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New Russian Fighter Not Up To Western Standards
schwit1 writes "Despite initial high expectations, the Indian Air Force appears to be souring on a joint development deal with Russia for a new fifth-generation fighter jet, according to the Business Standard, a major Indian business publication. The Russian prototype is 'unreliable, its radar inadequate, its stealth features badly engineered,' said Indian Air Force Deputy Air Marshall S Sukumar at a Jan. 15 meeting, according to minutes obtained by the Business Standard. 'They're very good at building airplanes,' Cordesman said. 'The problem that Russia, since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, has been putting out the military equivalent of show cars. They look good, but it isn't always clear how practical they are and how many of the specifications they can actually meet.'"
From model villages to model aircraft eh?
Hands down !! It has to be !!
They haven't had quite as much opportunities to field-test their designs as the Americans.
...for the current development level of the F-35?
In all seriousness, as compromised as the F-35 has been in what's been delivered to customers so far, it sounds like it'd be a fairly even match. Compromised plane against compromised plane.
And don't rule out older designs, the military used to train pilots in new planes by pitting them against experienced pilots in F4s and other older jets, and routinely the older jets would get kills against the new ones.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
From Pierre Spray, the lead designer of the F16 and of the A10
It's a Russian fighter. Why are we hearing criticism from the Indian Air Force, and not the Russian Air Force?
This is different how?
The F22 and F35 also seem like impractical boondoggles.
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
it does only cost a quarter of what the F-35 costs.
Not that long ago, the Soviets were on the leading edge of science and technology. Nowadays, a fat military contract gets lean in a hurry once all the palms are greased.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
and you have to think in Russian to use it
In Soviet Russia We Show You!
In one of the articles about this, I read that Russia has done the equivalent of building show cars.
Sure, the prototypes look great.
But they're not sustainable, serviceable or even functional most of the time.
And there's no way in hell they can be delivered for what the Russians are charging.
What they're REALLY doing is playing the long con. They hook you up front. Then gradually bleed more and more money out of you to deliver what you promised.
Ask India about the Admiral Gorshkov.
And since they're holding all the cards, and you've sunk all that money into it already...
They've been pulling this crap for the last 25-30 years.
The only time you get your money's worth is when you want something cheap, simple and produced in massive quantities. Essentially, disposable.
Then, the Russian defense industry can churn stuff out faster than anyone but maybe China or the US.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It is safe to say David Axe is the least reliable military analyst in the internet. Move on, nothing to see here.
Well to be honest, I just think the Russians ran out of money as this aircraft project would have never moved along without the Indian $. Judging from the points in this article, they had to cut corners, older engines, half assed "stealth" profile. Not surprising, as Sukhoi has built some fantastic planes, SU-35, SU-37, SU-47, but they only built a few as demonstrators for air shows (eg. annual Paris Airshow), not having the dollars to put them into active service. They built and marketed the SU-30 to a variety of nations (Sukhoi 30 MKI to India as an example)but the Indians reportedly found them to be inferior based on proposed adversaries, and are planning (as reported) to buy some French Rafales as their front line military interceptor.
As thye say, money talks !
Clive DaSilva Email: clive.dasilva@gmail.com Ubuntu 18.10 Kernel 4.18
Sukhoi makes the prettiest planes by far. This is the best looking plane since the SU27.
That the AK47 and 74 rifles that the Russians would sell to others would have a chamber that was slightly too small so that if they picked up rounds from dead Russian soldiers they would not work in the foreign soldiers rifles.
I dont know if that was true, but it could easily be the same story here. India is potentially a rising power and with their experience with China, the Russians may be uneasy about providing the Indians with a powerful weapon. In this case the Indians are smart enough to realise it and powerful enough to confront the Russians.
Of course there's still the old adage, never blame malice for what can easily be explained by stupidity. The stealth fighter had very difficult requirements and rather than admit they couldn't produce the goods, it was easier to present the Indians with a fighter that clearly didn't meet the specifications.
