Russian Stealth Fighter Makes Its First Flight

An anonymous reader writes "The long-awaited Russian stealth fighter, codenamed PAK FA or T-50, has had its first test flight today. This Google translation of a Russian article has a photo of the jet. Production is supposed to begin in 2015; the AP reports that India is helping with development. It's reportedly designed to compete with America's F-22 (first flight: 1997). Relatedly, according to Wikipedia, Japan is planning to fly its own stealth fighter, the ATD-X, which we have previously discussed, in 2011."

Comments

Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[tjstork]

That changes the whole argument on the F-22 being killed now, doesn't it? We'll see calls coming out to restart F-22 production, but probably an F-22 B where some of the stealth stuff that drives up operational costs gets dropped in the interest of being just a good first line fighter.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

If we ever get into The Big One with Russia, we're going to toss ICBMs at each other, so who cares about fighters anyway?

Aircraft are for our misadventures in small, nearly defenseless countries, and Predator is better at that.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[TheKidWho]

Except for the fact that Russia is going to be selling these fighters to many other countries.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[je ne sais quoi]

The U.S. made all this noise about the missile defense system, which the Russians said would escalate an arms race and this thing is suppose to compete with the F-22 which the U.S. already created in order to better fight the last war. The question though, if the U.S. hadn't restarted the arms race, would Russia have bothered making this plane? Maybe, maybe not. I agree though, regardless of who started the arms race this time, there will be calls for more planes to compete, more than likely from Republicans or Democrats trying to appear centrist. Not sure if there is really a threat though. I guess I'd prefer it if we'd wait and see how many planes the Russians produce first. If it's just enough to compete with the 187 the U.S. already has procured, why bother making more planes? It'll only escalate the arms race.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Inda]

Why? Why bother?

How about spending the money on something better? Or do you have the best edjucation, healthcare, housing and schooling already?

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[acalltoreason]

Not at all. We are currently replacing the F-22 with the F-35 Lightning II, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-35_Lightning_II [wikipedia.org]. Rebooting the F-22 would be a giant step back. Furthermore, the F-22 project was ended, in part, due to the fact that it had "old" technology on board. The Wikipedia article also talks about how it has lower cost stealth gear on board, making it less expensive to maintain and use than the F-22.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[wisdom_brewing]

compared to the US?

education - yes
AFFORDABLE healthcare - yes
housing - capable of taking +40C in the summer and -40C in winter
schooling - how is this different to education?

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Rogerborg]

The counter to a stealth fighter would be better radar, not more stealth fighters of your own.

I'm not even sure why there's a supposed role for fighters any more anyway. When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane, rather than being bombed on or shot from the ground?

Uh, wait. We're talking about defence procurement, aren't we? Sorry, I forgot. :(

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[bds1986]

The F-35 is not replacing the F-22, it is complementing it, in the same way that the cheaper and more flexible F-16 complemented the specialised F-15. F-22 procurement hasn't even completed yet, and most of the aircraft that have been delivered are only a few years old at most.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

That changes the whole argument on the F-22 being killed now, doesn't it? We'll see calls coming out to restart F-22 production, but probably an F-22 B where some of the stealth stuff that drives up operational costs gets dropped in the interest of being just a good first line fighter.

Judging from previous technological de-classification cycle, UCAVs are already operational. F-22 will be probably the last manned air-superiority fighter produced and is quickly coming obsolete.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[TheKidWho]

Are you serious? While the electronics on board the F22 could stand to be updated, the chassis and power systems on the F22 are second to none.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

When you can explain how we can make cars affordable so that anyone can have as many as they want as often as they want then you'll know exactly how to make healthcare affordable for everyone.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[LWATCDR]

Yes I could see an F-22B with improved electronics. If they have simplified the Stealth systems of the F35 I could those being put into the F22B. You may also see an F22J, F22i, and F22k soon for Japan, Israel, and Korea.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Kartu]

Somehow they do it at Canada, don't they? US spends on health care more than any other country (per citizen), yet the system is on 37th place, when it comes to effectiveness.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[LWATCDR]

To answer your question for the US the Iraqi war. For Russia they downed a drone just last year with a fighter.
Every time somebody says that Fighters are not needed anymore something happens that prove that idea wrong.
Same with Aircraft Carriers and Tanks.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Bakkster]

The counter to a stealth fighter would be better radar, not more stealth fighters of your own.

Actually, the counter is both on the same platform. You need weapons that can defeat the stealth fighter, since ideally you want to eliminate the target, not just look at it.

So, you want a fighter that has a small enough radar cross-section and sensitive enough radar that you see the other guy first. Then your missile just needs to be pointed in the right direction, it can aquire the lock later when it's close enough to detect their radar cross-section.

I'm not even sure why there's a supposed role for fighters any more anyway. When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane, rather than being bombed on or shot from the ground?

We shot down an Iranian drone over Iraq a few months ago. Before that, seems the last fighter-fighter engagements were Desert Storm, only because we haven't been in an air-war since. It's possible I'm missing some conflict, though. Assuming things were to go south with Iran, Pakistan, India, Russia, China, or North Korea we would need air superiority fighters. Air superiority doesn't win wars on its own, but it's hard to win a conventional war without it.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[paiute]

compared to the US?

education - yes
AFFORDABLE healthcare - yes
housing - capable of taking +40C in the summer and -40C in winter
schooling - how is this different to education?

Education: okay, probably when you take into account the whole student body, not just elite academies.
Healthcare: surely you jest with me.
Housing: your use of communistic units brings your patriotism into question.
Schooling: grammar fail disqualification.

You get 1 out of 4. In MLB you would have a chance if you are a middle infielder with stellar defensive skills, in the NHL you would be a failure as a goalie.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[ibsteve2u]

The Big One

Won't be a big one. Will be creeping expansionism - and I point the finger at no individual country, yet - in the name of resource monopolization.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, are we still at war with Russia? I wasn't aware.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[GooberToo]

I'm not even sure why there's a supposed role for fighters any more anyway. When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane, rather than being bombed on or shot from the ground?

Invasion of Iraq is the most recent engagement.

How do you think those bombers get to their target? What do you think a fighter's job is? When bombers go in, fighters intercept. To intercept the fighters you must have fighters. Just watch a WWII movie and the concept is pretty easy to figure out. The basic concept really hasn't changed since WWI. So long as conflict exists, the need for fighters continue to exist.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[swb]

With what we're learning with the drone program, the best thing would be to develop an unmanned fighter. AFAIK, the big limitation on fighters these days is the guy in the cockpit. We're capable of developing propulsion and airframes capable of greatly exceeding human endurance and that's what's needed to take fighters to the next level and to really keep the competition on their toes.

Even at par with manned fighters in terms of raw performance, an unmanned fighter, minus the cockpit, life support systems, human avionics interfaces and the pilot, is hundreds of pounds lighter, and probably somewhat smaller -- all this yields better fuel consumption, more weapons capacity, better avionics and probably mission-optimizable in most categories.

Fighters probably have a role, albeit more in the strategic realm, but as we learned from 9/11, bombers aren't the only aerial threat and the ability to intercept or get on target very quickly over most targets is welcome. But overall I think you are right, our money is best spent on the resources for asymmetrical warfare.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[T-Bone-T]

Popular Science had a really good analogy for dogfighting stealth fighters. It is like putting two people in a big and completely dark room with a flashlight and a handgun. The first person to turn on their flashlight will likely get shot by the other person.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Rogerborg]

We could have brought that drone down by hucking rocks at it. In Desert Storm, the Iraqi air farce (sic) was destroyed on the ground. Losses in the air were incidental.

I don't believe that any of the countries listed have the capability to stop cruise missiles taking out their air force on the ground, or for that matter the logistics to actually fly aircraft in sustained combat operations. You'd be as well just flying drones into their airspace and waiting for maintenance snafus to ground their interceptors.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[re_organeyes]

Like they've always done. Their economics is going down the tubes like everyone else. This is just another way for them to put money back in their coffers again. They can't sell their old nuclear subs, they're too worn out and a hazard, and selling nuclear power plant technology is just too obvious.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[rev_sanchez]

I think we're moving away from high cost fighters and into fleets of low cost drones. The google tells me that an F22 runs about $150+ million each and a predator drone runs about $4.5 million. The training/maintenance/and other support costs are much lower for drones and the costs should go down since you'll make many, many more drones than larger aircraft.

I know our drones now aren't air to air fighters yet but a squadron of drone fighters would probably run a lot cheaper and be nearly as effective as a couple of big expensive planes. I'd also expect that it might be a little easier to stealth up a drone than something that has to carry a person and a drone could perform manuvers that a plane couldn't do safely with a human pilot inside. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo, and PC game makers have also been training a generation of drone pilots for free.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Rogerborg]

Invasion of Iraq is the most recent engagement

The IQAF proved to be totally non-existent during American invasion

You're embarrassing yourself.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you want something that can fly in the rain without its skin disolving,
or something that takes less than 100 hours of maintenance for each hour of flight time.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[GooberToo]

Maybe, maybe not.

The answer is absolutely yes. They started engineering stealth aircraft before the Soviet Union collapsed. They have maintained their program in a drastically reduced capacity until such times they can afford to ramp it back up. They found a partner which allowed them to continue their efforts on a reduced budget.

In absolutely terms, their efforts never stopped. The F22 did not spur this plane. Rather, the F117 spurred it on, which is very much in the midst of the cold war.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Bakkster]

In the days of mechanical aperature radars, absolutely.

Now with AESA radar, the beam is much smaller and harder to determine direction. The analogy is that if the old radars were flashlights, new radars are like laser pointers: they don't even know you're looking at them most of the time, and if they do they can't determine where the beam is coming from.

This Russian fighter; the F22; F35; and F15s, F16s, and F18s with retrofits have AESA radar.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[the_humeister]

Why? Why bother?

How about spending the money on something better? Or do you have the best edjucation, healthcare, housing and schooling already?

Clearly we need better education here!

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[GooberToo]

Actually you are. I've watched documentary of the F15 pilots which engaged the targets. They were retreating the aircraft to Iran.

a few helicopters were seen but no fighters flew to fight against coalition aircraft.[citation needed]

Basically the statement is only half correct. And note, its stating a quotation is needed; which I absolutely agree because it misleads idiots like you. There was also some question about the pilot's origins. Which is to say, some believed it possible the pilots were actually Iranian, but I don't believe that was ever confirmed one way or the other.

Also note, there is a difference between, "flew to fight against" and "retreating to Iran."

Dipshit.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[dwiget001]

Uh, no. The F-35 Lightning II is on the time line to start replacing other aircraft and, eventually, the F-22 also. No need to re-start F-22 at all.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[gnieboer]

I'm not even sure why there's a supposed role for fighters any more anyway.

In most recent wars (Iraq, Afganistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Panama, Grenada), one side has had unbalanced domination of the skies, so there has been little opportunity for a meaningful 'contest' for air superiority.
So, for the wars that the -US- is fighting -today-, fighters aren't the priority. Thus the F-22 cancellation.

But, what happens if Australia and Indonesia go head-to-head? India vs. Pakistan? China vs Taiwan? Israel vs Egypt/Syria?

If other countries have learned one lesson from the last 20 years for military action, it's that you want to be the guy the owns the skies.

And B-52s, C-130s, and Predators are great tools when your side owns the air, but are cannon fodder against even a Vietnam-era MiG-21.

So everyone who wants to use the skies still needs fighters. It just doesn't seem like that today because there hasn't been a fair fight in ages.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW I worked heavily on both the F-22 and F-35 (JSF) programs. The F-22 was cancelled because it was incredibly expensive to make. All the hard work had been done and was carried over into the JSF programs. The JSF was designed to be built for much, much less money, but all the development efforts were in full swing. The programs looked similar to what the second round of development of the F-22 would have looked like if it had continued en masse (it still exists to this day) and mainly consists of integrating newer tech into the existing designs. Long story short is that the F-35 isn't some cheap, less capable version of the F-22. In so many ways it makes the F-22 look 20 years old.

You can read all the tech sites and Wikipidia articles you want and you really have no clue how complex these beasts are. I cannot imagine that any other country in the world has the capacity economically or otherwise to really pull something like them off. Then again, wars aren't exactly won or loss by who has the shinier gun, so in the end it doesn't really matter.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Tekfactory]

Real world tests involving the F-35 had similar issues.

As stealthy as it may be, once the enemy had 'flaming datum' (one of their planes shot down) they looked for the F-35 visually and the F-35 went down faster than other non-stealth Air Superiority fighters.

In simulations run by RAND the F-35 is perfect, in every realistic exercise using an actual F-35 its not.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[LWATCDR]

Dude are you too lazy to use Google or do just never listen to the news?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-15_Eagle
"According to the USAF, its F-15Cs had 34 confirmed kills of Iraqi aircraft during the 1991 Gulf War, mostly by missile fire: five MiG-29 "Fulcrums", two MiG-25 "Foxbats", eight MiG-23 "Floggers", two MiG-21 "Fishbeds", two Su-25 "Frogfoots", four Su-22 "Fitters", one Su-7, six Mirage F1s, one Il-76 cargo plane, one Pilatus PC-9 trainer, and two Mi-8 helicopters. "
I left out Bosnia
"USAF F-15Cs shot down four Yugoslav MiG-29s using AIM-120 missiles during NATO's 1999 intervention in Kosovo, Operation Allied Force.[48]"
And that is just the F-15 in US service. The F-16 has a few kills as does the F-18 and the A-10 even has an aerial kill to it's credit.
As I said this is just the US.

Here is the YouTube video of the Russian's shooting down a drone over Georgia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNpABtIKERg
And the BBC Story. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7358761.stm
Just get off the internet if you really expect people to do all your work for you.
You make a statment like "When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane, rather than being bombed on or shot from the ground? " and I tell you the answer but your too freaking lazy to Google it yourself to see if it is valid?
What the heck....

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Captain Splendid]

Except for the fact that Russia is going to be selling these fighters to many other countries.

Which is still fine. Buying a bunch of mig descendants is one thing. Learning how to operate them properly and maintain them is another.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[T-Bone-T]

Of course it went down faster than "other" air superiority fighters. It isn't an air superiority fighter even if that is one of the roles it can take on.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Tekfactory]

Japan really wants the F-22,

Part of me wonders if we would SELL them to them because of the economy being the way it is.

I make this not so subtle distinction because previously (F-16s are the only ones I remember right now) we only license the plans for the planes to Japan and Mitsubishi actually builds them.

The Israelis tend to buy export versions of our stuff, then upgrade it locally to US or better specs with locally sourced parts. I seem to recall them grumbling about not being able to replace the avionics in the F-35 with their own.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

The F-22 is not second to none, it cant do a fraction of the stuff an SU-37 can do in the air. This aircraft is based off what was learned there. I would not at all be surprised if this plane is better in every regard to F-22. The Russia's missle tech has been better than ours for years.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[icebrain]

Yes, several kills were made over the Balkans in the 90s, and over Iraq after Desert Storm (during enforcement of the "no-fly zone"). And then there's the Iranian drone.

Your point is valid. So many people say "well, we haven't used it in a while/at all, why do we need it?" while forgetting that the same could have been said about our current aircraft. The current generation of US fighters (particularly the ones the F-22 was intended to replace) served for many years before seeing combat in US service:

F-14: entered service in 1974, first shots in anger 1981 (jumped by Libyan fighters), retired 2006
F-15: entered service in 1976, first combat in US service 1991 (Desert Storm)
F-16: entered service in 1980, first combat in US service 1991 (Desert Storm)
F-18: entered service in 1983, first combat in US service 1986 (El Dorado Canyon)

Notes:
The F-15 and F-16 saw combat earlier in foreign service (Israel and Pakistan both use the F-16, and Israel has the F-15 as well). Incidentally, the B-1 entered service in 1986, but did not see combat until 1998.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[LWATCDR]

The Japanese built the F4 and F15 locally after buying a few from the US. I am not sure that we would be willing to do that with the F-22 after the Toshiba incident.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[AmigaMMC]

Did you see the photos? They put the F-22 on a photocopy machine.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[AmigaMMC]

Which it really won't make a difference since "No opportunity for export currently exists because the export sale of the F-22 is barred by American federal law." (wiki)

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Wyatt Earp]

F-22 won't come back into production even if Russia builds these.

1. Russia won't use their top of the line hardware in combat, this was demonstrated in Chechnya where they were afraid airframes would be lost and make aircraft less desirable on the international market. When they did use top of the line hardware in Georgia, it got shot down (Tu-22M/Su-24)

2. F-22 and F-35 have the advantage of technology, face it, US computers for design, flight computers, avionics and materials science are better than Russia's. Russia will have an edge in metallurgy, but the US has the experience in making low observable and current US/EU jet engines are leaps and bounds better than Russian.

3. Manned fighters are on their last legs, in the US/EU we are building, probably, the last generation of manned tactical fighter (Gripen/Typhoon/F-35/Rafale), China, Japan, RoK are building another gen, but they aren't going to be full on fifth generation fighters. Sure the F-35 might still get killed, then the technologies for it will be leveraged into another block F-16 and F-18. Sixth generation will be UCAVs guided by manned fighters, seventh generation will be autonomous.

4. This is all about the export market, Russia will buy some for themselves, the rest will go to India, maybe China.

5. Just because it's flying doesn't mean Russia will build it. The last twenty years are full of Russian test flights and prototypes that ever made it into mass production

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[shutdown -p now]

That changes the whole argument on the F-22 being killed now, doesn't it?

No, not really. As a Russian, let me tell you - since the fall of the USSR (and especially in 2000s), there had been a slew of announcements of new weapons that are supposedly so awesome they can match and outperform the American ones. The problem with them is that what few things actually leave the development stage and enter production, get produced in minuscule quantities. The old Soviet solid manufacturing base is mostly gone (you've got to maintain the factories, and keep workforce there and well-trained - none of that was done), and replacement is nowhere to be seen. Not to mention the simple lack of money, which was always there, but is particularly true these days.

You can basically expect a production run on the order of a dozen or two of those things, just enough for them to fly over in the next V-day military parade while Putin goes on about how the country is restored to its former might and glory. Maybe they'll send one or two to fly real close to, say, Estonia, just to remind them who's the daddy (and get a few more cheers from the "patriotic" crowd). But that's about it. And, to remind, US currently has 145 operational F-22s... there's absolutely no way Russia can catch up with that, even if you discount the rest of the air fleet (and even if PAK FA is indeed on par with F-22 in performance, and superior to F-35 - which is by no means certain yet - I very much doubt it can hold up to two F-35; not to mention the higher quality of training of American pilots, which is historically demonstrated).

