Posted on 01/10/2010 8:12:22 PM PST by Flavius
Russia will begin the serial production of its new state-of-the-art weapons which include a new Main Battle Tank T-95 and a multi-role fighter jet Mig-35, as the country braces to compete for a share in the global arms market, with India being a potential buyer.
(Excerpt) Read more at zeenews.com ...
Hm. This is series. And hugh. Not the "warps of secrecy".
Look carefully at the 18 sec point of the Mig 35. The workmanship SUCKS! Wavy sheet metal and poor fit. It looks like a cheap copy of the F-15.
BTW, I wonder how their T-95 would do against the Javelin.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4676689280836528319
Unless I missed something, the Mig-35 is an MRF — probably good enough to go against the newer F-16s and maybe the F-35 (if it ever gets into big-time production).
In the YT demo looks like an F-15, but with advanced avionics it is all BVR, anyway.
I suspect the thrust vectoring of an F-22 would probably give it a dogfight profile that could pretty much obliterate the Mig-35.
But how would a dogfight ever result in today’s world? This ain’t “Top Gun” politics anymore...
With both Mikoyan and Gurevich both long since gone over the rainbow, the Mig 35 is likely to just be a knockoff of one of the current U.S. fighters, nothing new here.
this is all junk for export
Okaaay...
I have often wondered why the Air Force and Navy don’t upgrade the F15, F16, and FA18 with thrust vectoring. It seems a fairly cheap way to greatly increase the capabilities of those aircraft, especially the F-16.
That’s what I thought.
The stunts on the YT video can be done by a T-35 trainer. They aren’t even as good as the ones any fighter jet does in airshows in the USA.
>>I have often wondered why the Air Force and Navy don’t upgrade the F15, F16, and FA18 with thrust vectoring. It seems a fairly cheap way to greatly increase the capabilities of those aircraft, especially the F-16.<<
I am not an fight designer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night: I suspect adding thrust vectoring to an existing airframe is like adding 4-wheel drive to a 2WD vehicle. By the time you are done with all the retrofits necessary, it probably makes more sense to just design a new vehicle.
Also, we need an “air superiority” vehicle because we need to let the world know we have one. The probability of actually having to use the great features of the thrust vectoring of the F-22 is close to zero (which is why there has never been a recorded hot fight between a Mig-27 and an F-15).
It is all avionics these days: Stealth and BVR.
Actually, it looks almost exactly like the MiG-29, which first flew in 1977, because it's a heavily improved derivative of the MiG-29.
But it's guaranteed that in every one of these threads, somebody will come along and make a comment like "Looks like a copy of (insert American plane here) because for most people who aren't very familiar with military aircraft, they all tend to look alike anyhow.
I believe we have a new Freeper term.
Who’s going to use it first?
Means nothing.
“MiG-35”.....? Mig-29 from 1986 with some cosmetic things. The T-95 is a warmed-over, rehashed, T-72 with more cosmetic thingies.
Modern Russian tech is really very much like it was in the 1980s. Back then both Russia and the West could produce a micro-chip. But the West could produce them in the millions with exacting quality........while the Russians could only do so in small quantities.
Jump ahead 20 years. Same thing. The Russians have no producable capability in terms of stealth technology, advacned UAVs, modern armor, modern computer tech.
It’s nothing to worry about...and the Russians know this better than we do.
Next Gen Aircraft a Waste of Money?
Next Gen Aircraft a Waste of Money?
January 10, 2010
Stars and Stripes|by Kent Harris
The Air Force is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on two fighter jets that probably will never be used to support troops on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Congress has decided to cap production of the F-22, removing funding for the fifth-generation fighter from the 2010 military budget. And the F-35 — also known as the Joint Strike Fighter — won’t be ready for prime time before 2013, according to the latest estimates.
Critics of the new fighters say they are too expensive and not needed in today’s warfare, while proponents argue that the current aircraft are not as advanced as the F-22 and F-35, both of which would help the U.S. maintain air superiority for decades to come.