In either case, I dont blame the Indians for being upset.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
... since most of the corruption in the US seems to be in the arms trade.
Scenario 1: War with some less developed enemy. No matter what it is, technology will beat it. New gear will optimize minimum losses to none. Kind of like wearing protective clothing for seal-clubbing. Not even really a necessary war, it could simply be not fought.
Scenario 2: Fighting a real enemy, developed and armed nations fighting among themselves. Losses on both sides. Production as reinforcement is important, under war conditions. This is much more difficult than long time ago - distance of production facilities from the enemy is practically meaningless, modern toys require highly specialized components produced in special facilities distributed over multiple locations. Production times are insanely long.
Shouldn't there be a development of a fighter that can be produced by mostly untrained workers in barely lit caves from commodity materials in minimum time?
If only Congress allowed the F-22 to be purchased by allies. Even a watered down F-22 for other countries would be better than what we have now: an overbudget F-35 program and other countries buying opposing aircraft.
We need a new bomber, but one that makes sense. A simple idea would be for Boeing to use the BWB as a bomber, and then carry it over to commercial aircraft as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Your argument is very good. But also consider the possibility that the Indians are simply manipulating Russia and the US to their advantage? It's like Company X publicly announcing they will dump their entire Microsoft IT infrastructure for Linux - until Microsoft offers them a sweet deal. Perhaps they are simply playing Russia against the US for better arms deals?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
And in the reference it says that the Indians have also ordered 18bn's worth of fighters from France, and might be looking to cancel the Russian order to help pay for that, so they could just be leaking made-up concerns as a way to justify dropping the order or lowering the price.
In other words - treat the rumour of faults with the T-50 as just that. A rumour. With no evidence that there's any real problem at all...
They are just saying that in order to low-ball the purchase price.
"'...unreliable, its radar inadequate, its stealth features badly engineered,' said Indian Air Force..."
Sounds like they're asking the Russians to Do The Needful.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Nothing that comes out of the mouth of an Indian official can be taken at face value. India doesn't have a reputation for being the world's most corrupt nation without good reason.
India is currently involved in an amazing spat with the USA, after American officials broke every diplomatic accord, and abused an Indian diplomat in the most vile way. The mistreatment was a VERY carefully crafted ploy by Obama's administration, with the so-called US legal official that granted permission for the abuse being an Indian born, US naturalised citizen. The whole incident stinks of being a classic Intelligence Operation play, with a public smokescreen crafted to hide a very different situation behind the curtain.
Russia is a major player in the international arms business, and the arms dealers of the West have the CLOSEST relationships with the governments of the West. Bad mouthing Russian tech is good for business, which means VERY good for the bank balance of senior US and UK politicians. Even the most 'innocent' explanation in this case has the Indian government playing one side off against the other to get the best price on a possible deal, but such public outbursts don't suggest the 'innocent' case is the one in play.
The Russians have a very long history of selling inferior versions of weaponry to their allies. They call these inferior versions the "monkey models". That's all that is going on here.
How can airplanes that require human pilots remain competitive against (future) drone fighter jets that do not have human limitations of G forces?
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Before I clicked on the comments, I was convinced that the comments discussing the Russian fighter would be few, and the comments tearing into America would be many. Yup, I nailed it.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
That they are as smart as US folks who chose Russian tech for arming Afghan and Iraqi armies, because they like their American counterparts understood that switching supplier would mean tearing up most of infrastructure and starting from scratch. Even for Afghanistan, where material infrastructure was all but destroyed, the cost was deemed to be excessive, even in light of the massive budgets involved. For an intact country like India, the cost would be beyond astronomical.
I am surprised that something life five have already been built. It's a development prototype. Now is the time to voice the concerns, introduce modifications, etc. By the way, how much is the India input in the development, besides the money?
model villages to model aircraft - an (obvious, I think) reference to Potemkin Villages. And a damned good comparison, at that.
