Russia has demonstrated its first stealth fighter, designed as a cheaper alternative to the US F-22 Raptor.
Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin watched the first public flight of the fifth-generation T-50 fighter at the MAKS air show outside Moscow.
The Sukhoi T-50, jointly developed with India, flew publicly for the first time at an air show near Moscow.
The T-50 aims to match the latest US design, and Russia plans to make up to 1,000 of the jets over coming decades.
India expected to buy up to 200 of the aircraft. However, full production is not due before 2015.
Mr Putin took the opportunity to promise more support for Russia's aviation industry after overseeing more than $1 billion worth of deals at the show.
"The state has supported and will support Russia's aerospace industry. It is a strategic priority for us," he told officials and industry executives in a speech, stressing that the government invested $9 billion in the industry in 2009-11.
The Russian government aims to diversify Russia's economy away from energy, which represents about half of budget revenues, and is keen to develop technology-heavy sectors such as aerospace and auto industry.
Mr Putin is also keen to show the success of his government in replicating Soviet-era achievements in technology and defence ahead of a presidential election in March 2012 in which he says he may take part.
Russia has consolidated almost all aviation production and research assets, split and partly privatised in the 1990s, into a state-controlled United Aircraft Corporation despite resistance and criticism from some industry members.
"The consolidation of the aviation industry has been completed. This work has been long and difficult. Now all the enterprises that were integrated have clear vision of their future development," Mr Putin said.
All I can say is it looks purty. I'll leave it to freaks like Skimmer and Vympel to argue about the details.
India says it will cost almost as much as the F-22 does; so I am not exactly worried about vast swarms of these things girdling the globe. Very few people are going to be able to afford more then a handful; not that all that many people are even able to buy more then one squadron of Su-27/xx whatever model these days anyway.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
And they're not expected to go into full production until 2015 at the earliest, so no panic stations just yet. What's become of that cool Russian tank design that has a giant cannon set in a small turret, with no space for the crew, the T-95?
'Alright guard, begin the unnecessarily slow moving dipping mechanism...' - Dr. Evil
'Secondly, I don't see why "income inequality" is a bad thing. Poverty is not an injustice. There is no such thing as causes for poverty, only causes for wealth. Poverty is not a wrong, but taking money from those who have it to equalize incomes is basically theft, which is wrong.' - Typical Randroid
'I think it's gone a little bit wrong.' - The Doctor
Unveiled? Errr ... it first flew last year dude. There've been shitloads of pictures. This is simply the first time its been at an airshow. Its not really news, except there's tons of awesome photos of both prototypes flying about.
What's become of that cool Russian tank design that has a giant cannon set in a small turret, with no space for the crew, the T-95?
Cancelled. A few blurry pics of the prototype are out there though. They're leveraging the prototype for technology to use in another tank.
The resemblance between the T-50 and the F-22 is quite striking from several angles. Is it merely a coincidence arising from the necessities of designing an aircraft with a low radar profile, or should Lockheed Martin be asking themselves why one of the janitorial staff has started coming to work in a brand-new Mercedes?
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
The resemblance between the T-50 and the F-22 is quite nonexistant from most angles. If anything, it resembles what the F-23 would have looked like, imho. But if you take a look at the 4th generation fighters that preceded them, both the F-22 and the T-50 show a clear design heritage from their respective ancestors.
This is pre-WWII. You can sort of tell from the sketch style, from thee way it refers to Japan (Japan in the 1950s was still rebuilding from WWII), the spelling of Tokyo, lots of details. Nothing obvious... except that the upper right hand corner of the page reads "November 1931." --- Simon_Jester
Vympel wrote:Unveiled? Errr ... it first flew last year dude. There've been shitloads of pictures. This is simply the first time its been at an airshow. Its not really news, except there's tons of awesome photos of both prototypes flying about.
Well EXCUSE ME for not being up to date with the latest in Russian military hardware!
Is this going to be "cheaper than the F-22" the same way one Soviet car was, that was all of £1 less than a mark 1 Cortina? (Yes I learnt that from Top Gear, sue me)
On another note, Russia now has a company caled UAC? Doom fanboys will be happy.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Skgoa wrote:The resemblance between the T-50 and the F-22 is quite nonexistant from most angles. If anything, it resembles what the F-23 would have looked like, imho. But if you take a look at the 4th generation fighters that preceded them, both the F-22 and the T-50 show a clear design heritage from their respective ancestors.
It's more noticeable at a distance, such as in this airshow video. Or maybe it's just me, I don't know.
Incidentally, if the prototypes are fitted with thrust-vectoring engines like it's apparently rumoured they wiil be, they didn't appear to demonstrate them in the above video.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
Those planes have only been flying around for a little over the year. Do you think the Russians would be willing to have two of their handful of super-new super-advanced prototypes go hotdogging and pushing the edge with all sorts of risky maneuvers in front of everyone when they're still testing and evaluating the thing?
A lot of 5th-gen concepts and prototypes do look similar. But that doesn't mean everyone and their grandma has stolen F-22 designs. I mean, look at the 4th generation Russian and American fighters. F-15s, F-18s, MiG-29s, Su-27s, they all share commonalities.
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Shroom Man 777 wrote:A lot of 5th-gen concepts and prototypes do look similar. But that doesn't mean everyone and their grandma has stolen F-22 designs. I mean, look at the 4th generation Russian and American fighters. F-15s, F-18s, MiG-29s, Su-27s, they all share commonalities.
