Where's the PAK-FA and the J-20?

originally posted by: Barnalby
a reply to: StratosFear

The US has a long and storied history of pooh-poohing Soviet/Russian hardware only to receive a royal humbling once we actually have to go against the stuff.

The Red Hats might disagree with that statement.

One flaw I see here....

The US since the mid 70's has built the best aircraft in the word. No queations on that.

BUT

With the advanced aircraft
You seen to close down the production lines after you finnish there production.

So what you have 20 odd B2's and 180 odd F22 ect

Thats fine for small wars.

But if WW3 broke out I see a problem as you wont be able to replace losses.

If Russia and china can pump out there fighters and you cant then eventialy the USA fleet of advanced stealth bombers and 5th gen fighters will dwindle to nothing. Even though they will inflict massive losses on the enemy they wont last forever.

Its the same same weakness the germans had in WW2.

And ironicaly it was cheap mass produced weapin systoms that gave the USA its advantage in the last war.

a reply to: crazyewok

That is definitely a valid flaw. One thing I believe though that might be over looked, and a driving force to stay a generation ahead of peer adversaries, is the physiological value all these super advanced weapon systems have on a aggressor nation.
The idea and threat of having to face weapons that are a generation ahead of yours might give their policy makers enough pause to not want to risk direct confrontation. As you pointed out they may be able to win the war of numbers but it would be that bloody road to get there that keeps them from trying.
I might have a tommy gun with a hundred round drum pointed in your direction but you might have a 50BMG sniper over a mile way pointed at me....or something like that.

It will be a long time before the Russians or Chinese can match the US's stealth capabilities, with or without he F-35.

The Russians plan to have 55 T50's in service by 2020 - by which time the US will have had 15 years experience operating 200+ F-22's. The Chinese are even further behind.

The aircraft will certainly give them technological superiority over potential local opponents, but I believe US/NATO pilot training will be better for a long time yet, and that will count for at least as much if not more than the technology will.

a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul

200+ F22? I didn't realise there were that many,

a reply to: Forensick

There were 187 built, with four losses I think it is.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Any further info on that unit in Hawaii that had the collapsed landing gear?

a reply to: nwtrucker

They'll patch it for a one time flight back to the Depot.

Yeah sorry 195 built, 8 test 187 operational - I knew it was something around 200.

but my point stands - you can also expect the Russian and Chinese ones to have a raft of problems as all new aircraft have - although likely we won't find out much about them due to the nature of those regimes.

so the US is, literally, a decade in operational capability

originally posted by: nwtrucker
Fast forward and what do we see? F-22 and F-35 unified training with 35's coming off the line-addressing the issues as they occur, just as they should.

No, you are supposed to fix issues in the prototype and test/eval phase. Not declare IOC as the Marines are stupidly doing and then spend the next 5-10 years fixing basic design, software development and logistic system functionality flaws. You just end up with a horrible mess of aircraft with different configurations, some of which you cannot fix without putting it back on the production line at great cost or maybe not at all. Doing it the way they are is exactly how you SHOULDN'T do it.

The Russian and Chinese aircraft probably wont quite match the F-22 but it doesn't have to, it just has to create a big enough problem for US war planners to take it seriously enough. Nor do they appear to be making the same mistake the US has with the F-35. There isnt much news because they are not trying to sell the PAK-FA/J-20 to there elected representatives the way that LM and the JPO have to in comparison.

As for the T-50 engine see this FlightGlobal article, its in testing now.

LEE.

a reply to: thebozeian

Actually.... alot of aircraft throughout history underwent constant improvement during their life cycles. It dont just stop when it goes into production. Thats a recipe for disaster because you risk falling behind.

originally posted by: thebozeian
No, you are supposed to fix issues in the prototype and test/eval phase. Not declare IOC as the Marines are stupidly doing and then spend the next 5-10 years fixing basic design, software development and logistic system functionality flaws.

that only occurs in wishful-thinking land.

a reply to: thebozeian

I can't comment on when and where the fixes should occur. I'm not surprised that if your making three versions, your not gonna get em all at the get go.

The F-119 is over 20 years old. That's a full generation ahead of the Russians with the Advent getting closer to production.

As has been pointed out. The PAK is at about the same place as the F-35 development-wise. Three variants vs one...says something, doesn't it.

Look I'm not saying there aren't some first class dummies running our AF and LM, et al. It seems to me that the others side has even more.....