And you thought it was just Restraunts Broadway and Television!
These 'export' versions are never up to snuff as far as latest releases because of strategic concerns. No one will sell top tech to india. Same with US. Sooo,grain of salt either way. long term, drones with AI + human operator are the way to go..m
unreliable, or well connected to the nsa.
Sounds just like the F-35
India is not up to western standards, either!
I seriously doubt we really know what any of these planes really do and what really is getting built. The vast majority of what is made public is likely posturing, pork, politicizing and misinformation. A relatively cheap high G pilot-less drone fighter would render most non-stealth manned fighters obsolete in a dogfight.
As long as the industry gets its state subsidies (i.e. paid from your taxes).
The thing is that the United States still has the powerful f-15 air supremecy fighter, the low cost f-16 multirole fighter, and the f-18 carrier based fighter. They are still decent combat aircraft. If the F-35 and F-22 don't work out, the old aircraft can be put back into production.
"Bloat" is a feature common to all engineering tasks, not just software. Anyone who follows the aviation industry can tell you that this happens over, and over and over again. Requirements are put out, designs are submitted and then the wonks start coming in and saying "well, we could also add this", "well we could also add that". Every time this is allowed to happen, it's a complete failure. The designs that succeed are the ones that stay true to the original requirements. e.g.
U-2: I fly high and far, nothing else.
SR-71: I fly fast, nothing else (attempts we're made to add intercept capability and rejected).
F-14: I intercept, nothing else (attempts we're made to add bombing capability and rejected).
F-15: I will own the skies and do nothing else (bombing has been added on but it has not strayed from it's mission).
AV-8B: I will provide forward air base support and nothing else.
So take that, Russia. You will have to work hard to catch up to the crappiness of western fighters.
crappy product not delivering what was promised?
more money needed to actually deliver something useful?
pot, meet kettle.
Since I saw one of his fan boys basically claim Boyd invented the flanking maneuver. (For those that wonder I've heard that Boyd came up with the plan for the first Gulf war, instead of "hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle." because generals are too stupid to know the right thing. It was described as revolutionary but it was really a basic flanking maneuver. I didn't believe it since a flanking move like they did was kind of the obvious best move that even I predicted it before the ground war started so why would Schwarzkopf do the straight up the middle? Real answer, because originally he didn't have the troops to do a flank. When asked what the best move would be if you had enough troops it was do the flank. So they gave him enough troops and they did the flank. Of course since I'm not a general I didn't understand how the lack of troops would screw up a flank so before I read all of that I didn't appreciate what the general needed to consider to pull that one off and most likely Boyd didn't either.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Indeed it was a reference to the Potemkin villages (Apparently NK still has them for the tourists) -.o
Wow, never had so much hate directed at me for using a Facebook login before, good lord.
~makes a note to use his real slashdot login in future~
They once had Kurt Tank (look up to know him) designing a fighter for them. Needless to say it was 100% shite and of no use.
That's because Indians simply don't understand how modern stuff is built. How true innovation works. They always want the best, the highest quality and at a discount price. In short, they are idiots.
Innovative stuff needs to display potential, not 100% quality in all aspects. Does the Russian design have the potential to be a great fighter ? If yes, spent some more billions on R&D and quit whining. War is not cheap, Mr. Gandhi. Freedom isn't cheap either.
Here's the news: Indians can only afford Fiats. A Mercedes costs 3 times as much but will save your life in a critical moment. Please refer to Ayaton Senna for more on this.
I have a Panzer-3 to sell you. Then you can kill all these inferior T34s, stupid American.
6 billion dollars R&D is NOTHING. Check the F22 numbers. They developed the landing gear of F22 for those six billions.
These are whining idiots.
Pour in another 60 billion and you have something better than the F22. The indians could, for example, stop whining and outbuild America on the radar front. Or they could let the Russikes do the radar and build some great engines, as realiable as needed.