Also, one other thing... Russia doesn't have any long-distance force projection capability. There's only one operational air carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, and that one is in a less than perfect state, and even then inferior to the current generation of US carriers, much less the next one. And, while I have no doubts about US introducing the new line of its carriers on time, there are many doubts about the ability of Russia to do the same, despite all the talks of more carriers being needed (which have been going on since mid-90s). So all those next-gen fighters end up being mostly a defensive weapon, and potentially usable in border conflicts like the recent one in Georgia (though in those cases, air superiority is usually ensured by a preemptive all-out air strike on the enemy airfields, as again seen in Georgia).

Nothing to see here, move along...

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[mhajicek]

To a large degree it's the stealth stuff that makes the Raptor a good first line fighter. It's the ability to see and shoot them before they can see and shoot you.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

boy that sure looks a lot like the yf23 .... .... ....

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

..restart F-22 production, but probably an F-22 B where some of the stealth stuff that drives up operational costs gets dropped in the interest of being just a good first line fighter.

Nowadays there is no such thing as a "good" front-line fighter that isn't stealthy. War game scenarios for the last 15 years have been showing that the life expectancy of a non-stealthy fighter in an eastern Europe showdown with the Russians is about 3 days. In these scenarios our entire fleet is always gone in less than a week, either shot down or pulled out of action.

The problem isn't enemy fighters, the problem is surface-to-air missiles. Russia has a metric buttload of very advanced radar-guided SAMs. Their best ones are so good that there are only two ways to beat them; 1. stealth and 2. don't fly.

If you ever hear a serious proposal to start up production of a non-stealthy fighter, write your congressman. Doing that would be complete waste of money.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent summary.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[antirelic]

Yes, just like how the United States invaded Georgia two years ago.

Oh wait. That was Russia. Not that I care to restart the F22 program. Quiet frankly, it would be better for the United States to withdraw from policing the European theatre and let Europe defend itself. The same goes with South East asian nations that are anti-US. Let them pay for their socialisms AND their own national defense. Because we all know that Russia has no intention to be aggressive with its neighbors. Right? Right?

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[shutdown -p now]

When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane, rather than being bombed on or shot from the ground?

It was in Desert Storm. However, the only reason why it didn't happen again in 2003 is because Saddam learned the lesson, and ordered to ground and conceal all combat planes he had prior to the invasion.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[shutdown -p now]

Actually, my other post was incorrect. So far as I can tell, the last definite kill was in 1999 over Serbia - a Serbian MiG-29 shot down by an F-16.

If you don't mind more dubious sources, then it would be the 2008 South Ossetian conflict, where a Georgian Su-25 was downed, and there have been claims by Ossetians that it was their fighter that did it.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow they do it at Canada, don't they?

Yeah, but part of that is cause Canadians aren't pansies that run to the doctor every time they sneeze, or sue their doctor's ass off for telling them they have sore feet cause they won't move their fat lazy ass off the couch.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[mdarksbane]

Making an AI that can fly a drone between GPS points and one that can best a human in a dogfight are two entirely different levels of difficulty.

The human body is the current limitation on the performance envelope, but the human mind is still far ahead in terms of strategic and tactical control capability.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny but inaccurate. The F-22 "flashlight", i.e. the radar, is itself stealthy. It's spread-spectrum so there's no specific frequency to tune in to, with barely enough power in any band to get above background noise. The detection sensors and software are incredibly sophisticated. The F-22 can always see in that dark room of yours. If you can't see and you're up against an F-22 then you're pretty much dead whether you turn your radar on or not.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

The perfect O/S for an unmanned fighter? Why Windows Drone, of course!

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

The F-22 is not second to none, it cant do a fraction of the stuff an SU-37 can do in the air.

And exactly how many squadrons of Su-37's are there? Exactly none. It was never put into production.

Like most of the other responses here, you're missing the bigger picture. Air force technology is NOT a 1 v 1 effort. You have to take the entire fleet into consideration.
How well does it communicate with the relevant AWACS? How well do they communicate with each other? How many can you move 6000 miles, and how quickly will they be operational when they get there? How quickly can you get resupply of fuel, parts, and munitions? How easy is it to fix? How well integrated is this particular jet into the overall battle plan? And on and on.

Those things only come with decades of practice.

And you'd be very, very surprised at what the F-22 can do in the air. Go to an airshow and watch one someday.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[phantomfive]

We also pay our doctors more. That drives the cost up. A good cardiologist can make $500,000 a year in the US.

Also, I question your measurement of effectiveness. The average longevity of the citizens in a country is affected by so many things that using it as a measure of a healthcare system is silly.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[cc_pirate]

And how many of these do you think Russia will actually be able to afford to build?

If it's 60, I'd be shocked. We'd still outnumber them 2 to 1 in F-22 capable craft and that is without the F-35 which is no slouch either.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a video of this plane. Surprised the OP didn't mention it. http://tinyurl.com/ydehq82

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet Canadians pour across the border for "elective" procedures.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[swb]

AI may fly drones between GPS points or on loiter missions, but there definitely are pilots involved for most other missions.

I would expect a drone fighter to be remotely piloted, not flown by AI.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[operagost]

I wonder why all the dictators of countries with socialized health care (and Canadian celebrities) come to the 37th ranked USA for treatment. Why not Sweden?

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

Somehow they do it at Canada, don't they?
US spends on health care more than any other country (per citizen), yet the system is on 37th place, when it comes to effectiveness.

The US health care system is in 37th place in terms of effectiveness and yet people come to the US to get treated and virtually no one from the US goes to other countries to get treated. *yawn*. More BS.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[operagost]

It was only a helicopter that A-10 pilot took, but it was awesome because it was with the 30mm CANNON.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

That "ranks 37th" canard comes in when you score for things that smell a lot like social justice.
Only about 25% of the weight of rankings came from actual quality of care. If you look at the breakdown by
category, you'll see that the US comes in #1 in terms of timeliness.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[colinrichardday]

But as the previous poster said, what happens if the enemy jams your signal?

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> "The long-awaited Russian stealth fighter, codenamed PAK FA or T-50, has had its first test
> flight today. This Google translation of a Russian article has a photo of the jet."

The article continues: "[Click the link below to track the flight on Google Earth.]"

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[LWATCDR]

I thought it was with a sidewinder but I could be wrong. A Strike Eagle is supposed to have taken out a helicopter in flight with a lgb which is just showing off in my book.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[harl]

You're the one who made the claim. Why should he have to prove it?

Why would you want him to prove it? By that logic if he can't find a reference to it then you're wrong.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[BJ_Covert_Action]

The F-35 is rightfully titled a, 'Joint Strike Fighter' as it is intended for implementation of dozens of types of missions. It was designed to be deployed from multiple types of launch facilities to attack everything from ground based caravans to heavy enemy bomber squadrons and, of course, Bruce Willis.

The F-22 was designed as an interceptor and stands, currently, as the most capable implementation of this mission. It hits fast, it hits hard, it handles like a wet dream. Tom Cruise's character would have shit his pants at the chance to fly an interceptor of the F-22's capability.

That said, the F-35 and F-22 compliment one another in a way that makes America's aerial combat scenarios much more robust. Saying that one should or will replace the other is...misinformed at best.

If you want an analogy, the F-35 is the, "Good at all, master at none, " X-wing type fighter." The F-22 is the, "Master of interception," A-wing type fighter. If you insist on cars, the F-35 is the Subaru WRX, the F-22 is a Bugati Verone.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[drsquare]

Because the US healthcare system is aimed at catering to a small number of the elite, whereas other countries aim to care for the majority of their populations.

I like the way you're proud of attracting dictators, as if that's something to aspire to. I sure wish my country modelled its health-care system on attracting the most evil people...

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[ahabswhale]

Yeah except for the fact that there's no such thing as an air superiority drone. We're not even close to having such a thing and I'm not even aware of an effort to make one because in truth, it's doubtful it could be done with today's technology.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[cstarjewel]

Writing an AI that can best a human pilot, especially if not constrained to the limitations of the human body, is not the problem. That technology has existed for more then a decade. It's *trusting* that AI to "do the right thing" in all situations and never mistaking friend from foe that are the problems. Armed, remote piloted drones are only as good as the "secure" communication link. If that link is broken, or even worse - taken over by the enemy, the tide of the battle has just changed. I'm certain you can name one or more Sci-Fi novels that have explored this thoroughly. This is why the military still prefers to keep the pilot *in* the fighter jet.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[LWATCDR]

Actually he made this statment.
"I'm not even sure why there's a supposed role for fighters any more anyway. When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane,"
As well as a discussion of how to counter air power which was also deeply flawed.
I simply told him that the US did shoot down aircraft in the Iraqi war. It was on the news people and documented all over the place.
It was about as DUMB to say that I need to give references than if I made the statment that Aircraft dropped bombs on the Iraqi war. Also if in doubt get off your lazy butt and check your own facts. If you can not find them then the correct reply is. "I couldn't find a single reference to x do you have any?"
So I will make some other statements with no references. The US landed on the Moon in 1969.
Bill Clinton was president, and water is wet.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[lawpoop]

Whose talking about AI? Those drones are piloted remotely.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[greyhueofdoubt]

I know our drones now aren't air to air fighters yet

This.

You can rest assured that our best and brightest are working on drone fighters, but so far no one has anything they trust enough to demo in public. The first player to win that race would instantly find themselves at manufacturing capacity trying to fill orders, so there is a huge incentive to develop this.

Certainly, once we do have a drone fighter that is equal or superior to a human pilot in all the roles that a human pilot would play, the situation will change almost overnight. Until then, we have f-22s and the rest of ACC to provide air superiority.

It would be foolhardy to halt current production in the hopes that new, undeveloped, and sometimes not yet invented technology can take over soon.

-b

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Richard W.M. Jones]

I reckon the person with the handgun would win ...

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why all the dictators of countries with socialized health care (and Canadian celebrities) come to the 37th ranked USA for treatment.

You're displaying the usual American ignorance: many dictators are aware that the USA's health system is not the best. For example, when the North Korean leader needed treatment in 2008, he went to France. So did Arafat, while Chile's Pinochet preferred the UK and Ethiopia's leader goes to Belgium. The infamous Mobutu of Congo also went to Europe for his health care. There are many others; indeed, I believe a majority of the African leaders (dictators or not) get their health care in Europe (mostly UK or France).

OTOH, your argument is just silly anyway. Nobody denies you can get good treatment in the USA if you have lots of money; the problem is what happens when you don't.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... I love Wikipedia as much as the next guy, but I wouldn't try to speak with authority on a topic if Wikipedia represents the sum total of my knowledge.

I have worked as an engineer on both JSF and F-22 (spending about 5 years on each program.) The U.S is not "replacing" the F-22 with the F-35: they will operate together over basically their entire lifespan as a classic "High/Low" approach much like F-15 and F-16 did before them. To be clear: F-22 is the "High" and F-35 is the "Low". And I don't think you'll find any one knowledgeable at Lockheed Martin or USAF who would argue differently. The air superiority and air defense penetration of the F-22 is far superior to F-35. And while it's electronics are older than F-35s, the key piece - the radar - is far more capable. The older electronics mostly show up in cost: they are harder to maintain, and with the highly integrated architecture, they are more expensive to upgrade. The F-35 avionics architecture was designed to be more "open" system (not the same as FOSS! Think more like "modular") and hence should be easier to upgrade... although time will tell how much benefit is reaped.

The only downside to the F-22 really is it's cost. The current Unit Recurring Flyaway cost for the F-22 (the much bandied $150M) is much higher than the current *projected* mature F-35 URF cost (~$60M depending on who you believe.) Of course, back at a similar stage of the F-22 program, the URF was projected to be lower. But then reality sets in, additional capabilities are required, optimism proves in vain, production quantities are cut, and costs creep upwards. The $60M for the F-35 is already a substantial increase over the $30M (in 1994 dollars) that was the target at the start of the JSF program. So how much cheaper it will turn out to be is anyone's guess. At the end of the day, it will be cheaper since it's got cheaper electronics, only one engine, and will be built in far greater quantities (even in the most dismal of projections.)

But realize the calculation that led to the termination of the F-22 production wasn't really a comparison of F-22 vs. F-35 costs. It's simply that the F-35 is here to stay: it can't practically speaking be canceled due to the USN/USMC operational demands and international partner country obligations. So if you want to save money, what can you do? You cut the F-22.

As I said, I worked both airplanes and am quite attached of them both. FWIW, I would say I probably was more vested and made more of a contribution to the JSF since I was involved in the early architecture development and definition phase. But I think it's a damn shame to cut the F-22 production quantities since it is clearly the dominant fighter in the world and will be for a long time. Limiting it to 187 will mean that those airplanes will lead hard, short lives as they fulfill the operation requirements of 3 times that number of aircraft and need to be replaced before their time. And so, in 20 years we'll need to replace them with something. And so we'll pay another $20B to engineers like me to design and develop a replacement. (Remember the arithmetic of aircraft procurement: $20B buys you 1 airplane. $40B buys you 100 airplanes. $60B buys you 300. Buying 187 aircraft is great as an engineering welfare program, but not really the best solution for maximizing the tactical assets available to the warfighter.) And since the development of these most-complex of man's machines takes 10-20 years, we better get the engineers started up ASAP... I'm no longer in the military side of the business so I have no direct knowledge, but I would guess that the preliminary architecture/capability studies are already started.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

It's possible I'm missing some conflict, though.

The one that springs to mind for me is the Eritrean-Ethiopian War. Ethiopian Su-27s versus Eritrean MiG-29s. It doesn't seem to be very well confirmed, though.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Hadlock]

Clearly you never played against "Ace" level pilots in the original DOS Tie-Fighter game!
 
Let alone Ace-5 level AI pilots in X-Wing vs. TIE fighter in 2001.
 
I'll admit I don't have military level fighter training, but neither do the guys writing the AI for these games. For all intents and purposes these things have plenty enough thrust to counteract gravity; you just point and go. Keep the altitude above 500ft and you're good to go. The AI from Xwing v Tie Fighter is probably better than the flight training Iranian or Pakistani pilots get anyways.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Hadlock]

400 billion dollars for a fighter (F-22, F-35...each) program seems like an awful lot of money to kill one guy every 10 years. Prior to Serbia it was desert storm, in 1991 right? From reading Wikipedia it looks like almost a quarter of the US's F-14s were destroyed in flight accidents. I guess it's just that it's been a long time since we had an honest to god war, but even though "every life is priceless"... $400 billion dollars is approaching the upper limit of "priceless" in my mind. The lifetime tax contribution of everyone on slashdot probably doesn't even come close to 1 billion dollars, and millionares like John Carmack post here. Wouldn't we just be a lot better off building better surface to air missiles?

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Clived]

Interesting story. The Russians have showed out their Sukhoi SU 50. Well they did bring out the
Sukhoi SU 47 which was supposed to be the main counterpart to the F22 (Youtube Future dogfights), but they didn't have the $ to manufacture more than a test version. with the SU 50, they are partnered with India. Lets see if this fares any better. The Russians's engineering skills are exceptional, but the question is, do they have the $ to support the development and early production costs?

My two bits

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[mdarksbane]

Mission control decisions are made by drone pilot. Combat maneuvers are not. The lag time on the communications is FAR too high for dogfighting or sophisticated countermeasures.

I've written a training simulator for some of the drone pilots. They get a screen with a map showing the drone location and a couple feeds from its cameras. They can control where the camera is pointing on and zoom in and identify targets. They can tell the drone to launch air to ground missiles at those targets. They do *not* fly the drone like you would in a simulator to dodge an incoming radar-guided missile and get into a position to counterattack.

The pilots tell the drones where to fly, at what speed and velocity. They mark out waypoints on a map, and the drones fly there. The controllers decide what they do when they get there (what they take pictures of, who they shoot hellfires at, etc). That is the extent of the "flying" that is possible from several miles away over a radio or cellular link.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

1. F-22 was never killed, we just stopped buying because we had more than we originally (during the cold war) planned. But you build a plane in every state (hint: jobs in every state) and the congresscritters can't get enough.

2. Wikipedia lists this as a multi-role fighter. If the F-22 wasn't a one trick wonder, you might have something. Granted it does that trick really well, but you don't really need much dogfighting in Afghanistan or Iraq (episode 1 *or* 2).

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[shutdown -p now]

400 billion dollars for a fighter (F-22, F-35...each)

If one is to believe Wikipedia, F-22 cost is $142 million per unit; F-35 is $83 million. This is counting manufacture only, not the preceding R&D (which is already paid for, so it's too late to decide anything on that anyway) - but even if we count R&D as well as production, it's $62 billion total ($339 million / unit) for F-22. It's harder to calculate the costs for F-35, as research was funded for several countries, and they've also each ordered planes for themselves, but it's correspondingly lower.

I'm not sure where you've got the $400 billion figure from, anyway, since the most expensive plane ever built by U.S. was B-2, at $920 million production costs per unit, and $2 billion total aggregated (R&D included) cost per unit. Which is indeed insanely expensive by any standard, hence why it's widely considered a failure in that aspect.

The lifetime tax contribution of everyone on slashdot probably doesn't even come close to 1 billion dollars, and millionares like John Carmack post here.

If you measure personal income taxes, yes. But most money doesn't come from that - it comes from corporate taxes, and corporate profits are ultimately generated by you and me, and, yes, John Carmack, too. So GDP is a better figure to contrast against, here.

Wouldn't we just be a lot better off building better surface to air missiles?

For strictly defensive purposes - yes, absolutely. On the offensive, though, you need fighters to cover your bombers and close air support.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Hadlock]

400 billion dollars for a fighter (F-22, F-35...each) program

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[dafing]

I dont like putting myself in the armchair expert role, but I'd like to mention something. Wasnt the whole point of the F22 to be pretty much the "baddest" aircraft in the air? The whole point of it is to be complimented by F35 and F15's...

I think its fair to say that ITS POSSIBLE for Russian aircraft to surpass American aircraft, its happened a few times before...I believe there are stories about certain cold war era soviet fighters being infinitely more manoeuvrable? Able to perform stunts that could not possibly be matched by US planes?

The F22 was never meant to be dirt cheap, and flying in fleets of a thousands, it was meant to be special, to be stealthier, to be faster, to be deadlier than any other plane it would go up against. If its not those things....which COULD be possible....then its not really useful?

