Slashdot Mirror
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."
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?
A flat spin killed Goose.
Compressor turbine stall killed Goose.
Not to be pedantic, but a rather nasty blow to the head during ejection killed Goose.
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.
If you want to be really pedantic, it was the script writer, in the office, with a typewriter.
I'm not so sure about the Australian Over THe Horizon radar being unable to be used by SAM's for targeting.
My uncle used to be SAM commander (or whatever it's called) and he said there were plenty of times when they would lock on and fire at aircraft way over the horizon, when engaging in war games with the US. This was despite AWACS and similar.
Though he did say that most of these were with active radar, however when they (the US) started running stealth fighters in the games, they weren't able to track them. However, almost straight away all of the SAM sites were quickly sent down to the DSTO for upgrades, and each one came back with a special little switch which they would flick when ever certain conditions were met. He surmised that this allowed them to track and lock on aircraft using stealth technology using the OTH system.
They get taught about every single switch, how it works and what it does, so that they can fully understand the system, and ensure that it operates no matter what, or can recognize when somethings wrong. However, when this new switch was installed, it was kept quiet, they weren't told anything but "When this happens. Flick this.", and so they did, and from then on it was able to track and lock on any of these stealth fighters.
I could have my information wrong, but it sounds valid to me. I'd be interested to hear if anyone knows any details or has any other information on this system.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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.
No, being the "happily married guy" in a gang-of-buddies action movie killed Goose.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Which axis? Probably the axis of evil for all the editor knows...
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.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
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.
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?