But you know what ? These are cheapskate idiots and they haven't changed since Kurt Tank tried to tell them how to build fighters.
..they dominated the skies using SAMs. Now, if they ever use their non-showcar SAMs, I guess they can control US airspace from SAM sites in Russia.
It is cheaper to built 20% more F16s and lose them during training than building a two-engine a/c which is heavier and 50% more expensive.
In the end, it is all about economics. Check the Tiger tank and how it compared to less capable, but much more numerous and easier-to-repair competitors.
All the stupid talk about Russia ignores that they virtually flooded their fronts with new tanks, ammo, artillery, shells and rifles in the later years. Something must have been incredibly efficient in 1943 to 1945.
The F35 is a Pork Dominance Bomber. It will drop much more pork bombs on the corporate campus of Lockheed than any other plane in history. And the greatest fact is: Initial operational Capability of Pork Bombing was in 2002 !
A proven design !
Regarding the "war" thing: Please listen to what the f16 chief designer has to say. In short, the F35 is aerodynamically the shittiest aircraft since the starfighter. It will never do arrested landings without a total physical redesign and they would know if they read their own regulations. Wing loading to high for high-G maneuvering. Triple shit.
A display of the moral corruption of the western world; from London to Tokyo. If London weren't corrupt, they would be doing Rafale or F18 cats-and-traps at this very moment. Instead they have castrated themselves. Hell, even a A8 is better than the F35 at this point.
The big, big unknown for a hypothetic F-22-against-Su27 battle is electronic warfare. The Russkies now had more than enough time to develop advanced long-range, low-frequency (100 MHz an less) ground-based radars.
These radars would provide the "eyes" for the Su27s (you cannot mount low-freq radars in small planes) so that they could maneuver into a shooting position, acquire the F22 on a short distance by IR or radar. Then launch their super-maneuverable vympel AAMs with IR warheads.
Of course, American electronic warfare might be able to blind the Russkie radars by simply overpowering or by the "novel" approaches. See Stuxnet.
Who knows what the Russkies have in space ? An IR satellite might work wonders against the F22.
The Russkies might have been warned and might have beefed up their radars to the point where it cannot be disabled. Spread spectrum, massive computation power (NVIDIA to the help), strong cyber countermeasures,....
It might come down to the tactial readiness of electronic warfare; Russia vs America. In short, a Black Game and nobody knows the outcome.
Just look at Su27 aerobatics. Then check range and payload. They are better than anything else in the non-stealth field. This is the modern-day P51 and the equivalent of the F15 would be the FW180. In this picture EFA would be Me109 or Spitfire.
Yep. Nothing like american jets when it comes to 'quality'... Here: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pictures-pilot-trapped-for-5h-in-cockpit-of-usaf39s-new-135m-f-22a-raptor-after-canopy-204883/
I'm still trying to wrap my head around why India needs a stealth anything. If India wants to dominate the country side, start teaching reading, writing, and 'rithmatic to all children in the region, just not to the geniuses that can parrot vocational engineering. Here's an eye opener, listen to one of the over one million H1B's rolling around the U.S. talk about anything other that their professional field. One can hear the telling silence.
To put things in perspective, the hindi themselves have been unable to develop a useable military jet engine (the Kaveri) for fighter planes in two decades, not even with french help. Eventually they had to buy US-made F-404/414 turbines to make the very much delayed Tejas light fighter fly (which is itself a mediocre plane and was only chosen over licencing-importing the swedish Gripen due to hindi national pride).
In contrast, Russians have own jet engines with insanely good performance and their MiG-33 light fighter design performs well under the disguise of FC-1 / JF-17 in pakistani and chinese service. (Although russian turbines are very much maintenance intensive and require frequent complete overhauls, which is also somewhat true of french powerplants.)