I honestly don't get why people are surprised at the external similarities of the 5th Gen Fighters, it makes sense that there's an optimal profile for reducing the RCS.
Shroom Man 777 wrote:A lot of 5th-gen concepts and prototypes do look similar. But that doesn't mean everyone and their grandma has stolen F-22 designs. I mean, look at the 4th generation Russian and American fighters. F-15s, F-18s, MiG-29s, Su-27s, they all share commonalities.
I honestly don't get why people are surprised at the external similarities of the 5th Gen Fighters, it makes sense that there's an optimal profile for reducing the RCS.
Because people are still steeped in the cold war mentality where "the commies are always stealing our stuff and ideas!".
STGOD: Byzantine Empire Your spirit, diseased as it is, refuses to allow you to give up, no matter what threats you face... and whatever wreckage you leave behind you.
Kreia
Shroom Man 777 wrote:Those planes have only been flying around for a little over the year. Do you think the Russians would be willing to have two of their handful of super-new super-advanced prototypes go hotdogging and pushing the edge with all sorts of risky maneuvers in front of everyone when they're still testing and evaluating the thing?
Actually, an airshow is exactly the environment I would expect them to be pushing the prototype right to the edge of its performance envelope, even at the risk of looking foolish if something goes wrong. After all, there were probably a lot of defence procurement officials in that crowd, and a few intelligence analysts as well.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)
Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin
Well you can’t really push the performance of jet fighter like this at an airshow, except for slow speed agility. The real performance that counts for generation 5 is supercruise and supersonic turning, which is a high altitude cannot be seen decently from the ground kind of thing. I doubt the Russians will show off PAK-FA even a hard subsonic turn any time soon. It doesn't make sense to give away anything about its true peak its performance so early on, not one bit.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Shroom Man 777 wrote:Those planes have only been flying around for a little over the year. Do you think the Russians would be willing to have two of their handful of super-new super-advanced prototypes go hotdogging and pushing the edge with all sorts of risky maneuvers in front of everyone when they're still testing and evaluating the thing?
Actually, an airshow is exactly the environment I would expect them to be pushing the prototype right to the edge of its performance envelope, even at the risk of looking foolish if something goes wrong. After all, there were probably a lot of defence procurement officials in that crowd, and a few intelligence analysts as well.
Um, okay. So, without even fully knowing the limits of your airplane (because you have only flown it for a year), when the pilots themselves are still acclimatizing to their new aircraft, and when you only have a precious few prototypes in existence after a research and development program costing billions of megarubloids, you want to push the limits in an airshow?
This is why acrobatic flying teams use expensive rare new prototypes rather than tried and tested designs they are intimately familiar with after years of flying, rite?
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
Man, I love how the ruskies come up with all these awesome toys. From the Sputnik to the Caspian Sea Monster. There was a few articles on T-50 at ausairpower.net. That site has tons of great Russian & Chinese weapons pics.
Yeah, I'd like to see them replace the T-64, 72, 80, 90 lineage tanks w/ something new. Something that could actually pwn an Abrams in a head2head fight.
Yes, this is important- the Americans deliberately chose to build 70-ton tanks with the Abrams, while the Russian doctrine has revolved around larger numbers of 40 and 50-ton tanks.
Although from what I've heard, some of the poor showing Soviet tanks make against Abrams is because they're fighting the export versions of the T-72 and whatnot, not the version the Russians built for themselves with more capabilities.
And also because the guys using them, like Iraqis and so forth, were total shits.
Modern American tanks, with full air support, fighting obsolete Russian tanks crewed by incompetents without support, turns out the latter gets killfucked.
I bet if you have Russkies with modern tankskis take on unsupported incompetents with M60 tanks, the results would be broadly similar.
Russian tank rounds would probably blow up an Abrams just fine anyway.
"DO YOU WORSHIP HOMOSEXUALS?" - Curtis Saxton (source) shroom is a lovely boy and i wont hear a bad word against him - LUSY-CHAN! Shit! Man, I didn't think of that! It took Shroom to properly interpret the screams of dying people - PeZook Shroom, I read out the stuff you write about us. You are an endless supply of morale down here. :p - an OWS street medic Pink Sugar Heart Attack!
Shroom Man 777 wrote:And also because the guys using them, like Iraqis and so forth, were total shits.
Not always; some Republican Guard crews were fairly good, but even if they'd been better then the US crews, the USSR simply never exported modern 125mm ammunition outside the Warsaw Pact. The best ammo Iraq had in 1991 was considered only fit for training by the USSR and was not only hopeless against M1A1HA frontal armor, it also had significant range limitations. That's why you see stories from the Gulf War of Iraqi shells falling short; its not because the T-72 gun is actually that weak, its because the ammo sucked that hard. Meanwhile the best armored T-72 model actually has significantly higher peak estimated turret armor resistance (thickness varies because they added a flat chunk of armor on top of a curved turret) then the earlier models of M1 Abrams but these models, which evolved into the T-90, were never widely exported either. Most Iraq T-72s were either produced in Poland, assembled in Iraq from Polish kits, or were locally produced with varying levels of Polish and other Eastern European content. Few if any were even built in the USSR.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Probably not as close as they look. Zoom lenses distort distances a lot.
"Stop! No one can survive these deadly rays!"
"These deadly rays will be your death!"
- Thor and Akton, Starcrash
"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to England, to India or to Australia by guided missiles.... We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, US Postmaster General 1953 - 1961
"
- PeZook
