 3rd-rate, impoverished countries.

Japan was a militarily 3rd-rate impoverished country?

I seem to recall a saying the submariners are rather fond of, to the effect that in case of a serious modern naval conflict there would be only two classes of ships at seas: submarines and ... "targets"!

Submarines are historically the biggest threat to aircraft carriers (the Wasp and Yorktown come to mind) but they aren't invulnerable. Submarines have several drawbacks:

1) They can't keep up with a fast moving surface task force without giving away their location and losing sonar effectiveness. The best way for them to engage such a task force is to lie in wait for it but this isn't always possible if your enemy doesn't cooperate and go where you think he's going to go.
2) They can't communicate in real time with their base and thus have a harder time taking advantage of other sensor platforms (aircraft, satellites, etc) that would help them locate their targets.
3) They can't take advantage of long range stand-off weapons (missiles) without giving away their location.
4) Their primary sensor platform (passive sonar) requires a fair amount of time to develop a targeting solution (see target motion analysis). This process is rendered much harder when tracking a target that is taking evasive action (random changes in course or speed) to complicate the process. Active sonar removes this limitation but gives away their location and subjects them to counter-attack.

In summary, it's a mistake to dismiss the submarine threat but it's also a mistake to assume that they will rule the waves in a future conflict. Submarines can only dominate the oceans in the absence of an effective ASW strategy (see the Pacific in WW2). When such a strategy is implemented they are certainly manageable (see the Atlantic in WW2). We have a competent ASW strategy and the best technology in the world for the task. We also have the most effective ASW weapon available -- our own submarines.

Something else to ponder: the Soviet Union never invested in the massive carriers, focusing rather heavily on fast, long-range submarines instead. Presumably they also had "people thinking about fleet deployment for a living", don't you think?

The Soviets had a completely different strategy than NATO did. It's the difference between sea control and sea denial. The Soviets didn't have to control the shipping lanes to win WW3. They just had to close them to NATO shipping and choke off supplies and reinforcements from North America. It's much cheaper to build a sea denial force than it is to build a sea control force and doesn't require the same level of institutional experience.

It should be noted that every power that's ever tried a sea denial strategy ultimately failed and lost whatever war they were fighting. Germany in the World Wars is the best known example but there are others from history. Unless you can win command of the sea you are going to have an awfully hard time defeating a Western military power. Command of the sea has been the secret to our success since the beginning. If it wasn't for Salamis there probably wouldn't even be such a thing as Western civilization.

And more to the point

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:Interesting stuff

[Admiral Ag]

Whatever one thinks of Chavez, your post is seriously misleading.

1. "OK for the dictatorial head of a murderous socialist regimes to name himself president for life."

(a) It's a strange dictator who wins by free and fair elections, multiple times.

(b) Who has he had killed?

(c) I know he calls himself a socialist, but he's more of a New Dealer.

(d) In what universe is changing the law so that you can run for election any number of times the same as making yourself president for life? Not everyone thinks term limits are a good idea. The US did not used to have them.

2. "shut down not-propogandizing-for-him media, "disappear" elected officials that disagree with him"

(a) If a major US television station had (i) collaborated in the (unconstitutional) attempted military overthrow of the United States government, and (ii) consistently referred to Obama as "the nigger" on air, do you think that such a station would be allowed to continue to broadcast? I have a bridge for sale if you think so.

(b) What credible reports are there of Chavez having people offed? I haven't seen any.

If you don't like the guy, then fine. There's no need to make shit up.

Re:Interesting stuff

[R3d M3rcury]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, they may have been murderous bastards, but they were our murderous bastards.