Posted on 01/29/2010 11:53:28 AM PST by GauchoUSA
MOSCOW – Russia's first stealth fighter intended to match the latest U.S. design made its maiden flight Friday, boosting the country's efforts to modernize its rusting Soviet-built arsenals and retain its lucrative export market.
The Sukhoi T-50's flight comes nearly two decades after the first prototype of the U.S. F-22 Raptor took to the air, and Russian officials said it will take another five years for the new jet to enter service. Still, the flight marked a major step in Russia's efforts to burnish the faded glory of its aviation industries and strengthen a beleaguered military.
The sleek twin-engined jet closely resembling the Raptor flew for 47-minutes from an airfield at Sukhoi's production plant in the Far Eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Friday. Development of the so-called fifth-generation fighter has been veiled in secrecy and no images of it had been released before the flight.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It was canceled by a turkey.............
Wonder where they got the technology... Can you say Serbia when ours got shot down, on Clintons little adventure..
The good news is this will probably force Congress to get rid of the export restriction on the F-22 since the Russians are certainly going to export their version and we can't have our allies being out gunned by places like Malaysia.
Paging Mitchell Gant.
They let us work most of the bugs out before they steal the plans.
_at_the_rollout.jpg)
The diagram looks nothing like the actual picture.
The vertical stablizers are splayed like the F-22 and the fuselage is rounded on the top. In the diagram they are not.
You must think in Russian...
Even first line Russian aircraft have a bad reputation for poor quality, unreliability, and expensive maintenance. Russia’s defense industrial base is aging in both equipment and personnel, which makes quality and steady production rates implausible.
OOOPS...wrong thread, I thought this was the W. Smith post...Sorry!
That was first generation stealth - the F-117A. Technology has come a long way since then - and if it's going to compete with the F-22 Raptor, it had better be way better than the F-117.
Not that it is impossible or even unlikely that the Russians saw the F-117 downed in Serbia, but there were strong rumors that the Chinese had possession of some of the key technology and were evaluating it at their embassy. That's why we accidently bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.
Who knows....stranger things have happened.
Um, if it's so stealthy, how do they know that?
With the moon mission getting canceled and the F-22 getting canceled, you’d think we could save a bundle and cancel the failed V-22 already. Or do we only cancel the good stuff?
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