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[dafing]

heh, your laser pointer analogy made me laugh, I have a cheap green laser pointer and it leaves an obvious green beam, which is about the easiest light source in the world to follow :) Keeping with the analogy, with a flashlight, its a larger light source, the laser pointer is like saying "the attacker is at the other end of this perfectly narrow and straight line" :)

I understand what you mean about more modern radar though.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[shutdown -p now]

I covered that in earlier post, and it still doesn't add up. The entire F-22 program (that's all research and development and all manufacture) is $62 billion. For F-35, the entire program (if it goes as planned, which is 2400 fighters) will cost $240 billion - some of which was not paid by US. In all, that's $300 billion at most.

That said, for the cost of a one-time, large-scale major upgrade, it's quite okay, and certainly affordable by US. It's not like you do that kind of thing every 10 years.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Rogerborg]

Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about something relevant, not ancient history, or a silly reference to a RC plane that could have been downed by hucking rocks at it.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[digitig]

Or maybe fight a proxy war in some Asian country of other? No, that would be too silly, you'd never do that...

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

A US fighter shot down an Iranian drone over Iraq in the springtime of 2009.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/03/us-jet-shoots-d/

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Stupendoussteve]

Because only western countries are able to successfully operate and maintain previous Sukhoi aircraft (from which the PAK-FA is descended)? These aircraft are expensive, countries that can afford to buy them generally have the ability to train and maintain them.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Pseudonym]

There are only a couple of votes between no export and export. If Australia wants to buy them, the US will sell them.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

What does the US spend on health care per capita?

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[Rogerborg]

Your argument is that that fighters are still relevant so that they can record the stone age opposition flying defecting?

Look, I don't blame you. Cousins shouldn't marry, and they certainly shouldn't get on a 9 month bender while pregnant. It rarely ends well for the seven-toed offspring.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[LWATCDR]

At this point I would love to see you armed with rock going head to head with a predator drone.

Really get a bit of a clue before you post on a subject. Historically it is very common for weapon systems to not be used for long periods of time. That doesn't make them useless.
Fighter planes and bombers where not used much at all between the end of WWI and the Spanish Civil War. That was more than a decade. Same for Submarines. Your argument about fighters is not new at all. It was first put forward in the 1920s because it was thought that bombers would fly too fast, too high, and would be flying battleships.
Then it was put forward in the 1960s and many fighters where built without guns because it was thought that SAMs and AAMs would replace true fighters. That didn't happen.
The same types of arguments have been made about tanks, ships, bombers, and infantry. Usually by people that have no experience with in the military and with little to know knowledge of history.
So let's us take a quick look at modern air combat. Modern SAMS are pretty good but they are best at defending small areas. You also have to deal with physics. A SAM's sensors will be limited to line of sight and the height, speed, and distance of the target it can hit will be limited by how big the missile is.
So to defeat a fixed SAM site isn't that hard. The Iraqi had a very good system of SAMs but look how few took out US aircraft.
To remove a SAM site you first locate it. If it is radar guided it will be about as hard as finding a lighthouse at night. To take it out you use a high speed low flying missile launched by a low flying aircraft getting targeting data from a medium altitude aircraft outside the same envelope. SAMS have a minimum range and reaction time. Before they can launch the site will be destroyed.
Of course if you have fighters you send them out and use them to take out the medium range aircraft providing the targeting data and our the weapon launching aircraft.
Using aircraft as a sensor platform gives you mobility and long line of sight.
Using aircraft as a weapons launching platform gives you mobility and acts to extend the range of the weapon because it can be launched at altitude and speed. Even if you treat a fighter as nothing but a flying SAM site it still gives you a huge amount of flexibility. Yes someday it may be unmanned but not today. Since modern combat aircraft tend to stay in service for decades most people believe that we are seeing the last generation of manned combat aircraft.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[harl]

So you want him to ask you for references but you yelled at him for asking for references? How does that work exactly?

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[LWATCDR]

No you can ask for a reference politely if you can not find one yourself.
In this case it would have taken typing in Russian drone shutdown to get the video of the Russian MIG shooting down the drone.
The other references where found on Wikipedia with frankly just a little effort.
But in this case the original poster made claim that was outside of common sense. I gave him examples that are all over the internet and the news. Then I get a snotty demand for references.
Folks just do a Google or at least be polite.
Doesn't matter because the idiot is now claiming that the combat I referenced where too far in the past or just doesn't count.
Doesn't matter I should know better than to bother trying to educate people that are ignorant experts.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[harl]

LWATCDR: Makes Claim
Rogerborg: Ask for citation of claim using current colloquialism for the medium used.
LWATCDR: Attacks Rogerborg for asking for citation. Makes _no_ mention of being polite. Twice calls Rogerborg lazy for asking for citations.
harl: Says there is nothing wrong with asking for citations. Points out logic flaw with LWATCDR's position of making others find citations.
LWATCDR: Calls Rogerborg "dumb" for not knowing things that LWATCDR knows. Again attacks Rogerborg directly. Contradicts self by saying asking for citations is now ok but only if Rogerborg shows common courtesy.
harl: Points out contradiction.
LWATCDR: Again demands politness that LWATCDR refuses to show others. Again attacks Rogerborg for not knowing things LWATCDR knows.
harl: Tries to point out that LWATCDR is acting like a rude asshole.

Re:Well, now we'll restart the F-22

[LWATCDR]

Actually I did give him the reference he asked for.
and I pointed out there is nothing wrong with "asking" for citations "after" looking yourself.
The problem is with DEMANDING a citation and then with totally dismissing inconvenient data.

Actually my big problem is with people making really huge claims about subjects they know nothing about.
Rogerborg: "I'm not even sure why there's a supposed role for fighters any more anyway. When's the last time a plane was downed by another plane, rather than being bombed on or shot from the ground? "
LWATCDR "To answer your question for the US the Iraqi war. For Russia they downed a drone just last year with a fighter.
Every time somebody says that Fighters are not needed anymore something happens that prove that idea wrong.
Same with Aircraft Carriers and Tanks."
Rothberg:"Citations needed. Seriously. You make the assertions, you provide the evidence."
I just provided him with data. All he had to do was freaking look it up. But that isn't good enough for Rothberg. Even with the links provided he dismisses said data.
Rothberg:"Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about something relevant, not ancient history, or a silly reference to a RC plane that could have been downed by (sic)hucking rocks at it."

I will give you that shouldn't have let him get under my skin but at the same time this is a clear case of "Let me Google that for you".

BBC has some video

[GrubInCan]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8486812.stm

Video of the flight

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/Ryzg/4604/

and has not been seen since....

[yogibaer]

D'oh!

do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

[Joe The Dragon]

do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

Re:do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

[muckracer]

Konjeschno!

Re:do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

[smitty777]

It's interesting - according to the Wiki article cited in the main article, the aircraft will have an "artificial intellect". I wonder if it studies Marxism.

Re:do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

Re:do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

[hitmark]

i found the nato codename even more interesting.

Re:do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

[Anonymous Coward]

NATO reporting name: Firefox :)

Firefox, artificial intellect, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/ ...

Coincidence?

Re:do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

[clone53421]

I’m just waiting for it to try downloading the entire internet...

Re:do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

[mister_playboy]

I read the book when I was younger and I knew right away why this story had been tagged "firefox".

My copy had the movie artwork as a cover, so it must have been from a later run.

Re:do you have to think in Russian to fly it?

[ozbird]

In Soviet Russia, PAK FA thinks for you!

What happens in a dogfight?

[singingjim1]

Do they all just collide in midair?

Re:What happens in a dogfight?

[Bakkster]

Stealth doesn't mean 'invisible', just harder to see. Even older radars will still see a 'stealth' aircraft if they fly close enough.

Re:What happens in a dogfight?

[shutdown -p now]

Do they all just collide in midair?

They do, but it has nothing to do with stealth. It's just the traditional air combat technique of Klingon... er, I mean, Russian air force.

Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Shivetya]

to keep Russia bankrupt trying to catch up to it.

1. Come up with super tech military program
2. Fund it until it becomes too costly
3. Wait for the other guy to spin up to compete against it
4. Move the bar further out

considering the US Defense departments budget its an easy game to win. What they spend on one program is more than most can spend on many.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[tjstork]

to keep Russia bankrupt trying to catch up to i

The only problem is, we're bankrupt due to entitlements.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Nimey]

And because our pols lack the stones to raise taxes to pay for anything.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[timeOday]

Entitlements don't bankrupt us at all. Old people do need money to eat and get health care. If if not for social security, medicare, etc, people would just have to redirect what they now pay in taxes towards savings for retirement, or spend more on supporting their elderly parents, etc. It's not like all that money people are now using to put food on the table, keep their homes warm, and get medical treatment would magically be available to build super-weapons instead.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[jollyreaper]

to keep Russia bankrupt trying to catch up to it.

1. Come up with super tech military program
2. Fund it until it becomes too costly
3. Wait for the other guy to spin up to compete against it
4. Move the bar further out

The story of the F-15, as related to me by an Air Force guy. The Russians come out with a new interceptor, the MiG-25. In reality it's a lead sled, can go really freakin' fast in one direction and fire off some missiles but it has very little flexibility and is not that good of an aircraft. But since we don't have good intel on it, we start guessing as to what it's capabilities would be, making up all sorts of shit. The Air Force freaks out and demands we build a counter and that eventually became the F-15, fully capable of doing everything the Foxbat was supposed to do. Total overkill.

Doublechecked wiki, this story is confirmed there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mig-25

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[jdigriz]

No, we're bankrupt due to tax cuts, wars and bailouts. But yeah, let's keep reducing our government's income while its expenses increase. That's always been a recipe for prosperity. =p

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

There seems to be a disparity between your comment and your sig..

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[tehcyder]

Why do you care about bankrupting Russia? It's China that's the economic threat.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[khallow]

Entitlements don't bankrupt us at all.

They only bankrupt governments. And those governments don't need to provide any services like...

social security, medicare, etc

and

build super-weapons

So bankrupting governments are really a great idea.

PS, I see you don't get the fundamental problem. When government pays for services, even necessary services, instead of the people who actually use those services, then the services naturally become much more expensive. That's because the cost of the product is hidden from the consumer of the product. This is the sort of failure that government, especially the US government, is good at.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

people would just have to

retire later, or move to more affordable places when they do retire, or live with roommates, or price-shop more on medical care,.. all sorts of options that would be impossible with centralized planning become quite reasonable when people are spending their own money.

Even just choosing not to spend it is an option. "I shouldn't get that hip surgery, because the committee said it wasn't worth the cost" makes people see red. "I shouldn't get that hip surgery, because I don't think it's worth the cost" is better. Decisions that we would make for ourselves (I'm not going to save enough money to spend millions on medical bills to prolong my life an extra few percent) we would consider heartless to make for each other.

redirect what they now pay in taxes towards savings for retirement

So instead of having money available for "stimulus" (thanks for saving us from 9% unemployment, guys!) it would be spent on whatever investment was expected to bring the highest returns? That sounds pretty good too.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[oldhack]

All the more reason to keep the Ruskies bankrupt. Share the joy is what I'm saying.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Atlantis-Rising]

The problem is that the cost of healthcare across the world actually strongly disputes that assertion. In the countries where people know the least about their healthcare costs (because the cost mechanism is totally transparent to them) healthcare expenses are much lower.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[dunkelfalke]

Are you really sure that F-15 can outrun a missile? Because that wikipedia entry proves that a MiG-25 very well can.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

Entitlements for old people are not so bad. As you say, they are retired and they have to eat. For what I pay in Social Security taxes, it's not an entitlement at all. I will be lucky to recover my contributions, to say nothing of any return on investment.

The same cannot be said for welfare, in which case we fund an entire generation of permanent non-workers, whose main output is the next generation of non-workers. Even worse, welfare has better pay and benefits than some real jobs. Once people get hooked up to the welfare pipeline, they are essentially "wired into the Matrix", never to be seen as productive citizens again.

There is plenty of money being thrown away on welfare that could easily fund the next generation of whiz-bang weapons (creating jobs in the process).

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[tjstork]

No, we're bankrupt due to tax cuts, wars and bailouts.

No, really, its entitlements:

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/USbudget/fy06/hist.html

Have a look. Medicare spending alone went from 120B to 260B, then we have Medicaid on top of that, and then we have Social Security on top of that still. It's really, an additional 1T of entitlements spending.

Entitlements worked when people had 4 kids. Now they have 2, and don't. We can't afford the entitlements any more.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[timeOday]

There is a good story in that wikipedia link:

"On December 23, 2002, an Iraqi MiG-25 shot down a U.S. Air Force unmanned MQ-1 Predator drone, which was performing armed reconnaissance over Iraq. This was the first time in history that an aircraft and an unmanned drone had engaged in combat. Predators had been armed with AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missiles, and were being used to "bait" Iraqi fighter planes, then run. In this incident, the Predator did not run, but instead fired one of the Stingers, which missed, while the MiG's missile did not."

...an interesting case of somebody putting their life on the line vs somebody fighting from a distance; of an American missile that missed vs a Russian missile that scored a hit; and particularly interesting given the F22 and T50 might be the last of their breed with the onslaught of UAVs.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[brennz]

Old people may need money to eat and get health care.

The question is whether or not that money should be coming from their own savings, their families, or the US taxpayer.

Prior to the growth of entitlements, there was a massive amount of $$ available for defense, if needed.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Wyatt Earp]

Depends on the missile, speed and height of the fighter and where it is in its flight envelope.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that interesting; the Stinger is a piece of crap designed to be a man-portable SAM; it isn't really comparable to a proper air-to-air missile that the MiG was armed with.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[mhajicek]

Why tax when they can borrow and print?

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[shutdown -p now]

to keep Russia bankrupt

Good job. It's precisely such sentiments on the American side (which are blown beyond any proportion by the local propaganda machine) that fuel the hatred towards US in Russia.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the amount the defense industry spends has shrunk and the amount of money collected from taxes has shrunk since the 80s, especially from the rich.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Zordak]

Entitlements don't bankrupt us at all. Old people do need money to eat and get health care. If if not for social security, medicare, etc, people would just have to redirect what they now pay in taxes towards savings for retirement, or spend more on supporting their elderly parents, etc. It's not like all that money people are now using to put food on the table, keep their homes warm, and get medical treatment would magically be available to build super-weapons instead.

You say this like it's an argument for keeping entitlement programs. I, for one, would love to live in a world where people voluntarily took care of themselves and each other instead of the government forcibly taking money from us (sometimes literally at gunpoint) and wasting it on fraud-laden programs that are sold off to political cronies and that encourage people to rely on the government rather than think and plan for themselves, thus ensuring that the corrupt incumbents keep their jobs, because if you vote me out, that "other guy" might take away your free stuff. In fact, I consider the one to be pretty much the ideal society, one where everybody works hard and where nobody is poor because those with the ability to make more care enough about those who don't make as much to give them a hand. The other I consider to be pretty much the polar opposite, where politicians and their cronies enable and encourage slothfulness and dependency to protect their own power base, and where we must eventually crumble into mutual poverty under the weight of our complacency and greed.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[khallow]

In the countries where people know the least about their healthcare costs (because the cost mechanism is totally transparent to them) healthcare expenses are much lower.

That's because they aren't making purchase decisions.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[fahrbot-bot]

Double checked wiki, this story is confirmed there.

If it's on Wikipedia, it must be true :-)

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like MA, which health insurance rates is now the highest in the US of A just a few years since RomneyCare was introduced? No wonder that Republican won the 41st seat.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

err...the amount the defense industry spends has grown..grown!!!

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

Overkill? Gee, no sense in making a weapon system that's better than the other guy, i guess...

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem you'll be facing is that
1. Many Russian engineers would work on such a program for free out of ideological or other, higher-than-commercial motives
2. It costs less to produce stuff
3. The above make money a non-issue
4. Just in case it becomes an issue, Russian government can claim some oligarch assets or sell some diamonds/platinum/uranium/gold/oil/etc. to make up for that.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Hatta]

Don't you mean, to keep us bankrupt trying to outrun the Ruskies? We spend as much on our military as the entire rest of the world put together spends on theirs. If anyone is going bankrupt due to military expenditures, it's US.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

The Air Force misunderstood the MiG25, which was an interceptor, not an air superiority fighter. So you get the F-15, designed to counter a nonexistent aircraft (the MiG25 air superiority fighter), which itself was designed to counter a nonexistent aircraft, the B70 strategic bomber. Such is the Fog of (Cold) War. Had the Soviets been working on a Mach 3 bomber we too would have made a high speed sled with no thought beyond interception a priority as well.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Atlantis-Rising]

For the most part, they certainly are. They decide to go to the doctor, they decide whether they wish to be treated. The state, for the most part, does not interfere in the provisioning of health services.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Atlantis-Rising]

Really? How much money is being spent on welfare in the US?

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[couchslug]

"Total overkill."

Which is what it should have been, since it could have faced superior numbers of Warsaw Pact aircraft.

That design philosophy has produced a superb fighter which lasted for decades, killed plenty of MIGs with no end in sight, and brought death and destruction to numerous ground targets.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[tjstork]

Entitlements worked when people had 4 kids. Now they have 2, and don't. We can't afford the entitlements any more.

The reality is thus: there will be a compromise where benefits will have to be cut, and taxes will have to go up, the difference will come from DoD, and the USA will withdraw from NATO and other defense obligations in order to take care of its people.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[khallow]

For the most part, they certainly are. They decide to go to the doctor, they decide whether they wish to be treated. The state, for the most part, does not interfere in the provisioning of health services.

Name these hypothetical countries that do this so I can properly rebut your claims. To my knowledge no such country exists.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh... You could have rather said depends on god...

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[operagost]

JFK, Reagan, and W all lowered taxes. The economy boomed, and tax revenues went up. Under Clinton, it's a little less obvious, but when taxes were hiked in 1993, the economy still grew. However, the 1997 tax cut resulted in a sudden two and a half year boom.

Presidents under which taxes were raised? FDR, G. H. W. Bush, and Carter. How did those economies do?

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[chibiace]

tax they pay throughout their life goes towards their pensions

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[operagost]

Tax revenue increased in 2005 after the tax cuts, according to treas.gov.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[hedwards]

They do when they're going to fund initiatives that don't produce wealth and come at the expense of ones that do. We got into our current mess largely by incompetent entitlement programs without making sure that we first had money for things like education and health care, while simultaneously making our workers compete against themselves for jobs. And to top that off giving the proceeds to the rich in the misguided belief that doing so is a cure all for any economic problem.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[MrKaos]

to keep Russia bankrupt trying to catch up to it.

