main difference between russia and usa

[Gorgon]

The Raptor and the Eurofighter are the last hurahh for air superiority fighters, yes ?

[Gfted1]

Well they are almost certainly the last generation of manned fighters.

[Gromnir]

The Raptor and the Eurofighter are the last hurahh for air superiority fighters, yes ?

 

probable... but we has heard that since f-16 and f-15 days too. nevertheless, we tend to agree with gorgon. that being said, what we knows is a product o' reading too much jane's and some familial relations with current and former navy and marine pilots.

 

btw, for calax, the bulk o' soviet interceptors were fast and less than agile, but keeps in mind that the term gets used wrong frequent. is nothing preventing an interceptor from being agile. is limited mission design that makes for definition o' interceptor.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Calax]

don't confuse dogfighting with fighter. is not the same.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Notice the use of "Was a dogfighter" rather than "was/is a fighter". Meaning it wasn't called that classification, but was known for dogfighting. I don't think any aircraft currently used is actually referred to as a "dogfighter" and are instead just called fighters.

Edited August 19, 2011 by Calax

[Gromnir]

don't confuse dogfighting with fighter. is not the same.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Notice the use of "Was a dogfighter" rather than "was/is a fighter". Meaning it wasn't called that classification, but was known for dogfighting. I don't think any aircraft currently used is actually referred to as a "dogfighter" and are instead just called fighters.

 

...

 

then, am not sure of your point. not that it genuine matters. regardless o' nomenclature, the russians ain't built a fighter o' any flavor that could even compete with the west's best since the early 1970's, and the last time the russians/soviet had a clear winner were the mig-15... which were still (technically) a first generation fighter aircraft. heck, the current russian aircraft being discussed is being compared to an american plane that first flew in 1990 and went into production in the late 90's. for those not holding a calender, the current year is 2011.

 

btw, we thinks that the sukhoi pak fa can be an excellent option for india, south korea and others who do not need (or cannot afford) the extravagance o' the raptor. am not sure what kinda profit russia is looking at per unit, but anything they can do to diversify from their current dependence on natural resource export is a good thing.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited August 19, 2011 by Gromnir

[Walsingham]

They should have a particularly spindly aircraft known as a catfighter.

[Gromnir]

They should have a particularly spindly aircraft known as a catfighter.

 

problematic:

 

"going for the throat" is kewl... pilots like kewl. am suspecting that "pulling her hair," and "scratching out her eyes," will never enter pilot vernacular.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gfted1]

problematic:

 

"going for the throat" is kewl... pilots like kewl. am suspecting that "pulling her hair," and "scratching out her eyes," will never enter pilot vernacular.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Ive read thats the exact reason that the F-117 is black. Even though black is not the best color for visually blending into the sky (light blue is) they still went with a black coating because the light blue isnt very manly.

[Gorgon]

I think the radar repellent goop has to be black. Or rather, if you want to turn something light blue you have to ad a lot of white primer, which might upset the balance.

Edited August 19, 2011 by Gorgon

[Zoraptor]

Well they are almost certainly the last generation of manned fighters.

I very much doubt it. Unmanned may be fine for the drone's current role of cheap and cheerful ground attack but the idea of some sort of centralised control for air to air combat fighters? Too prone to ECM, too little situational awareness/ more ephemeral 'feel' and instinct aspects, too much latency. Not to mention that the idea of having aircraft basically stop working if their control centre is destroyed strikes me as a terrible idea- damage a carrier and all its aircraft drop out of the sky/ go into some sort of holding pattern/ nuke a chunk of the Nevada desert and suddenly a third of the airforce is unusable/ take out the satellites and effectively ground the entire airforce. And there's no realistic prospect of wholly independent combat robots in the near future (or pretty much ever, imo) as you simply cannot program for all the vagaries of combat.

[Gfted1]

I agree with all of those points but I feel you've neglected an important word, generation. A "generation" of a fighter lasts decades as evidenced by the F-14, F-15 & F-16. Twenty years from now, one could speculate, a lot of those issues would be solved.

[Calax]

They've already basically ditched the F22's gen of fighters... at least in terms of getting new ones.

 

Honestly, I'm just hoping that Gates proposed cost changes (he's changing how the DoD creates projects so they aren't outrageous amounts of sums) go into effect and stay there.

[Gromnir]

Well they are almost certainly the last generation of manned fighters.

I very much doubt it. Unmanned may be fine for the drone's current role of cheap and cheerful ground attack but the idea of some sort of centralised control for air to air combat fighters? Too prone to ECM, too little situational awareness/ more ephemeral 'feel' and instinct aspects, too much latency. Not to mention that the idea of having aircraft basically stop working if their control centre is destroyed strikes me as a terrible idea- damage a carrier and all its aircraft drop out of the sky/ go into some sort of holding pattern/ nuke a chunk of the Nevada desert and suddenly a third of the airforce is unusable/ take out the satellites and effectively ground the entire airforce. And there's no realistic prospect of wholly independent combat robots in the near future (or pretty much ever, imo) as you simply cannot program for all the vagaries of combat.

