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In an open-source assessment of Russia's Sukhoi PAK-FA, aka the Raptor Killer, Air Power Australia concludes, "once the PAK-FA is deployed within a theatre of operations, especially if it is supported robustly by counter-VLO capable ISR systems, the United States will no longer have the capability to rapidly impose air superiority, or possibly even achieve air superiority." Moreover, the Obama administration's decision to kill the F-22 air superiority fighter in favor of the multi-role F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may prove disastrous, as "the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter struggles to survive against the conventional Su-35BM Flanker… Against [a basic-model] PAK-FA, the...

When a nation accustomed to decades of projecting power loses control of large tracts of airspace, that is a strategic disaster. If that nation loses control of the airspace over its homeland, that is a strategic catastrophe. America has enjoyed air superiority over airspace in locations of its choice for about 40 years. The F-22A ‘Air Dominance’ Raptor and the clear intent to establish the next level, air dominance, was an aircraft thirty years ahead of its time. Its concept design is now twenty years old, and the aircraft should be in full stride and in its prime. The Sukhoi...

Russia has begun flying a stealthy fifth-generation fighter to rival the U.S. F-22, but Western analysts question whether Sukhoi can develop and deliver the aircraft by 2015 as promised. Sukhoi’s T-50, which made its 47-min. first flight on Jan. 29 from the KnAAPO facility in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, is the prototype of the PAK FA “future front-line aircraft,” the first new-generation fighter for the Russian air force since the Su-27 Flanker entered service in 1984. India plans to co-fund development and co-produce the new aircraft. The aircraft is clearly shaped for stealth, with the chined forward fuselage, planform edge alignment, internal weapons...

On March 29 of last year (2009), DefenseReview published a story stating that we disagreed with the cancellation of the F-22 Raptor program, and calling for at least 1,000 Raptors, total, to be built and fielded. This is because we knew that advanced Russian and Chinese Gen 5 (5th-Generation) fighters have been under development for quite some time, and will likely pose either a grave military threat to the United States or undermine our power around the world when dealing with Rogue Islamic states/countries. Well, three days ago, the AFP and other international news sources reported that the Russians have...

Moscow: Russia has started initial tests of its futuristic fifth generation stealth fighter jet, dubbed the PAK-FA programme, which it is partnering with India. The PAK-FA, or the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) programme, as it is referred to in India, hopes to match, or outperform, the American F-22 Raptor. The F-22 Raptor, which is an air superiority fighter, is the worlds only existing fifth generation fighter aircraft programme. A related, fifth generation ground attack version, the F-35 Lightning II, is currently under development. An Interfax report, without specifying details of time, said that the first prototype of the FGFA...