The US had little to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union much of that was caused by internal failures.

considering the US Defense departments budget its an easy game to win. What they spend on one program is more than most can spend on many.

Certainly true. What's at issue is how the US's oil centric economy will be able to continue to produce income when Russia has control over large oil interests. I doubt the US is going to invade Russia to secure it's oil supply so with Russia placed as an oil producer just as oil prices are set to skyrocket I think the Russians will have plenty of money to keep up. I certainly don't see Russia at the forefront of the movement to reduce our carbon footprint.

The irony in all this is that US commercial oil interests will do everything they can to maintain the status quo, especially when they know they can dig up Alaska for more oil. Russia will be placed similarly as they can sell oil to themselves without paying for it in US dollars and the East and Western Military Industrial complexes will happily march any country they can into resource conflicts (such as Iraq) while the dolars keep rolling in.

Sure it's a pretty plane, and I even like looking at this stuff, but it leaves me asking myself if any of this Military progress is real progress when there are some many other avenues of technology that have to be advanced for the whole Human Race.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[ahabswhale]

A lot of US air to air missiles go mach 4. The MiG-25 is good for Mach 2.5. You could push it faster but it would destroy the engines, in which case you're not outrunning anything. Also the MiG-25 had a notoriously small range and to go Mach 2.5 would require full after burners so chances are good the plane would run out of fuel. In short, it's not very realistic to expect it to survive an enemy encounter by outrunning a missile.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Nimey]

Wrong.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[ncc74656]

Really? How much money is being spent on welfare in the US?

57% of all federal expenditures, according to this (p. 100).

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[dunkelfalke]

Mach 2.8 is the maximum safe speed. Maximum speed is Mach 3.2. And most missiles of the same age are either of low speed (Mach 2.5 for the Sidewinders) or of low range (18 km for the Sidewinders, 45 km for the Sparrows).

In fact, according to Wikipedia, "In yet another incident, two MiG-25s approached a pair of F-15s, fired missiles (which were evaded by the F-15s), and then outran the American fighters. Two more F-15s joined the pursuit, and a total of ten air-to-air missiles were fired at the MiG-25s, although none reached them."

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[GooberToo]

While its possible, its not likely against modern missiles. When the Likes of the F15 and MiG25 hit the scene, weapon designers started taking a second look. These days, its simply not likely unless engagement occurs at extremely long ranges.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[ahabswhale]

It's heresay. There's no documented official report of that happening. Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, merely improbable. You have to also realize that Mach 3.2 is supposedly only possible on recon versions of the aircraft and that's with no weapons or extra fuel tanks mounted (i.e., empty). And seriously, the Sidewinder? Pick the oldest, slowest missile in the arsenal why don't you.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[wickedskaman]

The problem with this theory is that it presumes causation. A macroeconomic environment the size of the United States is complicated to say the least. Thus it's near impossible to state with certainty that policies passed and implemented during one administration account for economic booms during that same time period. The boom or bust that occurs during any particular administration could just as easily be attributed to policies that were enacted years before. Reagan's policies could have influenced and even been a main contributing element in the boom that Clinton policies were credited with.

This can be seen in the current economic debacle. Although it fell apart under Bush II's watch, that administration had inherited problems ignored or exacerbated by the Clinton administration and maybe even Bush I. It's simply too complicated an issue to attribute success or failure to 4-8 years of voting for programs, implementing them completely in that time, and seeing the fruit of the effects.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Hadlock]

Basically 100% of your federal income taxes go to welfare projects. Corporate fees/taxes, customs, import taxes, gas taxes and state taxes pay for everything else. As someone else said, roughly 50% of all taxed money in the US goes towards welfare in some way or form.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Hadlock]

US Military documentation has a reputation of being, uh, US-centric. The winners write the history books, and all that.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[ahabswhale]

Umm...the source of this quote is a Carlos Atkinson who as far as I can tell is some random dude who writes about military aircraft. I can find no source for where he gets this information from. So it hardly counts as "military documentation".

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Hadlock]

No, I mean, enemy casualties reported by the US military tend to be much higher than the enemy records, and vice versa. Why would they even bother recording (or at least announcing to the public) such embarrassing information? It's not good for morale, and it doesn't improve the image of the US Military as "the most powerful military in the world". From the shocking number of rape cases that don't go reported or prosecuted in the military, it's not surprising that there's no official record of something like that not going on the record, especially since something like that is going to actually affect their bottom line (defense funding).

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[ahabswhale]

If the rapes aren't reported than how do you know how many there are? Are military rapes occurring at a higher rate than they do in civilian populations? Most civilian rapes and sexual assaults don't get reported either. As for the prosecutions of such cases, I offer no defense.

re: the MiG-25, just because there's no public record of it doesn't mean the DoD doesn't have a record of it (assuming it even happened). I would think that publishing such a failure could only improve their bottom line since they could use it to develop new planes or missiles to defeat the MiG-25. Oh, and as an Air Force veteran I can vouch for the fact that they are very good about communicating failures such as these. I've been in briefings where such strengths and weaknesses are reported. Ignorance could impede mission success and the Air Force HATES failed missions. It's extremely mission oriented.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Hadlock]

re: statistics
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8005198.stm

According to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs, 30% of military women are raped while serving, 71% are sexually assaulted, and 90% are sexually harassed.
The Department of Defense acknowledges the problem, estimating in its 2009 annual report on sexual assault (issued last month) that some 90% of military sexual assaults are never reported.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[ahabswhale]

Yeah, I call bullshit on that report unless you can find an actual DoD reference to back it up. Here's one reason I shouldn't believe it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/17/military-rape-reports-ris_n_176106.html

This is a liberal blog who, if anything, would have a anti-military slant. In their report they state the military received 2923 reports of sexual assault (which includes rape, of course). Keep in mind that's female AND male victims. There are over 200,000 women alone in the US military. Even if I'm willing to ignore the fact the stat includes men, 200000/2920 does not equal 30% of anything let alone just rapes. Oh and since you like the BBC, here's the same report from their mouths: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7950439.stm. So I'm guessing she decided to take the approximation that up to 90% of sexual assaults are never reported and come up with 30% of all women are raped by multiplying 90 by 2920. Which still gets you to only a little over 26%. She playing very fast and loose with the numbers and calling everything rape instead of using the broader term of sexual assault.

To me it looks like Helen Benedict jazzed up the numbers to sell books. Low rape rates just aren't controversial enough for a military at war so she attacks a country who's not likely to ever hear of her bullshit. According to this: http://www.pcar.org/about_sa/stats.html civilian sexual assaults in the US are about 10% and again most sexual assaults (including rape) are not reported.

Don't believe everything you read especially when the person selling you the information is making money on its sale. I'm not denying there's a problem that needs to be solved but this woman is full of shit.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[dafing]

Not that interesting; the Stinger is a piece of crap designed to be a man-portable SAM; it isn't really comparable to a proper air-to-air missile that the MiG was armed with

Ha, so remind us why the US pilot of the drone decided to hang around and fire at the obviously superior foxbat?

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[Hadlock]

I googled "" and came up with this as the first result
http://www.research.va.gov/news/research_highlights/sexual_trauma-111808.cfm
heres another: http://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/research/abstracts.cfm?Project_ID=2141696682
heres one that says "Women reported much higher rates of sexual harrassment (79.8%) and assualt (15.5%) than men" http://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/research/abstracts.cfm?Project_ID=909438600
 
just pull up "studies and projects->current/completed" and do a ctrl+f for sex or women. I don't know if a veterans affairs report counts as a DoD report but I'm guessing it's pretty close authority wise. I'm just showing you my sources, if those numbers bother you, and you find discrepancies between what the reports say and what the BBC/NPR published, you might want to contact them about publishing retractions because a lot of people are sourcing that as fact.

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[ahabswhale]

You need to read a lot more carefully than you currently do. Don't feel bad though because that's true with 95% of the people on this planet. There's a difference between RAPE, sexual assault, and sexual harrassment. Rape involves oral, genital, or anal penetration. Sexual assault can be anything from grabbing a woman's ass to rape. Harrassment can be a lewd whistle or look or inappropriate comment. The woman you quoted originally stated 30% had been RAPED. Not only that, the links you just posted contradict what she says by saying it's about 15% for all three of those things combined. Here, I'll post the quote since it seems you'll miss it if I don't: "A VA study found that about 15 percent of female veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who use VA health care experienced sexual assault or harassment during their military service." I assume you don't equate rape with whistles?

Re:Nah, time for a new fighter program

[ogmundur]

Is that a African or a European missile?

Google translation

[javilon]

Is it just me or the google translation engine is a lot better this days?

AI is improving quickly. Of course someone will answer telling me that this is not real AI. It was considered AI when it couldnt be done and as soon as it can be done, it is just a stupid algorithm.

Re:Google translation

[Anonymous Coward]

Google's translator used to slightly mistranslate my web site, which has the same text in German and English. On every English page there is one German sentence and vice versa: When translating the German text to English, Google also translated that one English sentence in the opposite direction. It looked like Google had figured out that there is a one-to-one correspondence of the phrases on the pages, so it just mapped that sentence in the same way. It doesn't do that anymore, but it was an interesting insight into the algorithm.

Re:Google translation

[BZ]

It's better. I don't know about "a lot". It's usually enough to get the gist, but even this translation has some obvious issues and can be pretty difficult to read. For example, the sentence that says:

    As the broadcast television channel "Russia 24" spokesperson of the aircraft
    production association "dry" flight, which lasted about 45 minutes and completed
    successfully.

in the google translation actually says (keeping as much of the Google translation as possible):

    As a spokesperson of the aircraft production association "Sukhoi" noted on the air
    during a "Russia 24" television broadcast, the flight, which lasted about 45 minutes,
    completed successfully.

That, and it'll often give wildly different translations for the same text going from Russian to English depending on whether the first letter is capitalized (which should generally make no difference). By "wildly different" I mean completely reversed meaning in some cases ("here" vs "there" or "there" vs "where", that sort of thing).

Here come the awful firefox jokes...

[myocardialinfarction]

(to get started:)
Man, I hope their firefox works better than mine.
They'd have finished it years ago if it wasn't for Gecko and XUL.

Stealthy ?

[daveime]

has a photo of the jet.

So not *that* stealthy then ? Of course, I guess if it was that good, the pilot would never be able to find where he parked the thing.

Re:Stealthy ?

[DesScorp]

Joking aside, the T-50 certainly isn't all-aspect stealthy in the manner of the F-22. The exhaust and nozzles are conventionally shaped. Perhaps the Russians are trying to go for the best mix of stealthiness and affordable price tag.

Re:Stealthy ?

[Sockatume]

I hear the US is working on a fighter so stealthy that once it's in motion, even the pilot doesn't know exactly where it is. The F-6626 Heisenberg.

Re:Stealthy ?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Of course, I guess if it was that good, the pilot would never be able to find where he parked the thing.

No. Americans would create sophisticated locating system which will automatically turn on while on the ground. Pilot would have special, single purpose PDA which locate the aircraft on the runway. Meanwhile, Russians just paint outline of aircraft on the ground with a chalk.

Re:Stealthy ?

[Guysmiley777]

It looks kind of like they glued the front half of an F-22 to the back half of an Su-27.

Re:Stealthy ?

[XxtraLarGe]

So not *that* stealthy then ? Of course, I guess if it was that good, the pilot would never be able to find where he parked the thing.

In Soviet Russia, stealth fighters find YOU! Sorry, couldn't resist. :)

Re:Stealthy ?

[nightranger]

I'm sure there's an app for that.

Re:Stealthy ?

[ciaohound]

Yeah, I can just see Larry Ellison wandering around a huge mall parking lot, trying desperately to remember where he parked his Russian stealth fighter. Damn it, he says to himself, why didn't I just drive the Lamborghini?

Re:Stealthy ?

[sycodon]

Everyone remember where we parked the ship!

Re:Stealthy ?

[delinear]

Or just put one of those balls on it that people put on their car aerials so they can see where they parked in a busy car park.

Re:Stealthy ?

[Anonymous Struct]

Yeah, but do you know how many years of research went into that glue? Pretty impressive engineering, wouldn't you say?

Re:Stealthy ?

[dave420]

There are actually 28 of them in the photo, so it's actually pretty good.

Re:Stealthy ?

[dunkelfalke]

According to Lenta.ru, the current nozzles will be replaced with thrust-vectoring ones when the plane batch production starts.

Re:Stealthy ?

[Sir_Lewk]

Somebody please, give this man a rimshot!

Re:Stealthy ?

[Hurricane78]

Than’s easy. Just walk around, push the button, and listen where the “be-beep” comes from. ;)

Re:Stealthy ?

[Hognoxious]

Meanwhile, Russians just paint outline of aircraft on the ground with a chalk.

Stupidest idea ever. What if it snows? A ball of string, one end tied to the undercart - that's what you need.

Of course if it was a US plane it woulds be special string that would cost a thousand bucks. Per foot.

Re:Stealthy ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they already have a fighter that once in motion even the pilot doesn't know exactly where it is.

Re:Stealthy ?

[TubeSteak]

I hear the US is working on a fighter so stealthy that once it's in motion, even the pilot doesn't know exactly where it is. The F-6626 Heisenberg.

Put a cat in the plane and you'll have scientists from around the world intently following its every move.
Heck, you might even be able to get away with painting a cat on the nosecone.

Re:Stealthy ?

[The Grim Reefer2]

has a photo of the jet.

So not *that* stealthy then ? Of course, I guess if it was that good, the pilot would never be able to find where he parked the thing.

That was in the original plans. However there were design problems in the magic lasso department and a serious shortage of qualified Amazon pilots.

Re:Stealthy ?

[jgtg32a]

http://instantrimshot.com/

Re:Stealthy ?

[Eil]

Of course, I guess if it was that good, the pilot would never be able to find where he parked the thing.

Not a problem if it rained the night before.

Re:Stealthy ?

[Kuroji]

"Fighter will differ maneuverability and invisibility in the optical, infrared and radar wavelengths."

Yes, so I assume this and its radar/infrared/optical invisibility will see production beyond the prototype right after the Su-47 does.

Re:Stealthy ?

[kan]

The plane flies with 'borrowed' engines from Su-37, as ones designed specifically for T-50 are not complete yet.

Love the smell of military secrets in the morning

[kiehlster]

I have yet to understand why new military technology is so widely publicized. It's like a magician showing all the secrets of his magic show at the first showing. Pen and Teller being the exception here. Operating a military force like Pen and Teller just sounds like shear idiocy. Is this all because the military weapons market has turned into a mainstream business unit? Or is this a ploy by news outlets to prevent their websites being filtered by the great firewall? Check it out, we relay military secrets, therefore you should let slide our anti-communist propaganda.

Oh noes!

[Pojut]

Hide the women and children and the number 0, they're coming!

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[Anonymous Coward]

Operating a military force like Pen and Teller just sounds like shear idiocy.

Why? I think we can count on Teller to keep his mouth shut.

Russia finally catching up to US

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a big deal. This aircraft is 20 years behind ours. In January of 1990, I was stationed at Edwards AFB, at the hangar right behind the YF-22/YF-23 Combined Test Flight. I missed the first flights of the YF-22 and YF-23 because of training at Fairchild, AFB's Survival School.

The F-22 was developed from the YF-22 selection. 20 years later, production is nearing completion, and the F-22 has been deployed and is now operational.

I'd say that Russia has a lot of catching up to do at this point.

BTW, initial photos make their new plane look a lot like the YF-23. Coincidence?

Re:Russia finally catching up to US

[thedonger]

Yes, but in related news, Iran claims to have had a stealth fighter in continuous since 1984, but we can't see it. Poland also built one, in 1993, but they can't find it.

Re:Russia finally catching up to US

[Renraku]

It seems like every time we come out with a revolutionary new design for military equipment, either Russia or China copies it. For examples, see the American X-29 and the Russian Su-47. Also, http://www.seattlepi.com/national/spy301.shtml is relevant to this concept.

That's nothing!

[codeButcher]

My country has also developed a stealth airplane. It's so stealthy nobody has seen it yet.

Or the tax money used to develop it....

Re:That's nothing!

[SnarfQuest]

Maybe someone needs to read that old childrens story "The Emperors New Clothes".

Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[blincoln]

...or did someone fabricate this part of the Wikipedia article?

The Sukhoi PAK FA... NATO reporting name: Firefox

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[muckracer]

> The Sukhoi PAK FA... NATO reporting name: Firefox

Well, if it's in use and then keeps crashing a lot into electrical switch stations and the like, they might rename it to Internet Explorer. :-)

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[autoevolution]

Theres other fox named russian fighters: foxbat, foxhount etc...

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[Thuktun]

For those who may have never seen it, c.f. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[KH]

Clint Eastwood will steal it in no time...

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[delinear]

Although if they crash a lot it'll get renamed the IE, after the noise the pilots make on the way down, "AAAAAIIIIEEEEEE........."

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[UnknowingFool]

Most likely it's the real NATO code name. NATO has a history of giving code names to technology of Soviet Union/Chinese origin. By convention fighters have been named starting with "F".

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[Nadaka]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/

Someone at the DOD has a sense of humor.

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[meringuoid]

Actually, the movie (and book) got the name from the NATO terminology for the Soviets' new super-fighter. The project that resulted in this aircraft began in the late eighties. Of course, back in the Cold War intelligence reports from the USSR were patchy, and nobody was quite certain whether the documentation they were seeing referred to conceptual designs for a future fighter, or to an actual flying prototype. It was just on the edge of plausibility that there was a real Firefox out there, not just a prototype.

It was the same in America: design and planning work on what became the F-22 began in 1981.

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[ianare]

See? Open source is communist and un-American !!

Re:Does someone at NATO have a sense of humour?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sukhoi PAK FA... NATO reporting name: Firefox

To fly it, YOU MUST THINK IN RUSSIAN!

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[Vohar]

That's because it's less about force than show of force. It's "Hey look, we have these now too. Brand new stealth fighters RIGHT HERE BABY."

With global economies so intertwined, there's really not a huge chance these days of needing some kind of secret weapon force to go against other large countries in large-scale war. So they make the new developments public for the sake of national pride and respect among other countries.

Plus, it's always fun to show off new toys.