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul
Yeah sorry 195 built, 8 test 187 operational - I knew it was something around 200.

but my point stands - you can also expect the Russian and Chinese ones to have a raft of problems as all new aircraft have - although likely we won't find out much about them due to the nature of those regimes.

so the US is, literally, a decade in operational capability

Its not just the fighter. One things thats ALWAYS missing in these USA vs..."insert any country on earth" is the support craft. Russia or china doeant have the logistics to get their gear any decent distance from their borders. We have world covwrage they got a few hundred miles from borders. Our support system awacs tankers xband aegis the list goes on and on and on and on. Nobody stands a chance and thats why they havent tried.

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul
Yeah sorry 195 built, 8 test 187 operational - I knew it was something around 200.



but my point stands - you can also expect the Russian and Chinese ones to have a raft of problems as all new aircraft have - although likely we won't find out much about them due to the nature of those regimes.



so the US is, literally, a decade in operational capability

Your quote does stand, I wasnt being pedantic over numbers, I really didnt think they had that many 22's not even over 150 so was suprised :-)

originally posted by: BigTrain

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul

Yeah sorry 195 built, 8 test 187 operational - I knew it was something around 200.



but my point stands - you can also expect the Russian and Chinese ones to have a raft of problems as all new aircraft have - although likely we won't find out much about them due to the nature of those regimes.



so the US is, literally, a decade in operational capability

Its not just the fighter. One things thats ALWAYS missing in these USA vs..."insert any country on earth" is the support craft. Russia or china doeant have the logistics to get their gear any decent distance from their borders. We have world covwrage they got a few hundred miles from borders. Our support system awacs tankers xband aegis the list goes on and on and on and on. Nobody stands a chance and thats why they havent tried.

I agree with that, but I also dont think Russia or China want to invade the US and the US dont want to invade Russia and China.

However, we have a history of warfare so no-one is going to lower their guard and so if you have a guard, it needs to be the best it can be and the only way you can continue to take taxes to make the military the best is to have the constant threat from Russia, China and the latest bogeyman.

Can you imagine what we could acheive if we all worked together?

a reply to: yuppaI'm not talking about continuous improvements and spiral block improvements, I'm talking about the aircraft meeting its most basic and contracted specs. I never mentioned reaching a development point and just stopping, where did that come from? The F-35 has fallen woefully behind even after they changed the height of the bar. The Marines going for IOC this early is just really stupid and bordering on the criminal if or when somebody gets killed.


a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul We aren't talking about a handful of glitches here or limited capability a la the early Block 5-10 F-16's. LM specifically sold this aircraft as having a development philosophy like no other and that they promised that they had learned from the mistakes of the F-22. So far all we have seen is a development program that has been beset by even bigger problems than the Raptor and has frequently suffered from poor management. This isn't about wishful thinking land its about having a basic set of agreed capabilities and the timetable to go along with it.

LEE.

a reply to: thebozeian

AND on top of that, all signs point to us getting the 21st century equivalent of the F-4 phantom out of this (multi-service, multirole, master of none, and likely to have serious flaws exposed once it goes into combat).

At least the F-22 got us a "cost-is-no-option" air superiority bird that's still head and shoulders over the competition 25 years after the prototypes flew.

I'd like to see an alternative history where the USAF got 300+ raptors along with 100 f-22E "strike raptors" with the JSF avionics suite etc, while the USN got the NATF with a strike-optimized rhino variant. Give the Harrier 2 the F/A-18E treatment and let the gator navy have frontal stealth-optimized "super harriers" for CAS/Strike missions.

a reply to: Barnalby

You're falling for the media hype. There's a lot more to it than you've heard about.

India is not too happy with the T-50 so far. If Sukhoi can't impress the Indian Air Force then how good, or bad, will the T-50 really be?

New Delhi says Sukhoi T-50 is pricey, sloppy, under-powered

The radar is inadequate. The airframe is poorly built, with serious implications for the jet’s stealth profile.

medium.com...

Russians and Indians have been doing a lot of tinkering since the first T-50 flew. While the T-50 is the stealthiest aircraft the Russians have, it is not nearly as stealthy as the F-22, or even the F-35 or B-2. The Russians are apparently going to emphasize maneuverability instead of stealth.

The Russians want to sell their "Fifth Generation Fighter" (which they admit is not true 5th Gen) to India and other foreign customers.

www.strategypage.com...

Apart from India I'm not sure there will be many other customers for the T-50. It's a nice looking jet but looks like it will be expensive and short on quality and not as good as the F-22 by a long shot IMO.