Fact is russian workmanship is very uneven, due to lack of quality control and the huge amount of manual labour which goes into production, instead of robots and well-organized assembly lines. There were no two MiG-23s that were the same performers, not even in just their radar sets (think hand-soldered discrete transistor based electronics). Little vodka, brilliant results, lotsa voda, piss-poor output. Mostly lotsa voda...
Anyhow India probably wants the F-35 from USA and so they are making a lot of fuss about russian military industry's problems.
Of course it isn't up to western standards - However it will be at a budget the 3rd world countries can afford. Given the battle arena; this 5th generation fighter will be superior to anything it goes up against. Russian/China are the budget arms dealers of the world. Can't afford the best, you go for the budget models which will still meet your need based on the enemies you fight.
Ah, but how would a samurai fare against a PIRATE???
There is no denying India's contribution to world culture, the "Kama Sutra." And there is the Taj Mahal. Look! I still have more than enough fingers to hold a cup of coffee!
The neatest thing Schwarzkopf pulled was something akin to what the Allies pulled on Germany before D-Day. They set up George S. Patton with a fake army across the straits from Calais. The Germans were known to have a fair amount of respect for Patton and fell for it. Schwarzkopf knew the Iraqis had respect for the Marines and their amphibious capability. So he made the Iraqis think the Marines were going to go charging up the beach at Kuwait. Tied up quite a number of Iraqi troops awaiting for the grand invasion which the Marines obliged by not invading that way.
Don't know if it's already been mentioned but I think you'll find that there are contract negotiations intrain at the moment between the Indians and the Russians in regard to technology transfers involved with the aircraft and that this story is part of that process.
Also, in regard to the efficacy or not of russian designs and how they compare to US designs this is simply a function of the amount of money invested in the development process. The example provided earlier of the MIG-15 is an interesting case in point. When it first appeared it comfortably outperformed the then current main US jet (the F-80 IIRC) and indeed the F-86 didn't really eclipse the MIGs performance completely until the F-86F was introduced several years and several versions later. The US was saved from a serious (and embarrassing) dust-up by the relative inexperience of the northern pilots compared to the largely ww2 veteran US force. But it would have been a short lived embarrassment due to the economic reserves that would have been committed as soon as it was realized they were necessary.
Which amongst other things pretty much says the best way to nail another plane? Shoot him in the fucking back before he even knows you're there.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Non performing, over budget and impossible to manufacture. Yep, all the boxes ticked.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
I totally forgot about that part but you're right. Schwarzkopf was definitely knew his business.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Defense. They border China and Pakistan. So if China has stealth they want stealth too.
that way we could just go back to building giant nukes.
Fuck china, they're too busy messing around on the moon. i mean studio set mockup amiright?
“Ask a Soviet engineer to design a pair of shoes and he’ll come up with something that looks like the boxes that the shoes came in; ask him to make something that will massacre Germans, and he turns into Thomas Fucking Edison.”
Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
And the zero, bro. Doesn't even require you to use up one of your digits.
Except, according to the Russian wikipedia, those are legends, according to the English, it's implied as true.
Russia is crap. Deal with it, Russian scum.
Except, nothing according to ANY wiki can be considered to be anything but suspect. Personal (and professional) opinion is that they did exist. -- signed, somebody who has an honours degree in Soviet & East European Studies, and has used the name Gorshkov (yes, from the self-same Admiral) on the internet since the early '80s.
If India wants to dominate the country side, start teaching reading, writing, and 'rithmatic to all children in the region...
we are already doing that. theres no need to get so butthurt just because someone else can behave more professionally than you.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Wow, never had so much hate directed at me for using a Facebook login before, good lord.
~makes a note to use his real slashdot login in future~
Fuck that, make the AC rage harder. Maybe you have a twitter acount you can use. Or maybe bebo or something. Anything to make him go on about rancid arseholes and black cocks like that's all he thinks about.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
There are some Russian patriots left. Sure as hell New York will badmouth them. NY is offended by anyone who does not roll over and allows himself to be mugged.