 

part o' the problem is that the aircraft has finally reached a performance level whereby the pilots is a limit on their efficacy. am not thinking we is talking 'bout wholly unmanned aircraft anytime in the new future, but is more likely than coming up with a new generation o' fighters... is no more great leap in fighter craft design 'cause the pilots simply cannot handle another serious leap in performance; you cannot improve the planes without also improving the pilots. major refinements o' avionics and weapons is gonna continue, but most indicators suggest that this is the last generation o' manned fighters.

 

...

 

but again, much o' this talk is very familiar to folks who lived during the 70's and 80's.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gorgon]

Isn't another problem in the US that manufacture is spread out over many states owing to political factors, making everything more expensive than it needs to be. Especially for prestige projects.

Edited August 20, 2011 by Gorgon

[213374U]

Well they are almost certainly the last generation of manned fighters.

I very much doubt it. Unmanned may be fine for the drone's current role of cheap and cheerful ground attack but the idea of some sort of centralised control for air to air combat fighters? Too prone to ECM, too little situational awareness/ more ephemeral 'feel' and instinct aspects, too much latency. Not to mention that the idea of having aircraft basically stop working if their control centre is destroyed strikes me as a terrible idea- damage a carrier and all its aircraft drop out of the sky/ go into some sort of holding pattern/ nuke a chunk of the Nevada desert and suddenly a third of the airforce is unusable/ take out the satellites and effectively ground the entire airforce. And there's no realistic prospect of wholly independent combat robots in the near future (or pretty much ever, imo) as you simply cannot program for all the vagaries of combat.

 

part o' the problem is that the aircraft has finally reached a performance level whereby the pilots is a limit on their efficacy. am not thinking we is talking 'bout wholly unmanned aircraft anytime in the new future, but is more likely than coming up with a new generation o' fighters... is no more great leap in fighter craft design 'cause the pilots simply cannot handle another serious leap in performance; you cannot improve the planes without also improving the pilots. major refinements o' avionics and weapons is gonna continue, but most indicators suggest that this is the last generation o' manned fighters.

I'm also thinking that it's possible to come up with systems to circumvent the vulnerabilities arising from remote, centralized C3 setups, but unless genetics and drugs make a quantum leap in the next ten years, there's just no way to have human pilots come closer to the performance of machines. Also, considering the costs of pilot training and the risk of loss in combat, it stands to reason that officials would seek ways to make sure that as much of the investment as possible isn't directly in the line of fire. This seems to be one of those instances where technology does away with hard human limits and substitutes with a management question that can be solved easily by the Harvard crowd.

 

Also, doctrines evolve, though not at the same pace as tech does. Air superiority as a role for specialized aircraft may be on its way to obsolescence, as happened to heavy and night fighters and, to a lesser extent, interceptors. Drones armed with guided munitions seem to have also phased out dedicated ground attack aircraft such as the A-10... but who knows what war against someone with credible AA would look like, today. At any rate, the Raptor and especially the F-35 look to me like the bloated, wasteful proof that US officials and brass are, as usual, "fighting the last war". And of course <rant about the MIC>

[Walsingham]

I really don't see any alternative to using unmanned vehicles in air warfare. Cheaper, faster, less politically sensitive, no s&r... the list goes on.

 

I guess the only small problem is that it becomes very hard to explain culpability when that missile hits the orphanage.

[Gorgon]

Do you know of any system that's completely secure from hacking. You could hand your entire air force over to the enemy were they able to bull it off.

[Walsingham]

Multiple systems? Different architectures?

 

Take your point though. But I still think the cost and effectiveness improvements are the bottom line in an era of mach4 SAMs etc.

[Gorth]

You could hand your entire air force over to the enemy were they able to bull it off.

Yeah, what could possibly go wrong by fully automating your defenses?... as long as you keep the design document safe that is

 

[Zoraptor]

Defence people probably have nightmares about getting Stuxnet'ed as it stands. The presumption has to be made that you aren't always going to be fighting insurgents and 3rd tier tinpots but may at some point have to fight someone with decent resources and a reasonable plan to counter your advantages. It's all well and good taking the limitations of meatbags into consideration but you also have to take the limitations of technology into account too.

 

And for anyone thinking that hacking is impossible or unlikely, check out Hezbollah's counter to the charges it was behind Rafik Hariri's assassination. They'd hacked Israeli drones' video feeds, and they have a minute fraction of the resources of, say, China.

[Enoch]

They've already basically ditched the F22's gen of fighters... at least in terms of getting new ones.

And the justification of that decision was simple: There really isn't any prospect of a U.S. rival getting anything in the air in the next decade or two that can come close to competing with the planes we've already ordered/built (i.e., the 180-some F-22s we didn't cancel, the F-35s they're still working on, and the legacy fighters we currently have).

 

The Air Force is very stubborn about its fighter wings. Over the past 50 years, the easiest path to high command in the USAF has been via being a fighter pilot and commanding a fighter wing. Thus, most of the high uniformed officials in the AF are former fighter pilots, and have a lot of loyalty to that segment of the force. Despite the disappearance of the strategic need for lots of air-to-air capacity, they kept ordering more fighter jets and resisting the rise of unmanned drones.

[obyknven]

 

[Gorgon]

That was one lame montage.

[Calax]

I think it's missing a continent.

[Gfted1]

Who are the "more evil-doers" North of Japan?