The programs have come under heavy criticism, mainly for cost overruns.
Each F-22 — there are about 140 of them assigned to six stateside bases — will have cost about $350 million under current estimates. The U.S. is awaiting delivery of roughly 50 more of them.
Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information and a vocal critic of both programs, predicts each F-35 might eventually cost almost $200 million.
Guy Ben-Ari, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the costs are “raising eyebrows left and right. At the end of the day, it comes down to resources, and they’re not endless.”
Despite those concerns, the fighters’ advantages cannot be ignored, some officials say.
Maj. John Peterson, requirements officer for the F-35A at Air Force headquarters, said each fifth-generation fighter has four features that make it superior to fourth-generation models such as the F-16, F-15 and F/A-18. Some fourth-generation models might have some of the capabilities, but none has all four, he said.
Those four are the ability to evade enemy radar; maneuverability; the ability to take on varied tasks; and the ability to translate more data into usable information for the pilot.
A look at each aircraft:
F-22 Raptor
Christopher Preble, writing on the blog he maintains for the Cato Institute, said he believes the F-22 “likely never will” participate in actions over Iraq or Afghanistan. But Preble, director of foreign policy studies for the institute, said that doesn’t necessarily make it a bad aircraft.
“I have no reason to question the F-22’s capability,” he said in a recent telephone interview.
Ben-Ari, a member of CSIS’ Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group, agreed with that assessment.
He said the F-22 might be able to carry out missions to support ground troops, but said that other aircraft such as the F-16 and A-10 are better designed to do so. The F-22 is thought to be better suited for taking on enemy aircraft and anti-aircraft positions as opposed to enemy forces engaged with friendly troops on the ground.
But there is the cost factor.
Preble cited a Washington Post article that stated that the cost of flying an F-22 is about $40,000 per hour.
So using the F-22 for a mission that other aircraft could handle, Ben-Ari said, “would be in the same manner as a Lamborghini used to bring your kids to school. You could do it, but do you really need to?”
Maj. Clay Bartels, F-22 requirements officer for Air Force headquarters at the Pentagon, said he believes the F-22 could take on ground-support missions today if called upon. But he said its primary role — ensuring U.S. superiority in the skies — isn’t needed in today’s wars.
“Air superiority is achieved already,” he said in a phone interview.
Supporters say the F-22 is so technologically superior to other fighters that it will use advanced detecting and targeting systems to take out enemy planes from miles away. In such cases, enemy planes might not have even known they were in a fight until it was too late.
F-35A Joint Strike Fighter
The Air Force expects to receive the first of its 1,763 aircraft in 2013 — if testing goes according to plan.
The Marine Corps recently took possession of the first versions of the F-35 from Lockheed Martin and has begun its own testing. Congress overrode Pentagon misgivings and decided to spend an additional $465 million on an alternative engine for the F-35.
The Air Force, which projects that the F-35 will make up half its fleet in 2025, is involved in a system development and demonstration phase that Peterson said is set to last until 2014.
Wheeler, who once worked for the General Accounting Office, said that means the service will have purchased a significant number of aircraft that haven’t been fully tested. And he said he believes too much of the current testing is in the form of simulated models and table-top theories. He said more tests must involve actually flying the F-35.
———
Peterson and Bartels said the F-35 and F-22 are designed to provide specific, complementary roles for the service. But they’re only part of the picture. The service projects that some of the current generation of fighters will be used for decades to come.
Ben-Ari said the Air Force needs to not only deal with conflicts today, but also plan for future ones. “For the missions we’re conducting today, the current fleet is capable,” he said. “For future ones … I’m not so sure.
“You can’t just draw up a design for a new aircraft and produce it in six months,” he said. “You’re hedging against future risk. No politician or military officer wants to be the one who, looking back through history, canceled a project or ignored a risk.”