First flight

[muckracer]

Actually it's been flying for over three years but nobody ever saw it. The plane from the photo is, well, just a carefully chosen look-as-if prop to mislead the world.
There IS, however, a way to see the real plane too, but it involves filtering out the light-/infrared- and radar-blocking emanations this plane sends out. Would love to give you more details on constructing an easy home-made device utilizing commonly available kitchen supplies but I am already late for my Doctor's appointment. And last time the session was too short to present the compelling evidence I have gathered, that this plane does keep hovering right over my trailer... o_O

The man behind the curtain...

[JMandingo]

I wouldn't be surprised if Lockheed Martin/Boeing secretly funded Russia's stealth fighter project to justify restarting production on the F-22. That would be business as usual - gotta keep the wheels of the industrial military complex spinning.

Re:The man behind the curtain...

[Hurricane78]

I thought that’s what the “wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan were for, and Bin Laden and his fake shoe-bomber were working hard on...

Re:The man behind the curtain...

[e2d2]

JSC (Sukhoi) needs no help from anyone. They're one of the world's leading fighter aircraft manufacturer with yearly global sales exceeding 1.5B and 25% of worldwide fighter aircraft sales.

I'm no fan of the military-industrial complex but I seriously doubt anyone shared anything with Sukhoi because frankly that's possibly treason given Sukhoi's relationship with the Russian government.

Re:The man behind the curtain...

[khallow]

I wouldn't be surprised if Lockheed Martin/Boeing secretly funded Russia's stealth fighter project to justify restarting production on the F-22.

The little problem with this claim is that it would be treason to do that. I'm not saying it in the rhetorical sense, but in the get-put-in-jail-for-a-long-time sense. That's a pretty big risk for a businessman to take when it really doesn't matter. There's plenty of fish in the government ocean.

Re:The man behind the curtain...

[MaroonMotor]

I wouldn't be surprised if Lockheed Martin/Boeing secretly funded Russia's stealth fighter project to justify restarting production on the F-22.

The little problem with this claim is that it would be treason to do that. I'm not saying it in the rhetorical sense, but in the get-put-in-jail-for-a-long-time sense. That's a pretty big risk for a businessman to take when it really doesn't matter. There's plenty of fish in the government ocean.

Really? It is a convictable offense under federal laws if a private US corporation invested money in russian arms industry? What laws would be broken?.

Re:The man behind the curtain...

[khallow]

Really? It is a convictable offense under federal laws if a private US corporation invested money in russian arms industry? What laws would be broken?.

To be honest, I don't know. There's a ton of laws regulating US investments in foreign companies especially when those companies do research in restricted technologies. ITAR might apply. I was think a illegal transfer of classified information on stealth technology, which is treason (though infrequently prosecuted as such). In any case, if you're discovered investing in military competitors to the US, you are at the very least likely to lose your government contracts.

Re:The man behind the curtain...

[MaroonMotor]

I don't think ITAR would apply as no arms or equipment would be traded internationally. What I guess I am asking is if there are any legal reasons that suggests Boeing could invest in BAe or Dassault but not Sukhoi. Given the political climate it would be foolish indeed, as you suggest, for a US arms major to associate with a russian arms manufacturer.

Re:The man behind the curtain...

[khallow]

Digging around, I think the ban on trading with Cuba (and other unpopular countries like Syria) might apply. I believe Sukhoi sells planes to a number of countries with which the US has some sort of ban going. Going back to the original poster, such legal technicalities might be overcome by the "right" people, but it's a big risk unless the investment is through a third party (eg, big Middle East investor).

Re:The man behind the curtain...

[Anonymous Coward]

and they would get the money where?

Re:The man behind the curtain...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a coincidence! I wouldn't be surprised if you were clinically retarded.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[OldeTimeGeek]

To paraphrase Dr. Strangelove: Yes, but the... whole point of the new technology... is lost... if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?

What good would it be to try to sell an airplane that no one knows about?

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[Anonymous Coward]

I have yet to understand why new military technology is so widely publicized. It's like a magician showing all the secrets of his magic show at the first showing. Pen and Teller being the exception here. Operating a military force like Pen and Teller just sounds like shear idiocy. Is this all because the military weapons market has turned into a mainstream business unit? Or is this a ploy by news outlets to prevent their websites being filtered by the great firewall? Check it out, we relay military secrets, therefore you should let slide our anti-communist propaganda.

Because, presumably, they will want to sell the aircraft or a derivative of that aircraft.

Re:Who cares?

[baap]

I live by the F-22 production plant and I want the project to start up because:

1. We need the jobs. (Armchair economists can kiss my ass about "efficiency" and "utilization")
2. I love seeing them fly over when they come off of the production line.
3. Just having such a superior fighter will make other countries think twice about fucking with us (SOL with terrorists though)
4. The F-35 is for fags
5. The F-16 is a fat old lady
6. China will be flexing their muscle more in the near future (now) and we'll need this
7. China will license the Russian fighter and we'll need the F-22
8. Air Force pilots need something new to fly

I like your enthusiasm for the F-22 restart - just a little correction. India's participation in developing this aircraft will imply a limitation on licensing, especially to perceived threats such as China. So it'll be interesting - here we have Russia returning to its Soviet - style grande aviation engineering but also India, the world's largest democracy and one of America's most important strategic ally in the region. Id think itd be naive for the US to think of it as a strategic threat. /\ \/

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[QuoteMstr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmCKJi3CKGE

federation credits

[zogger]

The global arms industry exists just as much because it is profitable, as it is being really necessary. It falls into the ludicrous unreal geez-loweez that's a lot of loot profits range. There's huge bucks/roubles/yen/renminbi/euros whatever in prepping for wars and fighting wars, any size.

It is not just any one nation's fault, in other words.

RCS reductions???????

[Anonymous Coward]

no chines
no shock ramps/S ramps / hidden inlets
nose cone is very small (small dish or no dish in there at all right now).

missing a lot of '5th gen' LO tech

Here...

[L4t3r4lu5]

... have a video.

Re:Who cares?

[TheKidWho]

You would be naive to think a few of these fighters won't find their way into China and become reverse engineered.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

5. The F-16 is a fat old lady

I must take issue with this.

The F-18 is a fat old lady. The F-16 is an anorexic old whore.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[kiehlster]

I can understand the pride and respect between first-world countries where we'd rather avoid war, but show that we can still defend ourselves if someone decides to take the fight outside. However, I'm not sure the point gets across to second and third world countries operated/controlled by dictators or gorilla-mongers. We show off our bling and the tali/queda/misc extremists decide to yoink our technology and proceed to conceal it to prevent us from knowing exactly what we're dealing with (e.g. nuclear weapons, not that I'm saying they have them; we don't really know).

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[Anonymous Coward]

shear idiocy

I’m from the department of over-torqued tense compressed wingnuts and I resent that comment!

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[Andy Dodd]

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has been pretty big on foreign military sales. So yeah, a big motivator here is business.

Also, it's not like the specific capabilities of the plane are publicized. It's basically saying, "look at this plane that kicks ass" without specifying exactly how much ass it will kick.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[clone53421]

The point of a doomsday device is to make people fear you. For that to happen, they need to know about it.

The point of a spy plane is to spy on people without them knowing you are, or even that you can. They don’t need to know about it.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[delinear]

If it's a stealth plane that nobody knows about, I'd think that would be a major marketing boon.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[GreenTom]

Don't forget that other nations have internal politics too. The current Russian leadership banks heavly on a "we're making Russia strong again" sort of nationalisim for their support. Showing off something like this is probably as much aimed at their own people as anyone else.

Question About Radar Development

[Comatose51]

So usually these technology don't progress without the corresponding technology acting in response. Has radar or any detection technology made any progress in detecting stealth aircraft? Just curious.

Re:Question About Radar Development

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard of systems that look for an absence of radar returns (look for the "hole" in the sky that's not reflecting), but I think this probably answers it better than anything else.

So yeah, I'm sure the technology has come a long ways. But like the F-117, which flew in 1981, you won't hear about it years later.

Re:Question About Radar Development

[jgtg32a]

FTA: The F-117's large kite-shaped titanium engine outlet heatshield is still kept by Dani in his garage.
 
I would mount that on my wall too

Re:Question About Radar Development

[Aviation Pete]

A single radar installation can still be fooled, but once a chain of them is networked, detection is rather simple. When the F-117 appeared, algorithms were not capable of making sense of it's unusual radar returns, but today they are much harder to fool.

PAK FA detailed specifications & model

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out PAK FA detailed specifications, you can also compare it head-to-head with F-22 there. As you can see from the info there, the 1st test flight was completed on schedule.

You can also make a 1:72 PAK FA paper model.

Re:In Soviet Russia ...

[Low Ranked Craig]

No, you didn't

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[kevinNCSU]

In time of war you keep military advancements secrets so they can be used to catch your enemy off guard and destroy them. When strong, appear weak. Draw your enemy in to attack you, and then destroy them. In times of peace, you tout your military strengths to dissuade the enemy from coming at all because you don't want to fight wars. When weak, appear strong. Or when you don't want to fight, appear prepared to.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Air Force pilots need something new to fly

what, the predator and reaper aren't fun enough?

In all honesty, the few f-22 pilots I've talked to absolutely love the bird, even more than the f-15

imho, the USAF really needs the KC-X program more than additional f-22s or the jsf

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[blincoln]

It's basically saying, "look at this plane that kicks ass" without specifying exactly how much ass it will kick.

For years I've thought someone should introduce an SI unit to help quantify this sort of thing. I figure the unit should be called the Gracie*, with one Gracie representing one ass kicked every second. Hopefully this wouldn't require a big debate over standardizing the "ass" unit.

* After the Gracie brothers.

F-35 is too slow.

[tjstork]

A lot of pundits think the F-35 is too slow. You need to be in the Mach 2 club these days.

Re:F-35 is too slow.

[shutdown -p now]

A lot of pundits think the F-35 is too slow.

Too slow to chase Mig-21s owned by various third world countries around the world (which are much more likely to be US opponents in near term than any of the "big boys")?

It doesn't mean that you don't need some high-tech fighters as a deterrent, which is what F-22 is for. But you also need some lower-tech, but cheaper to produce and operate ones, for fighting in actual real-world conflicts.

This "cold war" thinking is actually negatively affecting US military capability in other ways. For example, 5.56mm NATO caliber was accepted in large part because its armor piercing capability is better (smaller cross-section & higher velocity) - to counter Soviet ballistic vests. In practice, however, in practically all conflicts US had actually been fighting in, the enemy doesn't have any body armor, or has some really old stuff that doesn't offer much protection anyway, and lower-velocity, heaver bullets of larger calibers are superior against such targets because of the punch they pack - and so now we have complaints from actual troops on the ground of inadequacy of 5.56mm, new weapons such as SCAR-H chambered in 7.62mm NATO, and new intermediate calibers such as 6.8 SPC - but the Army stubbornly persists any widespread adoption of those.

(There is a similar situation in Russia, by the way, where 5.45x39mm was developed after Vietnam largely because "Americans must be onto something, we must not fall behind!", and the same thinking about the need to punch through body armor in a direct confrontation with US forces - which never happened. It was similarly pushed onto the army for political reasons, and then real-world conflicts such as Afghanistan and especially Chechnya, where the opponents were unarmored, triggered a lot of complaints from the troops about the inadequacy of the new round, and their preference for the old 7.62x39mm.)

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[Vohar]

However, I'm not sure the point gets across to second and third world countries operated/controlled by dictators or gorilla-mongers.

Military force is exactly what third-world dictators would be worried about. Take Iraq, for example: Their military was rolled over by US/allied forces, no contest.

Most of the heavy military equipment isn't worth much against insurgent forces using guerrilla tactics (which I think was the point you were trying to make) but none of that is the purpose of a new fighter aircraft anyway. You gotta replace your 1970's MiGs sometime...

indian way of making stealth vehicle

[snsh]

THIS is how we make stealth car in India

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7eOVpBCtPo

Firefox

[AP31R0N]

You have to think in Russian.

--

This thing looks like the F-22 and the Su-27/35 had a baby. i'd like to see how it actually measures against the F-22.

Re:Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to think in Russian.

Favorite movie of all time.

Every time I go through a TSA checkpoint, I remember Clint Eastwood bluffing his way through a Soviet airport. Great lessons in what to do, and what not to do, when living in a police state. Just because the KGB goon says your papers aren't in order, doesn't actually mean your papers aren't in order. He could just be a TSA BDO trying to psyche you out to see how you react.

An hour of some of the best (well, by 1982 standards) visual effects known to man was just a delightful bonus. Every step of the way, the Russian colonel who's actually keeping pace with Gant's escape in the stolen fighter jet... finds himself thwarted by bureaucrats more interested in protecting their own asses and blameshifting, because their boss happens to be in the same room.

Everything I ever needed to know about living in post-9/11 America, I learned from watching pre-9/11 Americans duking it out with the Soviet Union.

Re:Firefox

[jgtg32a]

And it looks like its streamable on Nexflix

When did we discuss it?

[Ksevio]

Relatedly, according to Wikipedia, Japan is planning to fly its own stealth fighter, the ATD-X, which we have previously discussed, in 2011.

Funny I don't remember talking about that. Must still need to do some catching up on /.

Re:Who cares?

[obyom]

For the sake of economizing, maybe the US will outsource and have the F-22 built in China.

AP missed something TASS didn't

[Anonymous Coward]

According to TASS,

According to official sources, the Russian Defence Ministry plans to buy the aircraft beginning 2015. Until the time, Su-35s of the "four++" generation will be in service. Contracts are signed to supply 48 Su-35 planes to the Air Force.

That is, Russia has at least made an effort to keep up with the USA with "four++" generation aircraft, which according to the above are still ordered even with only four years to go until new stuff comes out. This "fifth" generation aircraft is probably just a formalization of what they already have.

Chronic Problem

[TheMeuge]

The chronic problem of the West is using the logic they learned in their own countries when analyzing Russia. Russia was never good to its citizens, and it was hardly ever not on the brink of national bankruptcy. But that rarely stopped it from making new weapons... that were largely more robust, if less sophisticated, than their western counterparts.

Getting into another arms race with Russia is a recipe for the US bankruptcy as much as it is for Russian... and while overspending on defense in the US would causes political instability, Russia is quite happy to make new weapons while its population starves.

Re:Chronic Problem

[amn108]

Very good observation. As a person who has lived in Russia some 10 years in total, I can say that Russian government even though one of the people (for better or worse) has traditionally been one that will pursue bold objectives without taking notice of the more at-hand problems, such may be criminality, morale, education (well that one may be an exception now, and thank gods for that) etc. Too many older folks or their trusted descendants sit in the corridors of power in Kremlin that do not want to deviate from old style of doing things - still envisioning grand Mother Russia not only very potent but in fact aiding the rest of the world. Whether it does so at the cost of its own citizens, is of no concern to these few individuals in power - to them it is the image and glory that counts. Russia's ambitions cover as much ground as its whole land and more. In time, they will learn to see be realistic, only despotic communism could handle (and did so for limited time, as history shows) the kind of progress seen there until '89. New Russia must understand that it has to choose between happy people and happy but overambitious leaders. When the balance is restored, it perhaps can become productive without using its people. As someone who has seen a lot of misery there but also a lot of absolutely ingenious minds, I would say it has what it takes, but is still with one foot in the mess that was left after the last "party" collapsed. That's nothing new though...

Re:Chronic Problem

[Kijori]

Just to add to that - Russian people in general are extremely proud of their country's military power; most large Russian towns will have regular military parades, parks with military hardware for people to take their photo with, retired missiles and jet fighters on display beside main roads and so on. Spending a large portion of their GDP on their armed forces isn't seen as a frivolity or opposed by anything but a tiny minority of Russian citizens.

Re:Chronic Problem

[Maxo-Texas]

I've read speculation that the russian people have been bred to be passive by centuries of events.

Anyone who stood up on their hind legs that wasn't part of the rulership was killed.
Anyone with initiative fled the country.

The result is that the citizens are fairly passive and put up with a lot more than folks in australia or america might put up with.

They seem to be using a different approach in america to enslave us. Basically, you work for corporations or you die from lack of health care. Health care doesn't need to be that expensive, but because the government and insurance "pays" for it, instead of us paying for it directly, the cost for health care has skyrocketed. It is now 2/3 cheaper to fly to india, get heart surgery, take a 2 month recovery/vacation, and then fly back to america than it is to get the same surgery in america (and about the same out of pocket expense). Similar quality of care but less malpractice protection if you get unlucky.

Re:Chronic Problem

[MaroonMotor]

Just to add to that - Russian people in general are extremely proud of their country's military power; most large Russian towns will have regular military parades, parks with military hardware for people to take their photo with, retired missiles and jet fighters on display beside main roads and so on. Spending a large portion of their GDP on their armed forces isn't seen as a frivolity or opposed by anything but a tiny minority of Russian citizens.

Which sounds pretty close to the attitude of the people in the US as well.

Re:Chronic Problem

[shutdown -p now]

But that rarely stopped it from making new weapons... that were largely more robust, if less sophisticated, than their western counterparts.

Russia proper was never particularly technologically advanced in military sense. Soviet Union was, and there were many objective reasons for that, but in historical perspective, it was a fairly short period of Russian history, and modern Russian state is no USSR (even if it tries hard to project the same "tough guy" image, playing on the old fears the West still has back from Soviet times).

Re:Chronic Problem

[laddiebuck]

You forget that it was the arms race with the US (which the US could afford with the greatest ease) which originally led to the total unworkability and collapse of the Soviet Union (in the long run, of course). Nowadays Russia has more money (due to oil), so it wouldn't go unworkable, but good weapons still need money, and the US has still got much more.

Catching up?

[Cyner]

That's great that they can contend with our F-22. But what happens when we have a few dozen pilots each remotely commanding a Squadron of UAV?

Honestly, I don't know why people waste their time trying to catch up with something that's already totally outdated.

Re:Catching up?

[Xest]

Because UAVs can be taken out in a relatively trivial manner by countries like Russia using ASAT technologies to take down entirely defenceless satellites that are required to relay command and control to UAVs.

Manned aircraft are still required to protect against that scenario.

Re:Catching up?

[dunkelfalke]

Probably this

Re:Catching up?

[jgtg32a]

Wow, awesome video. I thought it was going to be a COD6 vid of someone shooting down UAV. Honestly those things are just free points.

Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[Penguinisto]

Disclosure: I was an avionics tech on the original Stealth Fighter, the F-117A, back in the late 80's-early '90s. (37th TFW, Tonopah Test Range).

Back then, stealth was achieved by a combination of architecture (the angles), materials, and flying the thing under certain profiles (that is, you avoid flying too close to enemy radar installations, fly at night, etc). The whole idea was to be a literal hole in the sky, or at least make enemy radars less effective - enough to get in, do your job, and get out. The results have been somewhat mixed - during our whole Desert Storm tour, not a single F-117 got so much as a paint chip, let alone a bullet hole - sand and heat was a bigger danger to the things than lead. OTOH, one was shot down over Bosnia during the late 1990's.

When it comes to stealth? You either fly quietly, or you get noticed by enemy A/A and fighters. Modern stealth tech has taken a step back from the looks of it, and appears to have cast aside the whole idea of sneaking around, which IMHO was the whole point to stealth in the first place. Also, the F-117A was, in essence, a small tactical bomber - it has no dogfighting ability to speak of (no guns, and A/A missiles would be damned clumsy to use from one - doing that would make you even less aerodynamic than you already are, and carrying even one air-to-air missile would eat half of your bomb load). Old-school, we snuck around, making sure that the only time you noticed one of our jets was from the explosion its bombs made on your property. The Russian jet and the F-22 take a different tack - they only want to make it a little bit harder for an already-flying missile to find them, without sacrificing speed and maneuverability too much. But - if you load either one with a full bomb load, those round bombs will happily give your position away to the first radar dish that you come even partially close to.

So use them only for air superiority, you say... cool - but the whole point of air superiority is to own the sky, and noticeably so. ;) Any other role besides those two (e.g. ground support), and you face the same big risk as any other aircraft - that of being taken down by the first piece of dumb lead to fly in your direction.

Long story short, stealth is useful in limited circumstances at best, and even at this time doesn't really justify its expense and R&D outside of those circumstances.

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[BZ]

> But - if you load either one with a full bomb load, those round bombs will happily give
> your position away

While true, in the F-22 case you can stick to the internal bays if you want to. That does limit you to two 1000 pound bombs, whereas the F-117 could carry 2000 pound ones.

But yes, the main role of the F-22 seems to be air-superiority, and the main point of the stealth part seems to be to get the first shot in all cases when in the air-superiority role.

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[GooberToo]

Modern stealth tech has taken a step back from the looks of it, and appears to have cast aside the whole idea of sneaking around, which IMHO was the whole point to stealth in the first place. Also,

No idea why you think that. The F117 was basically designed during the 70s and heavily based on prototypes developed during the late 60s. Its shape is heavily derived based on computational limitations of the period. Keep in mind, much of the math was still done on slide rules and less computing power than a 386. Because of this, specific flight profiles are required to maintain radar stealth. In certain aspects, the aircraft is visible on radar. In short, it is not an all aspect stealth aircraft. And once you get close enough, even a radar lock becomes possible.

Modern stealth is designed with new materials and supercomputers. These aircraft maintain stealth at all aspects. Outside of afterburners, even their heat signature is lower than that of the F117. Simply put, the F117 is a dinosaur by modern equivalents. Hell, the F117 basically has clusters of 486s and the F22 has a couple of "super computers." Even from on-board computational capabilities, there's not comparison.

As far as I know, all F22 pilots are F15 pilots. One F22 can take out a squadron of F15s and typically never be seen. Its greatest limitation is weapon payload. Which is to say, a single F22 will run out of ammo before it can even become a target. IIRC, the best public record indicates a 14+:1 kill ratio, or better, with the F22:F15. And keep in mind, the F15 has NEVER been shot down in actual air to air combat. And yes, there has been air to air engagements.

The F15 pilots, after their mock engagements made it very clear that even after they were able to get directly on the tail of the F22, they generally couldn't obtain a lock or after doing so, the lock was quickly lost. Furthermore, because of the huge maneuverability advantages of the F22, it was almost impossible to stay on the F22's tail for any length of time. Some F22 kills were scored but by far, that was the exception rather than the rule. And keep in mind, we're talking about the creme de la creme of fighter pilots sitting in those F15s.

As for your bomb comment, that too is not accurate. That's exactly why all munitions are carried internally. Modern aircraft maintain stealth throughout all stages of flight EXCEPT for actual weapon release. The F22 is capable of releasing missiles inverted and in high G turns because they are mounted on hydraulic rams. They are basically catapulted off the aircraft. This means they can engage targets in aspects and during maneuvers which are impossible with other aircraft. And its only during the actual release that the weapon bay opens. So the window in which stealth is compromised is extremely limited. And the fact that they can super cruise away immediately after engagement means within seconds they are once again phantoms.

Simply put, the number of counties which can even offer an F15-quality of air resistance is extremely tiny and most of them are our allies. Make no bones about it, modern stealth aircraft are light years beyond the poky F117's capabilities in every measurable way possible. To say they have taken a step backwards is completely baseless and in no way accurate.

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[Hognoxious]

Any other role besides those two (e.g. ground support), and you face the same big risk as any other aircraft - that of being taken down by the first piece of dumb lead to fly in your direction.

That's where a stealthy aircraft with air to ground capability is useful - to take out the enemy's air defences and make it safer for conventional aircraft to attack "proper" targets. But drone technology has improved so much recently that maybe they're the thing for that niche.

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[Alef]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the way I have understood the idea of stealth technology, at least today, isn't to try to become completely invisible. Rather, the idea is simply to be able to see the enemy and lock on to him before he sees you, and in that way gain an advantage. If the range at which your radar can detect the enemy is greater than that at which his radar can detect you, you can simply fire off a medium-range missile and get out of there.

Thus, the strict dichotomy of stealth aircraft versus normal aircraft is maybe a bit misleading. You always want to reduce the visibility, but the emphasis varies, so you end up with a range of different degrees of stealth.

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[yoden]

Why is the f-22 such an overpowering plane then? E.g., check out some of the simulated battles linked in this article. It always seems that they're hugely in favor of the f-22, but perhaps that is just air force posturing.

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[ckaminski]

You put any of our current drones against the air defenses that Iraq had in the first gulf war, and D day would have gone much differently. Going downtown to Baghdad would have been suicide. Countries who are our enemies pay attention to the systematic way we destroyed their radar coverage, and how a few small holes caused by Apaches was all it took to lead to the systematic destruction of their air defenses.

Don't be predictable, stay maneuverable, and don't show your Aces before the final round of betting.

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply put, the number of counties which can even offer an F15-quality of air resistance is extremely tiny and most of them are our allies.

Yes, I believe Hazzard County is one. They have a truly remarkable vehicle that can challenge superiority in any theater.

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[Anonymous Coward]

the F117 shot down over Bosnia was supposedly hit by a chinese missile that used the sound of the engine to target.

the main benefits of drones are for observation and long flight time (24 hours in air) the ability to shoot missiles is an added bonus

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[greyhueofdoubt]

I can corroborate the 14:1 kill ratio. I've participated in green flag excercises at Nellis and our pilots (in f-16s) came back fully defeated (pretend killed) after every mission. That is not to say that our pilots are not good- they are, and they have had chances to prove that in several combat zones.

Simply put, the F-22 dominates the sky. Every aspect of the aircraft is superior in terms of performance. One thing that is left out in these discussions is pilot task saturation; in the F-22, the aircraft computers take care of many tasks, and does them better than humanly possible, allowing the pilot to focus more on flying. My conscience tells me to leave it at that, considering the sensitivity of the subject, but you can probably find more information somewhere else.

As someone who has been working on fighters for almost a decade, I am still continually amazed by everything I learn about the F-22. I've personally heard generals and some colonels who have been flying since the f-4 was new say that the F-22 was to them an entirely new paradigm in combat flight. They couldn't say enough good things about it.

I know I probably sound like a shill for lockheed-martin, but I'm trying to counteract the dozens of posts that lament the f-22 as already outdated, as merely an incremental improvement on the f-15, or as an aircraft that could be suitably replaced by its cost in f-16s. None of those things are true.

-b

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[Penguinisto]

Minor bits:

* I should have clarified: I believe things have taken a step back in stealth and strategic purpose, not in dogfighting or other capabilities (where the F-22 is obviously very superior).

* Yep, you're going to have a hard time getting a basic AIM-9 or similar infrared A/A missile to lock onto the tail of an F-22 from a distance. OTOH, I believe that a ground-based SAM will have a somewhat easier time of things, since they rely on radar, not heat... and no amount of stealth will be immune to radar at a close-enough range. I am also willing to wager that the first decent F-15 pilot who realizes that his 20mm gun still works just fine, well, he won't have to care as much if his missiles can get a lock or not. ;)

* Your comment "One F22 can take out a squadron of F15s" isn't quite accurate, IMHO. A typical US Air Force squadron (IIRC) consists of 12-24 aircraft, depending. Even 12 would be a bit too much of a stretch, since the F-22 can only carry 8 missiles max, and only 480 rounds in its 20mm gun (meaning that's probably only a last resort)... not enough to do the job, I daresay.

Sibling has a fair point when it comes to simplifying tasks - a typical fighter cockpit has anywhere from 500 to 1,000 or more switches, knobs, levers, instruments, and controls. While most of them are obviously not necessary in a fight, there are still enough that you do need to pay attention to in order to get the job done. This tends to make one's job tough, to be charitable about it. If you can simplify the tasks, you can give the pilot an edge.

I also agree w/ Sibling in that the F-22 does earn its keep, considering what it is capable of. It was built for air superiority, and as a direct F-15 replacement. OTOH, I'd like to contend that there is still a place in combat for something that isn't a super-pricey dogfighter, and something that isn't a massive strategic bomber (e.g. the B-2). This is where the F-117 originally fit in, and proved admirably during Desert Storm. At this time, there's nothing really out there coming up that fills the bill, save for existing but aging jets that are becoming harder and more expensive to maintain as time goes on (e.g. the A-10, F-117, etc). Right now, I believe the F-16 (and even F-15) is being pressed into that role (which wasn't it's original design role, IIRC). Something that could combine F-16 and F-117 would be hella nice, I believe...
 

Re:Stealth is not a magic bullet.

[Penguinisto]

Actually, the rumors of the time had a nearly-new French radar tagging the jet, which is not an unlikely situation if the range was close enough.

Sound-wise, the F-117 is quiet enough that with both engines running on the tarmac, you could walk up to it with just your hands over your ears, and still be comfortable with the sound level (OTOH, a typical jet like the F-16 requires foam ear plugs and over-ear mufflers together - even then you're going to have to put up with a bit of irritation from the noise).

I didn't see it

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it works.

Optical Stealth?

[PHPNerd]

Did anyone RTFA and read that it will have "invisibility in the optical, radar, and infrared wavelengths"? Does that mean this jet has some sort of real invisibility cloak?

Re:Optical Stealth?

[cormander]

How would we know if we can't see it?

Re:Optical Stealth?

[BZ]

The google translation is a bit off. The Russian text says "" (low visibility), not "" (invisibility). The full sentence in the Google translation:

    Fighter will differ maneuverability and invisibility in the optical, infrared and
    radar wavelengths.

is better translated as:

    The fighter will excel at supermaneuverability and low visibility in the optical,
    infrared, and radar wavelenghts.

Must be a joke...

[TheMeuge]

You must be kidding.

Education - teachers and college professors get paid barely enough to literally survive, when they get paid at all. After the exodus of the Jewish scholarly elite, and the subsequent evacuation of any non-Jews that had academic credentials, Russian education is barely starting to recover...

Healthcare - hospitals are in shambles. If I remember correctly, you would have to bribe every nurse and orderly in turn to get clean(er) sheets and non-expired medication. Better to bring your own, bought on the black market.

Housing - it is not lacking in strength, but it's barely above the level of trailer parks in amenities

Moscow and St. Petersburg city centers are not a good indicator of the conditions in Russia. They are about as sophisticated as the West, at Western (or higher) prices. Given that a chief physician of a large hospital makes about $1000-1500/month while paying New York prices for groceries and only about 1/2 as much for housing, it should give you a lot of pause before making these ridiculous comparisons.

Re:Must be a joke...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about 5,000-10,000 a month for chief physician in Moscow? 1000 or 1500 it is even small for programmer (regular is $2500-3000 (after tax)). 1500 is minimum salary in almost any industry in Moscow. How can you live for $1000 in Moscow if one bedroom rent costs $900-12000 in city suburbs?

Hope PAK FA is not a fake and Russians will be able to produce PAK FA (T-50) in commercial scale soon. Something tells me that it will be much cheaper than F-22. Many countries India, China, countries of Latin America, Middle East will buy it. So money go to Russia, partially to Russian engineers and universities. As a result better products in future.

Re:In Soviet Russia ...

[cgomezr]

In Soviet Russia... memes overuse YOU!

Countries need defense against the US

[MobyDisk]

I wonder if Iraq + Afghanistan + threats against Iran have increased demand for military aircraft throughout the world.

Russia is not even remotely in a position to race

[Kartu]

Russia is not even remotely in a position to race. RF is no USSR. They are far behind in all areas, but nuclear arms. What are you talking about?

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[ubersoldat2k7]

It's not just about "mine is bigger" but also about economy. I don't know, but probably some of this jets are to be sold to other countries so this is free publicity.

Re:Who cares?

[Nerdfest]

If the Chinese version is built like most of the other things that are reverse engineered in China, I'm not particularly worried. Of course, if they build 100 times the numbers of them, this opinion might change ...

Foolish assumption.

[tjstork]

Old people do need money to eat and get health care

You assume that because they need it, they should get it. At the other end of the scale is a child that needs an education. If there's only one dollar out there, and the old guy wants it, versus the child, I'd say, give it to the child, and let the old guy die.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[RMH101]

Way to go with the strawman argument. How about if there's 1 dollar, and the choice is either split it between healthcare, education and a little defence, compared to just handing 99c to the Dod?

Re:Foolish assumption.

[tjstork]

Way to go with the strawman argument. How about if there's 1 dollar, and the choice is either split it between healthcare, education and a little defence, compared to just handing 99c to the Dod?

Ok, 1 cent for a shot to put the baby boomers to sleep, 10 cents for education, 20 cents for medical care, 30 cents for dod, 10 cents for nasa, and the rest to pay off boomer debt.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[fhage]

Old people do need money to eat and get health care

You assume that because they need it, they should get it. At the other end of the scale is a child that needs an education. If there's only one dollar out there, and the old guy wants it, versus the child, I'd say, give it to the child, and let the old guy die.

Just wait until 2038, and all the old Unix programmers in the US are dead due to lack of Health Care. Then you'll be sorry. Back to stone tools and smoke signals, you'll be.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[timeOday]

You assume that because they need it, they should get it... if there's only one dollar out there, and the old guy wants it, versus the child, I'd say, give it to the child, and let the old guy die.

"They" is "you." Think over the whole course of your life. Did you read my whole post? It wasn't about redistribution. My point was that unless you personally, as a rational, self-sufficient person, plan on killing yourself instead of retiring, you have to plan for the future. Social security and medicare taxes are one way to do that. Another system could be the traditional one; you support your elders directly. Another system could be everybody just saves lots of money in banks or gambles on the stock market.

One way or the other, you have to provide for yourself. Simply not paying SS and keeping all the money to spend now is NOT economically feasible, unless as I say, you are planning on dying as soon as your net economic output goes negative.

Yes, there is some amount of re-distribution built into the welfare entitlements, so my argument doesn't entirely hold. But it's not as if all the money you're paying in taxes is going into a bonfire or spent on irresponsible welfare mothers either (though people love to dwell on those cases). Mostly, you can think of it as a payment from yourself now, to yourself later.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[tjstork]

My point was that unless you personally, as a rational, self-sufficient person, plan on killing yourself instead of retiring, you have to plan for the future

I smoked a pack a day for 20 years and have a heart condition. I won't live that long, so I want every cent to go towards my son.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[ckaminski]

Then you're going to live to be 98, and outlive your son. Go figure.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[gtall]

"Mostly, you can think of it as a payment from yourself now, to yourself later."

I don't think this is true. SS is paying beneficiaries now with money taxed now. It is not going into some magical pot with your name on it to be opened when you retire. If the tax money is not there when you retire, you and everyone that looks like you is screwed.

The problem with SS is that too many people have a straw in it. And it the boomers are going to make it all worse because the working population won't be large enough to support these whiners. They will whine because that's what they've always done. The government has taken one minor step, my retirement age is 66 + 3 months, not 65, according to the SS administration. But I'm at the tail end of the boomers. All boomers should be retiring much later, just as pay back for having to listen to them all these years if there is justice left in the world.

My retirement age should be later that than, say 70. And capping contributions to be made on only the first $105,000 or so of income (I think this cap is still there) is plain silly. You should pay SS on all income. And they need to cut the social contract in such a manner that if your retirement income is above, say, $60,000 per year, you slowly lose benefits until income $100,000 where you cease to get any distribution from SS. Unfair? Nope. It is merely the contribution you will make as citizen to the rest who are less well off and have not benefitted from living in the U.S. as long as you and continue to reap the rewards of a +$100,000 income.

I'm sure there are other adjustments that could be made. Whack the insurance companies and make health care run by nonprofit cooperatives. That is the way Blue Cross and Blue Shield started. In the 70's, insurance companies figured out they could make a killing in health care and have been killing us ever since. Reform the tort laws, it isn't Christmas just because some doctor or medical establishment screwed up.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[dorre]

Or if there's only one dollar, how about using euros? We have plenty! And they are worth something ;)

Re:Foolish assumption.

[timeOday]

The problem with SS is that too many people have a straw in it. And it the boomers are going to make it all worse because the working population won't be large enough to support these whiners.

I agree, except I see the strain on SS as a symptom rather than a cause. The cause, as you allude to, is the aging populace. And that was unavoidable, since the population pyramid scheme cannot continue forever. A lower ratio of producers to consumers means lower average economic output, there is no way around it. But that also means if we were allowed to put all our money into the stock market instead of SS, we couldn't expect "historical returns" for our retirement, because slowing population growth will slow economic growth. If we all dumped that much money into the markets, returns would become negligible, little different than SS. Already, it was a surplus of investments that caused the bubble, as all the huge pension funds etc. sought decent returns, but nobody needed their money.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[timeOday]

SS is paying beneficiaries now with money taxed now. It is not going into some magical pot with your name on it to be opened when you retire. If the tax money is not there when you retire, you and everyone that looks like you is screwed.

