Posted on 04/07/2015 4:10:18 PM PDT by Brad from Tennessee
Just a short time ago, Russia planned to have 52 advanced T-50 stealth fighters by the end of the decade. At least, that was the plan.
Now the T-50 program appears to be in serious trouble, and Russia may cut back the fighters to a fraction of the planned strength.
The first sign something was very wrong appeared last month. On March 24. Yuri Borisov, Russia’s deputy defense minister for armaments, told theKommersant newspaper that the military is drastically cutting its number of T-50s. Instead of 52 stealth fighters, Russia will build merely 12 of them.
That’s hardly anything.
The Kremlin has produced five T-50 prototypes so far — and one was heavily damaged in a fire. Meanwhile, India is co-developing the plane with Russia, and New Delhi’s funding helps keep the project alive. But now Indian Air Force officials have also stopped talking to their counterparts in Moscow. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Don’t destroy the molds.
Shades of F-22.
Maybe Obama will sell them the F-35 if he hasn’t given it to them already.
Almost sounds like the F-35 program...
Is the T-50 billions over budget?
Maybe that's the problem.
Small wonder why India wants to license produce the Dassault Rafale....
I noticed that Tyndall is having an air show this weekend. Free and free parking. I live around 50 miles away but am not in good enough health to go.
I would love to see an F-22 flying. They are also having the Golden Knights and the Thunderbird’s among other things. Eglin is near by but I have no idea if they will have F-35s too.
How does that stack up against the US,UK, Swedish & Russian competition?
I saw 3 dayglo orange painted remote control F15 target drones flying in tight formation parallel to the Panama City ship channel from Tyndall high tailing it out into the Gulf of Mexico.
About 60 seconds later a pair of F22 pursuers were accellerating as they followed them southward. The F 15’s were doomed. What a sight to see.
I take it the Swedes don’t have a competitive product?
As H. Rap Brown used to say, “Burn, Baby, Burn”.
Okay, I’ll update it. “Crash, Baby, Crash”.
Happy?
‘Maybe Obama will sell them the F-35 if he hasn’t given it to them already.’
In fact LM took over a Russian project in 1995 to build F-35 around it. Google ‘Yak-141’ aka ‘Freestyle’. No need to spend rubles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_JAS_39_Gripen
To give some perspective on the stealth fighter issue, if T-50 production is really held to 12 aircraft, and the surviving prototypes are rebuilt to production standards, the resulting number is about a squadron's worth of aircraft. Meantime, the United States has already completed manufacture of 195 F-22s and is scheduled to build between 2400 and 3100 F-35s for the United States and its allies. A little over 100 F-35s have already been produced.
To end on a note of sarcasm, the article notes that Russia's defense financing problems are tied to declines in the price of oil. I'd say that it is also tied to what you do with the oil. Russia merely exports the oil as a raw material. By contrast, China turns some of the oil it imports in consumer goods which it sells back to the world. If Russia would just simply start making good quality, competitively priced consumer products, the world would beat a path to their door and production of the T-50 could resume. A dream to be sure...
If China fights the United States in the future, it will do so with weapons largely financed through the purvhase of consumer goods at Wal-Mart.
Oddly enough, the Chinese are more inclined to protect property rights and thus can welcome those factories and investors. Then there are the cultural differences, specifically the work ethic of the Russian people versus that of the Chinese people. They are as different as Finns & Greeks.
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