Now, wait for the nasty anti-Russia propaganda from NY and London. I hear they have recruited former SS members to aid them.
India has done this with Russia many times, they're trying to lower the unit price of the PAK-FA. They go public and make it look like they're unhappy, russia "sweetens the deal" by lowering the price or adding in more goodies.
They've done this with their MiG-27s, MiG-29s, Su-33s, and the new carrier russia is refitting for them.
How much was your bribe, Mr. Deputy Air Marshall S Sukumar? West must thank you.
Taj Mahal was built by an Islamic ruler for his late queen. The builders were Turkish and the entire structure was styled after Islamic design.
If India wants to dominate the country side, start teaching reading, writing, and 'rithmatic to all children in the region...we are already doing that. theres no need to get so butthurt just because someone else can behave more professionally than you.
You sure ?
Every time I go to India, no matter which city I visited, I see a lot of homeless families living at the side of the streets, including children.
And in many shops and factories, I see thousands and thousands of little kids working, often without any protective equipment (gloves, hardhat, whatnot).
What about those children ?
And then there are hundreds of thousands, if not MILLIONS of poor girls who end up in working as maids for wealthy families, and they routinely suffered cruel treatments and it is not uncommon in India to hear little child workers being beaten to death by their adult employers.
What about THOSE CHILDREN ?
So you say you are "doing that".
Are you ?
They could just buy that that new one from Iran.
Proverbs 21:19
Yes, once this can be made to fly it will be the best.
I remember back in the 80's a very similar "thread" (defined loosely) re: a MIG pilot who defected to Japan with one of their MIGs. The USSR (Russia, et al) was obviously indignant and demanded the plane back. Japan being America's BFF, allowed the US to "have their way" with said plane. We did, indeed, return the plane - in boxes, completely and totally disassembled.
The smugness of the commentary in the west was rampant when they discovered vacuum tubes were being used in the plane. That smugness disappeared when someone pointed out that vacuum tubes would survive EMP from a nuclear explosion. Our pretty little chips would not....
Just a thought....
gosgog:
2 things....The difference is MONEY & Training.....it seems to me they can design, but the money in production doesn't compare....case in point F-35, but we keep throwing money at it. Two Training.....seems to since WW2, we've been in more wars that them.....case in point ISRAEL....we sell 'em equipment & they improve on it! We are not yet surrounded by Moslems, but wait...if we keep allowing 'em in, watch out!
The Russian version of the T-50 is reportedly simpler than the Indian version, which includes Indian avionics and a wider range of compatible weapons. Five Russian T-50 prototypes are flying. The Indian model still exists only on paper.
But that hasn’t stopped the Indian air force from voicing its unhappiness with the T-50. According to transcripts of December and January meetings obtained by Business Standard, air force and defense ministry officials listed at least four “shortfalls in terms of performance and other technical features”:
The AL-41F engines currently fitted to the T-50 are unreliable. The radar is inadequate. The airframe is poorly built, with serious implications for the jet’s stealth profile. And in light of these defects, $6 billion is too much to pay up front.
According to Business Standard, Russian officials countered, saying the AL-41F engines are a temporary fit until brand-new and more powerful motors can be developed. The radar, too, is temporary—pending new sensors being developed specifically for the Indian version of the warplane.
But the allegations of sloppy construction appear to be particularly serious. Besides posing an accident risk, low-quality construction can result in gaps and mismatched angles that elevate a plane’s radar signature.
Press reports in 2013 indicated that Sukhoi was having problems with quality control in the T-50 effort. At least one of the prototypes needed patches on its wings to keep from falling apart during high-stress maneuvers.
All the same, Business Standard speculates that the Indian complaints could be somewhat politically motivated, as New Delhi is also planning to buy 126 new Rafale fighters from France for an eye-watering total price of $18 billion. Scrapping the T-50 could help India pay for the French jets.