PS, sorry to reply to you twice, but that is true of all savings, and of money in general. There is no way to really save what you really need - food, shelter, medical care and other services - for retirement. Instead you can only save money, which is a promise of entitlement for later. But if there is nobody around to keep that promise, then it can't be kept (e.g. the currency must lose its value if the underlying economy takes a dump). SS isn't really any more or less guaranteed than a number stored on a computer representing a savings account balance somewhere.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm interesting idea so America should just start printing out euros.... I like it! *calls the Treasury Department on the tele*

"I think I have the solution to all our economic problems!!!"

LOL I can see the FBI showing up at my door in like 3 minutes flat to send me to gitmo for spoiling the plot.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[NeutronCowboy]

I'll wait for your opinion on this until you are old and need to eat.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[operagost]

SS is like Madoff; it's just that it's legal for the US federal government to do it.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[ahabswhale]

Following your logic that people should fend for themselves, then so should your son. Tell that slack little fucker to get to work and make his way in the world. He hasn't contributed anything but drain and so long as that drain comes only from you then I'm fine with it. But I don't see why I should have to pay taxes to educate your fucking spawn or provide you with deductions especially when you never asked my permission to have the little shit in the first place.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[anaesthetica]

...let the old guy die.

Why so passive about it? I say, when old people start becoming a drain on society we ought to just get rid of them. Why do we spend so much money keeping these useless bags on life support from age 60 to age 90? Especially the Baby Boomer generation—arguably the worst, most destructive, most self-righteous, entitled, self-centered, short-sighted generation in U.S. history. Good riddance!

Re:Foolish assumption.

[Hadlock]

The longer the "boomers" are in the workforce, the longer it takes for my generation to begin to approach the buying power boomers already had by the time they were my age. Most everyone I know (with a 4 year degree) lives in an apartment and drives a used car. Of all my friends only two of them were able to buy their own house before 25 and all of them still drive used cars to maintain their current lifestyle.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[OrangeCatholic]

>they need to cut the social contract in such a manner that if your retirement income is above, say, $60,000 per year, you slowly lose benefits until income $100,000

Absolutely. The problem with SS is that it's not need-based. Everyone gets paid out, regardless of whether they are a multi-millionaire.

I have a real problem with SS, which is the idea that old people don't make as much money as the young. Actually, old people have more investments, more equity, and more business contacts. They are more likely to be managers.

If some destitute old person needs a handout, then fine. But the current terms are too generous. You could accomplish the SAME by being selective.

>Reform the tort laws, it isn't Christmas just because some doctor or medical establishment screwed up.

Huh? It's okay for professionals to screw up? You lost me here.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[OrangeCatholic]

Boomers have the distinction that their parents sent them off to Vietnam to die. This is where the social contract (parent to child) started to unfold. Boomers had to rally in the streets to save their own skins. Their own parents wanted them to live in the jungles.

But, Boomers never passed this lesson along to their own children. Boomers assumed that since they won the hippie war, that Led Zeppelin would reign forever. Boomers never took into account the basic parenting principle, that your children are destined to do better.

Ultimately, because Boomers were abused, they regard all gains as entitlement. They have nothing to spare for the neighbor or the child. Everything is viewed in terms of how society is going to "pay me back" for what I have suffered.

In that sense, Boomers have failed. They created a peace based on their own disillusionment.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[gtall]

You are correct, nothing can guarantee the value of money over time. Even material collateral won't necessarily hold up. One of the best things to invest in, even at today's high prices, is education. And education should never, ever stop.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[gtall]

Well, it is a pyramid scheme but the government isn't attempting to hide the lack of funding. There have been numerous reports. The difference is that you have no choice.

In retrospect to what I wrote above, I think benefits should start going away at income of $50,000 when you draw social security. And that number should not be fixed in stone but fluid to reflect the amount of money being paid in. It is drastic and it does make it difficult to people to make decisions. However, currently the only sensible decision one can make is to assume there will be no SS when they retire.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[gtall]

Yes, I knew that when I wrote what I did. And I am sympathetic and wish I could do something about that. I think that older people should not so much retire as fade away. And younger people should fade in. This would ease both ends. I wish I could say mentor young people with old people and sometimes that works. It is not guaranteed to work, both can be so intolerant as to not learn from the other...but I do think it should be built into the system so that it is expected and not a novelty.

With advanced age, one also runs into age discrimination. That can happen at both ends of the age spectrum, but you have time to recover when you are younger. And age discrimination starts early. If you are not a star by 30-35, you will have to make yourself a star (self-employed). Not all of us have what it takes to do that.

Both age groups need to readjust their expectations. Youngsters will not get off on the same economic foot as the boomers. But boomers should not be allowed to waste their resources on themselves either.

Re:Foolish assumption.

[gtall]

I didn't say it was okay for professionals to screw up. The malpractice insurance rates are driving doctors out of the profession, though. And the tort laws are distorting medical care by making individual decisions wag the medical dog. This leads to the age old conundrum, we have a finite amount of money and if we spend x on kidney dialysis, we spent y - x on cancer prevention. If your boob job, tummy tuck, or fanny tuck don't take, do you get compensated as a failed heart valve replacement?

I contend the tort laws are out of whack and benefit mainly the lawyers. There does need to be compensation for victims, but the victims are not the lawyers.

Re:Who cares?

[Hognoxious]

Chinese Engineer 1: What's that part made of?
Chinese Engineer 2: Titanium.
CE1: Isn't that expensive?
CE2: We'll just use lead. Or melamine.
CE1: Will it have the same mechanical properties?
CE2: No, but by the time the Americans notice, it'll be too late.
CE1: Heh heh. Er, hang on a minute...
 

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[paiute]

What if the enemy has a copy of the Art of War also?

Re:Who cares?

[Assmasher]

It's not a case of them 'reverse engineering' the fighter, the primary obstacles to creating aircraft like this isn't an aircraft design issue, it's an engineering issue. The materials, production lines, resources, manufacturing expertise, et al., necessary to successfully implement the F-22 or PAK-50 is incredibly prohibitive. Ever wondered why China is only now just starting to produce fighter aircraft of the 3rd/4th (more like 3.5) generation on its own? They've had high quality imported aircraft for almost two decades now and they can't make anything themselves that compares to a 4.5 generation fighter. This is what one would term a 'non trivial' tast ;).

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no, with all those fighter jets, the Chinese will be able to invade the United States!!! What are we going to do, the US has barely any airplanes, much less stealth fighter jets. We only have 145 F-22s, and our ICBM's number only in the low thousands. What are we going to do!!! We must restart the production on the F-22's and the B-2s. We need to bomb every country out there back to the stone age. Those freedom hating red bastards, and the old-worlders are blind, and just want to get us. Especially when they export the jets, what will we do, we will no longer be able to bomb civilians by the hundreds with no impunity.

Run for the hills.

Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[jollyreaper]

The viability of manned aircraft is a question of technology. By the end of WWII, proximity-fused shells on US Navy ships made convention air attack against them a suicide mission. If the US Navy was forced to fight an identical opponent in '46, air attack would likely have been abandoned. The Japanese resorted to suicide attacks in part because conventional attacks were already suicide, at least a crash dive might let you get a hit. The cruise missile a refinement of the suicide plane concept. The idea of dive-bombing or torpedoing a warship from the air quickly fell out of favor. But that was ok for airplanes since they could carry missiles and engage from beyond the range of return fire. While aircraft did indeed use gravity bombs and later guided bombs against naval targets in the following decades, that was usually in third-world wars or against small patrol ships. Nobody would think of risking that against a proper warship.

The rise of the SAM's made things trickier for land-attack craft. A multi-million dollar jet is risked attacking tanks that are worth maybe $200k. The attrition rate under the 6 Day War was so high it was thought the end of manned combat aircraft had been reached. But subsequent development of Wild Weasel tactics and improved ECM put the SAM's on the defensive. But technology continues to improve. The early missiles were laughable. The F-4 went to Vietnam armed only with missiles and did not achieve an air-to-air kill until the gatling-equipped version arrived. But missile tech is very, very good now. The last gun kill achieved by the Air Force was an A-10 versus a Hind in Gulf War 1.

The question now is one of development cycles. The F-22 program started in '81 and didn't go operational until 2005. Ridiculous! How many SAM generations came during that time? And how much cheaper will those weapons be? The damn B-2's cost a billion bucks a pop and are irreplaceable. We're not cranking up the production lines for any more. And what are they good for, truly? To carry cruise missiles? Why do we need a fancy bomber for that? Why not just load cruise missiles on C-17's and kick them out the back a thousand miles from target? There, now you have cargo-bombers and can buy more aiframes for the same money.

The Poles kept cavalry units up until WWII. They finally were disabused of the idea by Germans with panzers. I think it's going to take a similar catastrophe to move us past the idea of manned combat aircraft.

Re:Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[Nimey]

Prox fuzes are wonderful things, but they're only as good as the gunners who fire them: if the gunner can't quite figure out where the enemy aircraft is (rather, will be when the shells intersect its flight path), the shells won't be close enough to damage anything, proximity fuzes or not. At that point, all of our anti-aircraft guns were manually aimed and fired, so it would be quite possible to /not/ be hit.

The real problem for the Nips was that their aircraft were obsolete, too few in number (esp. versus our fighter CAP), and flown by untrained pilots.

Re:Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[hondo77]

Wow, I can't believe someone in the 21st century actually used the word "Nips" to refer to the Japanese. How, um, quaint.

Re:Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[brennz]

"The rise of the SAM's made things trickier for land-attack craft. A multi-million dollar jet is risked attacking tanks that are worth maybe $200k".

Tanks cost more than 200k.

True ground attack aircraft such as an A-10 are dramatically different from the a standard high flying fighter. An A-10 may have some vulnerability to SAMs, but they are much harder to shoot down than say an attack helicopter. Generally when A-10s are operating, it is as a close air support, so they have some measure of security on the ground already. The A-10 will supposedly be retired for a lack of speed vs the newest SAMs though.

Air forces have a significant number of measures they take against ground radar and SAM sites. Cruise missiles, ecm birds, and anti-radiation missiles, paired with spy satellite data feeds and drones make operating a SAM a short lifespan occupation against an advanced military. Manpad SAMs have limited ranges and low effectiveness so it isn't like they will fill in the gap either.

Your conclusion that we are near the death of the manned fighter due to advanced SAMs is highly suspect.

The reduction of the manned fighter to a minimal role is more likely because:
Every private can potentially fly a drone
Drones are not casualties
It is pretty easy to have drones sitting around waiting for target sightings, loitering over an area of operations.

Re:Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[Nimey]

I've been reading "Cryptonomicon" recently.

Re:Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[GooberToo]

Ridiculous! How many SAM generations came during that time?

You call into question the number of generations out one side of your mouth and point out the duration of a single generation out the other. Somehow the irony seems to have been missed.

There hasn't been very many generations. Period. Second of all, in order to create a generation which can counter, you generally have to know what it is you're countering. At best they have a lot of speculation. Third of all, the math doesn't even make sense. Why spend billions creating new target/trigger mechanisms to counter a threat which your not likely to see for at least a decade and immediately know little to nothing about. Fourth, had they started a generation to counter a threat, at that time, they would have no clue what is it they are suppose to counter, and even if they did, the technology gap (counter the counter) between then and how is likely to be huge.

And what are they good for, truly? To carry cruise missiles?

No, dropping bombs. Imagine that, a bomber dropping bombs. Who would of thought. The fact that you're one, confused about its primary role, and two, still have no clue what a bomber is used for, pretty well puts and end to the discussion. Why your comment has been modded up is beyond me.

I think it's going to take a similar catastrophe to move us past the idea of manned combat aircraft.

Not likely. Right now there are some serious limitations to unmanned fighters. The likes of the F22 and F35 are likely to be the last of their kind but they are expected to be in service for the next thirty to fifty years. The fact their anticipated service life is so long pretty well implies that not only do our unmanned fighters have a very long way to do, but that everyone else has a vastly farther distance to travel. Take a serious look around at technological capabilities of other countries. The only countries likely to be able to field an unmanned fighter capable of providing a serious threat to an F22 or F35 is likely to be our ally and even still, likely to be at least a decade away. And that decade could easily be two or more. Aside from Russia, its likely to be a decade or two before another fighter poses a significant air risk to eh F22 and F35, let alone an unmanned vehicle. Furthermore, its extremely unlikely that the first generation of unmanned fighters will be a significant threat to planes like the F22 and F35 because of high latencies between CnC and the aircraft which means some type of advanced AI is going to be required to compensate - and even still, they must first be able to find the aircraft to even engage.

Long story short, you post may be "interesting", but its interesting in the same way any other fiction is.

Re:Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[Whorhay]

From the Wiki page on the six day war the Israeli's only lost 46 aircraft during the entire conflict. I couldn't determine if those were all fighters or not but even so that would be less than one quarter of their operational fighters. Considering they managed to win in such a crushing manner it's hard to understand how that's considered a high rate of attrition, especially for the time period. Additionally Eqypt alone had twice the fighter aircraft they did.

Re:Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[mfrank]

In WW2 the US had automated AA guns. Outputs from radar went through an analog computer, which controlled the guns. They were extremely effective. They were first used at Anzio and were definitely used in the later parts of the Pacific war. IEEE Spectrum had a really good couple of articles on WW2 electronics a while back. And yes, those articles made it quite clear that proximity fuses are wonderful things. Radar at frequencies that Nazi U-boat commanders can't even detect is pretty nice to have too.

Re:Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's how you closet racists justify the use of racial epithets. Nice.

Re:Can aircraft keep ahead of missile tech?

[laddiebuck]

And in a nice bit of irony, the best defence against missiles is guns again -- albeit very small, very rapidly-firing ones, not the big naval guns of the past.

But seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if gunnery made a comeback in the next 50 years. Shells are cheap, missiles are expensive. Just send half a dozen or a dozen low-cost unmanned attacking drones against, say, a destroyer and it suddenly it runs out of missiles and it's toast. But the same destroyer can carry thousands and thousands of shells, which only need to have a hit rate of a hundredth of the missile to be just as effective. A shell also doesn't worry about radar locks. You just fire it at one part of the sky and it'll go off at a certain distance -- in some new shells, the gun can even set a timer electronically just before firing. Guns have quietly come so far in the pat half-century, that when they become a useful alternative to SAMs, people will be taken by surprise.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[meringuoid]

Because, presumably, they will want to sell the aircraft or a derivative of that aircraft.

That, and prestige. The Russians want to portray themselves to the world as technological peers of the West. It's good for business, it's good for the image of Russia overseas. If a Russian engineering firm is competing for business with American or German companies, then it's good for Russia to have a reputation for competence in advanced engineering projects such as this.

no such thing as full stealth

[Anonymous Coward]

Aussie low freq radar sees stealth aircraft clear as a bell : Jindalee

Re:Who cares?

[TheKidWho]

You first, so we can lock you up somewhere and let you starve.

Yuck

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody please, give this man a rimjob!

You are a sick motherfucker.

Compulsory picture

[janwedekind]

Stealth fighters can be detected by the characteristic pattern of reduced precipitation below the body of the aircraft:
http://www.roe.ac.uk/~jkd/stealth.jpg

Re:arms race

[Shompol]

When Bush invaded Iraq, he single-handedly kicked off international arms race. Because that means no one is safe from random invasions by (historically peaceful) US.
- North Korea tested atomic bomb
- Iran working on its atomic program in cooperation with Russia.

Putin would start arms race anyway, he got an empire to protect, both from outside and inside! Nothing keeps populace in line like show of power. "the Russians said would" is just an excuse, if not for that they would find something else to weasel out of previous treaties.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[jbeaupre]

The point of a doomsday device is to make people fear you. For that to happen, they need to know about it.

Saddam took that one step further. Do you really need WMD, or just for people to think you have them? We certainly feared him. He certainly had chemical weapons at one time, and tinkered with other WMD's at other times. But in retrospect, that was all gone by 2003. So why did people think he still fear he had them? There is some anecdotal evidence his scientists mislead him to keep from being "replaced", but only for a few of the suspected programs. For Saddam, ambiguity was useful up until Iraq got invaded. Playing games with weapons inspectors kept everyone nervous and a little wary of what he might be capable of.

Then came the big prank. After the invasion of Afghanistan, Al Qaeda came up with a great idea: if you get caught, mention that there is a plot with Saddam to use WMD. Remember, Al Qaeda didn't like Saddam, so this was meant to get two enemies focused on each other. Combine this with Saddam's games, poor/biased intelligence, and an administration set on wiping out any potential threat, and you get a nice little clusterfuck.

Mig 31?

[PowerVegetable]

I thought the mig 31 was the so called "raptor killer". What ever happened to that?

Who even needs to counter the f22 these days? I guess this thing is pretty much meant for export.

Re:Mig 31?

[shutdown -p now]

I thought the mig 31 was the so called "raptor killer". What ever happened to that?

Given that MiG-31 was introduced into service in 1982 (i.e. the development started far earlier), and the development of F-22 started in 1981 (when US Air Force developed the requirements), I find it hard to see how MiG-31 can be a "raptor killer". Aside from that, it's an interceptor, not an air superiority fighter.

Who even needs to counter the f22 these days?

Any country that doesn't want US pressure on its internal and foreign policy?

What bankrupts us is healty people

[Shivetya]

working the system. People who otherwise could support themselves who have found out they don't have to.

The system has good intentions but has been so twisted to support every group who held their hands out. Now we can't put it into the hands of X because we are afraid of upsetting that group of voters.

Votes have overcome need and that is why we cannot afford it

move your ass radar engineers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hoping some breakthrough in radar technology instantly make these stealth fighters redundant, if for no other reason than to STFU all the armchair top gun wannabes.

Nah, we're 64 bit now.

[tjstork]

Just wait until 2038, and all the old Unix programmers in the US are dead due to lack of Health Care. Then you'll be sorry. Back to stone tools and smoke signals, you'll be.

We're at 64 bits, so the 32 bit seconds + 1970 is really now the end of the universe + 1970. Not a problem!

2015

[Philip K Dickhead]

Why worry?

That's THREE WHOLE YEARS after the end of the world!

Horse Catastrophe?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Poles kept cavalry units up until WWII. They finally were disabused of the idea by Germans with panzers. I think it's going to take a similar catastrophe to move us past the idea of manned combat aircraft.

The Poles weren't disabused of using horses in WW2. The Germans, had mounted units during WWII, and the Italians conducted a cavalry charge as late as August 1942 (and won!)