©
bump
MATV = multi axis thrust vectoring Tested it out against some F-18's, I think. It kicked their tails across the sky. However ... it would never be produced, because an operational MATV F-16 would take money away from more precious goods. Can't have that happening.
The airplane has no stealth capability.
The external stores carriage (missiles mounted under the wing) guarantees this.
Maybe the Russians have developed some other cloaking technology, but I doubt it.
Actually, the MiG-35 ALSO has thrust vectoring ...and unlike the 2-D TVC of the Raptor, the MiGs is 3-D (in all axis). The MiG-35 is the most maneuverable military fighter on the market currently when it comes to low speed maneuvers.
However, in the REAL world the Raptor would smite the Super-Fulcrum due to its much better kinematic performance, sensor fusion and stealthiness. Moreover, at supersonic speeds the Raptor's maneverability is better.
However, in a WVR dog fight (if a Raptor pilot was dumb enough to get himself or herself in one), the MiG-35 would have a better chance all things being equal. Most probably what would happen, with today's I(I)R missiles, is that both pilots would kill each other ...the Raptor dead from the R-74, and the Super-Fulcrum from the AIM-9X.
Now ...what about dogfighting being of the past?
Not necessarily, and I think some day some Western airforce will get a nasty surprise. This is why - for the past couple of decades BVR warfare has really become the major weapon it was meant to be (particularly after the lessons of Viet Nam). Advanced missiles like the AMRAAM have really changed the game. However, looking at the pK of the AMRAAM (around 50%) against non-maneuvering non-jamming targets flown by pilots that are not that well trained and that are operating in an environment where they have no situational awareness while our side has advanced missiles, advanced fighters, advanced training and are operating in an environment where (via, say, AWACs and inter-aircraft linkages) they have solid situational awareness.
Now, what if we go to war with a near-peer adversary?
For one thing, while their training may not be as cutting edge as the USAF's, it has gotten exponentially better in the last decade. They will definitely be jamming (and not the simple stuff you could simply set on home-to-jam), will not be static targets, will have better situational awareness than the Iraqis, and have a dedicated stratagem of stealing/leaching our situational awareness (e.g. missiles specifically targeted for very-long-range anti-AWACS duties) and persistence (policy of knocking out refueling airplanes and airplane bases). In such an event, the Russian 'junk' so many love to make a mockery of may indeed, the later iterations of fighters such as the SU-35 which China is planning on acquiring, prove to be more than a match for any legacy fighter we put up.
Now, the Raptor was made to fight off against advanced Soviet fighters that are only now starting to creep out of Russia (like the PakFa, which is only about to begin testing now), and thus it can be able to chew up even SU-35s at will. However, we have only 187 Raptors, since most politicians (and even some FReepers) only see in the short term, and believe that there is no need for an expensive cold-war jet when all our enemies need CURRENTLY is an A-10 and a Predator with a HellFire drooping its wings! Well, some day we will fight a near-peer adversary (maybe China), and maybe then people will realize what the military has always known since the Cold War ...that assets like the A-10 Thunderbolt and the Apache helicopter could NEVER survive in an advanced IADS (according to one person in the know, in the 80s they were never expected to survive long should the Soviets have attacked through the Fulda. The joke was that Apache pilots thought the A-10s would go down first, while the Warthog pilots thought the AH-64s would go down first). Just because some stinky @$$ Jihadi is helpless against a Reaper with some thirsty JDAMs looking to convert camel-rammers into 72 virgin applicants doesn't mean that over China it could even know what smote it silly.
Anyways, in such an environment it is quite easy for legacy fighters (e.g. the 15, 16, 18) to find themselves in a situation that, while not a dogfight, is uncomfortably too close for comfort. The Raptor would not be in such a position due to its advanced sensor fusion, and also because it can be able to engage and disengage at will. The 120 million Dollar question is whether the F-35 will be able to do so? Some think it can, others think it will not.
We'll see some day.
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