Slashdot Mirror
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?
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.
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 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!!!
Essentially it seems to be a problem with the entire concept of "fifth generation" fighters. The idea that you can have useful all-aspect stealth without sacrificing performance in other areas is ridiculous with current technology. The PAK FA (Russian version) sacrifices stealth for performance, the HAL/PMF (Indian version) changes the avionics and tries to add more stealth features. No 5th gen fighter has lived up to its manufacturer's promises of "invisible, supermanuverable ultra plane!!! At a reasonable price!!!" They're all over budget with worse performance than promised. The F-35 is an un-stealthy brick, in the variants that actually work. It also costs as much as an F-22, if not more. The F-22 was cancelled because it cost too much. The PAK FA is a 4th gen fighter with some front-aspect stealth tacked on, and better avionics, including anti-stealth radar. It's probably also going to be the cheapest of the lot.
Not a sentence!
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.
Perhaps because members of the Russian Air Force don't like working in labor camps in Siberia.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
model villages to model aircraft - an (obvious, I think) reference to Potemkin Villages. And a damned good comparison, at that.
Pierre Spray, the lead designer of the F16 and of the A10
Sprey was not the chief designer, despite his claims. As a member of the fighter mafia in the 1960's, he did have some influence on their design. Even the influence of the fighter mafia as a whole has been exaggerated. John Boyd's work on OODA hand E-M in the 1950's and early '60's was excellent and highly influential. However, when he created the informal fighter mafia group in the 1960's, along with Christie, Riccioni, Hillaker and Sprey, they emphasized dogfighting above all else, as though these newfangled radars and missiles would never be of any value. Their cause got a boost from the problems with the original F-4, without a gun and with poor maneuverability. However, they were far from the only people that noticed that there was a problem. These days Sprey spends his time "analyzing" military equipment as though nothing had changed in the last 40+ years, and exaggerating his own role in the past.