The Polish unit you mention was successful also, and a Free Polish Unit apparently conducted the last Cavalry action of the war in March 1945.

Re:Horse Catastrophe?

[jgtg32a]

Actually some US Special Ops units joined up with some friendlies in Afgan and they ended up using horses.

Re:Horse Catastrophe?

[dunkelfalke]

Exactly. Poland and USSR used cavalry pretty successfully. GP probably imagines it like some kind of a fantasy movie, in fact cavalry was used for fast strikes against resting Germans.

No problably not

[Sycraft-fu]

NATO makes up reporting names for eastern bloc weapons. Fighter aircraft all start with F, so Firefox would be the kind of reporting name you'd use for this. As to why they chose that, well maybe it is due to the novel/movie which used it for a fictional Russian fighter, maybe it is because of the browser. It's not like people in the military don't use computers.

The only requirements is that it start with F (since it is for a fighter aircraft) and be unambiguous.

Re:Who cares?

[careysub]

You would be naive to think that an aircraft of this complexity can be "reverse engineered". I do not think, in fact, that history bears a single example since WWII at least of any foreign military aircraft being reverse engineered into a successful combat aircraft.

With any advanced aircraft the "secret" of success is not the plane itself so much than the whole vast production system that builds it. The tooling plans are actually some of the most valuable secrets.

Perhaps the closest example of a successful combat plane clone was Israel's Kfir, derived from the Dassault Mirage. But this success required Israel to steal the complete Mirage plans, including the all-important tooling plans, to be able to buy actual production equipment from France, and to buy the engines from the U.S.

and doesnt even cover 60 million

[Anonymous Coward]

people need to be covered thats why its 37th
americans suck at looking after people
haha

Re:and doesnt even cover 60 million

[Anonymous Coward]

ummmm --> whoosh ... you missed that one by miles ....

Re:Who cares?

[shutdown -p now]

J-10 is definitely at least 4th generation, and the upgraded (J10-B) variety is almost certainly 4.5-gen - and that should be finalized really soon.

This has been known for a while

[yabos]

I don't even really follow this stuff and even I've heard about it for a little over a year. The US Air Force would have known this thing is coming for quite some time.

Stolen

[DrugCheese]

I'm sure it relates to this: http://archive.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/10/30/223902 Can't find a better source

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[Idbar]

It's like a magician showing all the secrets of his magic show at the first showing.
Well, to me, is exactly like a regular magician. They show they have a new trick, and some will be interested on paying for it. It's still a trick. The interesting thing here, is who will pay (and will be allowed to pay for) and who will try to reverse engineer the trick.

Re:Who cares?

[Assmasher]

The J-10 is considered to be a 4th generation fighter, but the Chinese did not engineer the plane themselves - it is based heavily on the IAI Lavi, Russian engines, and Israeli flight controls (not the same as the Lavi.) The J-10 is the second attempt at the J-9 which was cancelled long long ago and even as such took nearly 20 years of development to get to where it is, even though it is basically a foreign born aircraft. Needless to say, the Chinese will be buying their PAK-FAs, just likey they do their other Sukhois (and engines, and electronics, and flight control systems...)

JoeBlow

[Anonymous Coward]

Grate H1B-ers sold us out. I thought India was an ally, how do these guys get security clearance, we got them working on nuclear mark 2 torpedoes, air born chemical lasers, hunter killer space drones. Yet I can't get a job?

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

reverse engineer? the russians will probably just license it to the chinese.

Re:Who cares?

[socz]

I recall watching a program about WWII. I don't remember the exact model but it was an american bomber that had mid flight problems on return to an allied base. So it was forced to land in russia, an at the time non-party to the war. So according to the 'rules of war' while the plane safely landed their, they can not be aided (can't get back in the air) nor returned to an involved party to the war.

So what ends up happening, is that there are a "few good russians" who help the crew back to allied territory while running the chance themselves of being caught and punished. But in the mean time, russian engineers were not re-verse engineering the bomber, but "replicating" it. It's really funny because there was so much pressure to finish the task before the plane had to be returned to the U.S. forces, that one of the managers committed suicide because of being behind schedule.

So, they copied it so well, that later when it was looked over by american eyes they noticed that the patch they put on the plane because it took fire while in a previous mission, was even on the copy! So they copied even the imperfections. That's scary.

Finally, I'll agree that the plane itself is not enough to easily make more/similar versions of it. I knew a man for a while who worked on the development for several air craft. And he told me what he ended up doing was working with problem installations. So basically, the plans were there, the parts were there, but putting it all together didn't always go so well. Because as we all learn, the point of view of designers, engineers, manufacturers and assemblers are all different.

Re:Who cares?

[TheKidWho]

Read the post I was replying to first.

Time to Bring in the Copyright Lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Um....designed to compete with the F-22? It's a total freaking ripoff. Just like their space shuttle. We just need to dropship some RIAA lawyers overthere and we won't have to worry about the plane since it clearly is breaking all kinds of copy infringment

... "which we have previously discussed, in 2011"

[WormholeFiend]

Um, check your calendar?

Not as stealthy as it needs to be ...

[Old97]

The flaw in all this is that we can see these aircraft from the U.S. , Russia, et al, so how stealthy are they really? A really stealthy aircraft is the one developed and used by the air force of Bhutan. I know, you'll say that nobody has seen this plane. That proves my point doesn't it?

Stealth Fighters

[physburn]

All these Stealth Fighters, are going to give Air Traffic Control a lot of fun. Look forward to see a lot a crashes, they is a downside of planes being invisible, they can't see each other until they hit each other.

---

Aviation Feed @ Feed Distiller

Re:Stealth Fighters

[yorktown]

All these Stealth Fighters, are going to give Air Traffic Control a lot of fun. Look forward to see a lot a crashes, they is a downside of planes being invisible, they can't see each other until they hit each other.

They solve this problem by putting active radar transponders on board the aircraft. When the transponder receives a radar pulse, it sends a signal of its own which is picked up by the ATC radar. This is the same technique that ATC uses to monitor many civilian aircraft as well.

jamming?

[theolein]

I agree that unmanned fighters should be, and probably are being developed as they have none of the physical limitations of the humans body. The real problem is that in a high tech war, there would be a very real chance of satellite signals being jammed and that leaves you either with no fighter if the software is unable to fend for itself well enough, or with a fighter that risks breaking the rules of engagement if the software is too good. I suppose, however, that a default evasion mode of operation could be built to get the fighter back in case of contact being lost to it.

That said, unmanned planes have never been in a high tech battlefield and no one knows how well they fare against electronic warfare and skilled human pilots.

Competing with F-22?

[Max_W]

Competing with F-22? Gosh, do they really say it? Do they want us to fight with Americans? Budget of New York city alone is larger than a budget of the whole Ukraine.

A war with Germany would seem as a kindergaten. This is insane.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[Anonymous Coward]

saddam saddam saddam

your own intelligence againcies tricked you into that war and the only group that got something out of it were oil mongrels

better blame saddam, yeah

Re:Who cares? Not you, stupid...

[X'16435934]

They've had high quality imported aircraft for almost two decades now and they can't make anything themselves that compares to a 4.5 generation fighter.

Yeah, just like all that cheap Jap shit. Who in his right mind would buy one of them cheap Toyatos or Hondas, when he could buy a real AMERICAN CAR! With AMERICAN engineering!
Let's face it: G.M. RULES!
Sucker, how much ya wanna bet Chinese electric cars wil be sold in the US in 4-5 years? Ask Wannen Buffett.
China and India are already building their own fighters, nuclear subs AND aircraft carriers..
Man, some of you American dinosaurs never change...

Re:Who cares?

[careysub]

I recall watching a program about WWII. I don't remember the exact model but it was an american bomber that had mid flight problems on return to an allied base. So it was forced to land in russia, an at the time non-party to the war. So according to the 'rules of war' while the plane safely landed their, they can not be aided (can't get back in the air) nor returned to an involved party to the war. So what ends up happening, is that there are a "few good russians" who help the crew back to allied territory while running the chance themselves of being caught and punished. But in the mean time, russian engineers were not re-verse engineering the bomber, but "replicating" it. ... Finally, I'll agree that the plane itself is not enough to easily make more/similar versions of it. I knew a man for a while who worked on the development for several air craft. And he told me what he ended up doing was working with problem installations. So basically, the plans were there, the parts were there, but putting it all together didn't always go so well. Because as we all learn, the point of view of designers, engineers, manufacturers and assemblers are all different.

The plane in question was a B-29, "Ramp Tramp," that aborted to the Soviet Union on July 31, 1944. Subsequently three other B-29s landed (or crashed) there. The USSR was an ally of the U.S. at that time, and obligated to return the aircraft but refused to do so (and imprisoned the friendly air crews for 7 months to boot).

The plane that was created by exactly copying the B-29 was the Tupolev-4. But the story about the creation of the Tu-4 reveals who crucial the industrial infrastructure is: the U.S. airplane was designed to Customary Imperial units (feet, inches, fractions of an inch), the Soviets only had metric tooling. As a result, they could not produce sheet metal of the correct thickness and created an airplane that was 3,200 lb overweight, cutting its bomb load, and they also could not produce engines of the same specific fuel consumption, cutting its range even with a reduced payload. The net result was that to match the B-29's combat range (carrying 20,000 lb of bombs) the Tu-4 could only carry 3,000 lbs.

It was the best bomber the USSR had at the time and it remained in service until 1955, but the fact that it only had 15% of the payload capacity of the B-29 (at equal range) illustrates that this was far from being a successful replication.

I have a serious question ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mean to be inflammatory by asking what I consider to be a very important question, but when was the last time that a major weapons system designed by the USSR or Russia was proven in actual combat to be superior to a comparable system designed by the US or another Western bloc power?

Re:I have a serious question ...

[Thagg]

The US regularly flies training missions against Russian aircraft. In an unprecedented display, recently, Indian pilots flying the most modern Su-27 variants scored significant victories against US F-15s.

Granted, these confrontations have never happened during wartime, and the F15 has an unblemished combat record (100 planes shot down to 0 lost). Some say that the US took a dive at the Cope India 04 games to encourage funding of the F-22, that seems unlikely to me (the US planes were restricted from using BVR (beyond-visual-range) missles.)

So, comparing 4th generation fighters, an argument can be made that the 1980's Russian ones are comparable to the 1970's US ones.

Re:I have a serious question ...

[ducomputergeek]

I grew up around the F-15 and know a few pilots. In a twisting and turning dog-fights, the russian planes are generally superior to the F-15/F-16. However, the NATO tactic was to have AWACs declare and fire off 6 AMRAAM's at 6 different targets and then run away before the Russian planes knew you were there.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[jbeaupre]

You mean the Russian, French, Dutch, Malaysian, French, and Angolan oil mongrels? Yeah, it's a pity the US couldn't get any action. Had the US been smart, they would have cut deals with Saddam like the Russians and French did. You know, the ones that said once Iraq could sell oil openly, the Russians and French would get first dibs (even though such negotiations were technically illegal). The Russians and French that's a quicker and more solid way of getting the oil than invading. Or maybe the US wasn't after oil and invaded for even dumber reasons.

Actually, if you could read, had any powers of logic, or knew any real history, you'd see that I wasn't blaming Saddam. I said he pursued a clever strategy that backfired when Al Qaeda used it to get the US to attack them. Our intelligence agencies didn't need to lie. Just like you, they were all too willing to come to a conclusion and ignore anything that contradicted it.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry man, but the F-16 is an awesome fighter and probably the best built with regards to reliability and cost. Obviously the much newer F-22 would outmatch it in a dogfight, but the F-16 has better thrust to weight ratio, higher top speed and is able to pull a 9g turn without the pilot blacking out.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[Bobb Sledd]

I happen to believe they really did have WMDs. "Well where were they then?" Syria. They moved to Syria. "Well how come we never found them?" Because you're taking a population of a small town and trying to search an area the size of Texas, when the object in question isn't where you're looking.

But that's just my belief.

F-35 fills a different role than F-22

[Anonymous Coward]

The F-35 has from the beginning been designed as a multi-role, cost saving measure. The central idea was to develop a common platform to be used across all branches of the military that was cheaper to produce and maintain and train for. It's mainly set up to replace the F-16, F-18, F-117, and Harrier as a general duty stealth strike fighter.

The F22 was designed to be the ultimate air superiority weapon and will remain king of the sky (for the US military anyway) until they decide it's necessary to design a replacement.

Why?

[ozbird]

Why bother building an expensive stealth fighter when they have Vladimir Putin, Russia's answer to Chuck Norris?

Re:Who cares?

[toadlife]

Is the F-14 the retired pimp?

Re:Who cares? Not you, stupid...

[cheesybagel]

Actually their aircraft technology is still pretty lagging. Watch the problems the Chinese and the Indians are having with producing jet engines for example. The J-10 was supposed to be using a native chinese WS-10 turbofan, instead they had to use a Russian Saturn AL-31FN turbofan. The Indians had the same issue with Tejas and went with a foreign engine. Building an airframe, electronics, weapon systems is a necessary step, but unless you can get an engine, you do not have an airplane.

Re:Who cares?

[cheesybagel]

Allegedly the issue was that the Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression treaty with the Japanese not long after Khalkhin Gol. You have to remember the veteran troops the Soviet Union brought in order to encircle the German Army Group B and win the Battle of Stalingrad were divisions from the Far East which would not have been available otherwise. The Soviet Union had better things to do than risk a two front war so soon after they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Stalin only declared war on Japan after Germany was defeated.

Re:Love the smell of military secrets in the morni

[tftp]

I have yet to understand why new military technology is so widely publicized.

Other comments already mentioned some aspects of why. I can only add that it's pointless to try to hide the existence of such a program - it's large, and it will produce airplanes that will be manufactured, deployed and eventually flown, so that anyone with a camera can take a picture.

What is secret is exact capabilities - how fast and how far it can fly with what load, how much it can carry, how fast it can climb, how many targets it can simultaneously track and fire upon, etc. Numbers are important when you have two comparable airplanes chasing each other.

Photos Just In

[PPH]

Stealth Fighter

Re:Who cares? Not you, stupid...

[X'16435934]

Perhaps. I remember, back in the 50s, 60s Canada had (sort of) the fastest fighter in the world. All home built.
But- not only that, they had the biggest, most powerful jet engine to power it- As a test-bed, they strapped it to the side of a US B-47 bomber where it perfomed pretty well.

But soon economics (and perhaps US interference) got in the way- the whole project was canceled, the engineers packed their bags and went south to work on the Apollo project.
Now Canada is slowly reverting to our rightful place as Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water... as the US chuckles. (well, the US isn't chuckling much now)
Oh well.. we still have our universal medicare. For the time being.

Re:Who cares?

[vivtho]

... I do not think, in fact, that history bears a single example since WWII at least of any foreign military aircraft being reverse engineered into a successful combat aircraft....

The Chinese reverse-engineered the Super Frelon into the Z-8.

The Chinese (again) reverse-engineered the MiG-21 into the J-7 series. This in turn evolved into the J-7M, and now the FC-17.

Yet another example of reverse-engineering is when the Chinese copied the MiG-19 and built their J-6. The J-6 in turn was developed into the Q-5.

The Soviets copied the Boeing B-29 to make their Tu-4 'Bull'. While the Bull was not that effective a bomber, it helped them move on to more advanced aircraft a few years later like the Tu-95 'Bear'.

While not an aircraft, the Soviets reverse-engineered AIM-9 Sidewinders to develop the R-2 'Atoll' missiles, the R-13 variant of which is still in service today.

After WW2, both the US Navy and the Soviet Navy designed new submarines based on late model German designs. While these were not exact copies, some technologies were directly derived from the German designs.

On the whole, reverse-engineering does not necessarily guarantee a product will be successful, but it will ensure that the country/organization will have less difficulty in building the next one.

The World's First Outsourced Fighter Plane?

[ColonelClaw]

If I understand it correctly, the Russians are effectively outsourcing the electronics to India. That's going to make for some interesting phone calls to support mid-way through a bombing mission when the systems crash.

Re:Who cares?

[digitig]

But you just said that the design wasn't the issue, actually making the things is.

Re:Who cares?

[Assmasher]

...the point being that even with the designs, and 'consultants' from Israel, and even entire aircraft from Israel and the Soviet Union, they can barely build what is arguably a 4th generation aircraft after 20 years of effort; ergo, it seems safe to say that a FAR FAR more complicated manufacturing process for a 5th generation stealthy fighter would be quite a mountain to climb for them. The only worry about China and advanced aircraft are that they simply buy them outright from the Russians (included the PAK-FA.)

People also forget that you can put two pilots in identical aircraft and the one with superior tactics and training will be the victor.

Re:Who cares?

[Stupendoussteve]

India also participated on the design and production of the Su-30, which has been sold to China.

Re:Who cares?

[digitig]

People also forget that you can put two pilots in identical aircraft and the one with superior tactics and training will be the victor.

On average. People also forget that sometimes it will simply be the luckier one.

Re:Who cares?

[Assmasher]

Luck? LOL. I doubt you'll find any fighter pilots who think luck will keep you alive.

Re:Who cares?

[digitig]

No, but you might find a few who think luck kept them alive. I happen to know one personally.

Re:Who cares?

[Assmasher]

I know quite a few actually, although they're all F-14 and F-18 pilots so maybe it's a Naval 'aviator' thing, but they certainly don't ascribe anything to 'luck', although they all seem to have the same lame mustache and drive red corvettes - weird. The kill ratio between US and/or Israeli forces during their deployments/conflicts in the middle east have nothing to do with luck, and in actuality are only somewhat the result of superior technology; for the most part its tactics, training, and integration.

Re:Who cares?

[digitig]

The kill ratio between US and/or Israeli forces during their deployments/conflicts in the middle east have nothing to do with luck, and in actuality are only somewhat the result of superior technology; for the most part its tactics, training, and integration.

The ratios are not a matter of luck. Individual cases can be.

Re:Who cares?

[Assmasher]

Of course, luck is a possibility in all things, but I am arguing that it is not an appreciable factor in air to air combat. It does seem to apply to whether or not my wife is nice to me in the morning though... I am, apparently, unlucky this morning...

Re:Who cares?

[digitig]

Of course, luck is a possibility in all things, but I am arguing that it is not an appreciable factor in air to air combat.

And as I have said, a friend of mine who has seen active service as a fighter pilot says that he was lucky to survive some combat. I agree that training and attitude can shift the odds a long way, but they're still odds.