VikingSkull posted:

It was answered already, but yeah, nothing too bad considering. The thing is though, from a Western perspective they lost way too much. The F-15 that went down in Libya during the NATO intervention was the head of the news cycle for two days IIRC, and that just crashed, wasn't a combat loss.

The losses were to be expected in an air war against a modern foe, it's just that people in the NATO nations aren't used to our planes going down like that, usually because they defeat Russian jets or AA.

Cyrano4747 posted:

edit: people really vastly understate the importance of the Crimea in how mid-century Europeans thought about war. It was the most heavily reported war yet to date as far as newspaper coverage went, and the first one in Europe to incorporate a lot of the modern improvements that we also see in the US Civil War. gently caress, half the early Confederate Army was basically armed with Crimean War surplus.

Mr. Funny Pants posted:

I have no idea if it's true, but I read something a long time ago that McClellan was unfairly portrayed as a coward in the Civil War, that the reality was that he was exposed to what happened in the Crimea and his abundance of caution and desire for huge force advantages was due to his desire to avoid the kind of horrendous slaughter he'd seen. Any truth to that? I know Ken Burns was pretty one-sided with his portrayal.

Warbadger posted:

They lost more aircraft than was expected, there was a lot of friendly fire, and they were unable to keep the few Georgian combat aircraft from mounting combat sorties until the end of hostilities.

Mazz posted:

Okay, I should clarify that I'm not arguing about how stealthy the design actually is, just that it does have a lot of specific RCS improvements over legacy fighters while being as worried about flight performance as it is RCS in a lot of its design.

I'm not arguing it's ever going to be as stealthy as the F-35, let alone the F-22, I'm just arguing that what grover is doing is seemingly dismissing the entire aircraft because of what he sees in pictures, without actually reading into Sukhoi design philosophy. And that really boils down to them opting for performance in as many places as stealth, and freely admit the compromises they've had to make. I personally think this is a pretty logical argument when you consider the advances in sensors (especially IRST) and how the engagements of previous air wars have often played out once poo poo actually hit the fan.

Koesj posted:

How was Boeing solving this particular problem with what was supposed to become F-32, then?

quote:

And if Sukhoi already worked with S-ducts on the Su-47, then why not just carry it over to T-50?
I found a couple of pictures I'd never seen before, and I think what Sukhoi did was just cant the engines outward in the back, so the inlet duct isn't quite the straight-shot I thought it was. I'd still love to get a look down the intakes, though.

Do you mean between them, or the shaping over the engines themselves?

quote:

Yes but they're supposed to get updated ones with the first production run, and entirely new ones around 2020. I don't know whether those are vaporware, or if NPO Saturn can deliver, but F-22/F-35 are developmentally in the same boat with the spiral updates, albeit not with something as major as their engines.

quote:

What do you mean?

Godholio posted:

I'm not sure they did, actually. But the JSF wasn't shooting for F-22 levels of stealth.

MrYenko posted:

That was the other thing about the NNAM: it's filled with docents. They're all older guys, some of them in their eighties and nineties. They're all veterans, many of them combat veterans. Chat them up, its absolutely worth your time.

StandardVC10 posted:

That first one looks more like an Avenger.

Koesj posted:

I asked you where you got the last bit from in the discussion we had about this some time ago, when I said that according to the AAR I linked all but one attack on Russian ground forces by aircraft was actually friendly fire - i.e. Georgian aircraft might not have been flying sorties until the end of hostilities. Can you link to anything stating otherwise?

Warbadger posted:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13567880802482243?journalCode=tstc20

That paper, though the original link is now down and I can't find one that isn't behind a paywall anymore. It was by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and indicated that the Georgians were able to fly sorties against Russian troops in and around Tskhinvali until at least the 11th of August.

Koesj posted:

So I guess we're all broadly in agreement? PAK-FA won't ever reach F-22 levels of all-aspect stealth, probably needs some kind of highly innovative solution to get the compressor blades out of the way with regards to radar returns, and there won't be an optimal engine during its initial production version(s) at least?

This 'discussion' started off with someone commenting that the T-50 "seems like yet another in a long line of vaporware russian prototypes they don't have the money to properly develop, letalone build in significant numbers", and I pretty much only tried to dispel that notion.

e: spelling

grover posted:

In every photo I've seen of the X-32 during the fly-off where the compressor blades should have been visible... they weren't. I can't find any for reference right now, but I'm pretty sure Boeing put something in that intake to block it; I think it's a laterally split S curve (you can see a central pillar in one of the static models). T-50's intake isn't suitable for an S-inlet, and doesn't appear to be suitable for a stealth grating, either- if one were installed, it might block return from the compressor blades, but would end up reflecting energy straight back out the inlet. It only worked on the F-117 because of the angle of it.

e:

Koesj posted:

Nice, I'll see if I can access it somehow.

Slamburger posted:

Sorry if this is a dumb question because I know nothing about the design of LO aircraft: Does whats in the cockpit affect radar returns, or does the canopy itself absorb/block it? Referring to that X-32 pic I see a big rounded bubble canopy and then a lot of bits inside that look like they would reflect radar.

Godholio posted:

Again, the Pak Fa's engines aren't straight front to back. There is an s-curve...find a top-down image. Also, I hope you're not relying on pictures of a static display or mockup for the YF-32 conclusion, because you're not gonna see blades down there regardless of the design. That picture you posted is worthless...there's no engine so of course you can't see any engine bits.

Koesj posted:

Those last two pictures are photoshops, according to people on the Keypublishing forums and secretprojects.org, so I wouldn't rely on them too much

I've read claims that they're going to use a radar blocker, treat the compressor face with RAM somehow, align the compressor blades like how you'd planform align control surfaces (no I'm not kidding), use grates, etc. One of those claims is bound to be true to at least some degree I guess, because if we can recognize the issue here on the internet, I'm sure the people at Sukhoi did too.

Aviation Week posted:

The T-50's inlets are a compromise design. They are serpentine but the curvature is insufficient to obscure the entire engine face (as on the F-22, F-35 and Eurofighter Typhoon), so they also feature a radial blocker similar in principal to that used on the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Unlike the F-22 inlets, however, they feature a variable throat section and spill doors on the inboard, outboard and lower surfaces of the ducts. The result is a complex multiple-shock pattern at supersonic speed, which the Russians consider essential for efficient operation at Mach 2. The inlets also feature clamshell-like mesh screens and diverter slots to keep foreign objects out of the engine, as used on the Su-27 family.

quote:

Mazz: extended range for certain combat loads is a plausible claim for a stealth aircraft due to the reduction in drag from carrying the ordinance internally. If they're referring to supercruise, that's a bit more sketchy of a claim as even when an aircraft CAN supercruise, it burns more fuel from the extra drag of high supersonic flight, and range is reduced vs a subsonic profile. The stealth profile forces a number of compromises in aerodynamics and structural strength, though, which leads to additional weight & drag vs a comparable non-stealthy aircraft. These problems are not necessarily impossible to overcome, but it takes a shitload of time, money, and understanding, and PAK-FA appears to be pretty much an Su-35S with an F-22 costume and I do not expect it to have all-around inferior performance to the Su-35S in every way but a slightly reduced RCS. Like Godholio said, maybe you detect it at 150 miles now instead of 250, but that's not really "stealth" in the way we think of it.

madeintaipei posted:

Smiling Jack posted:

Features of prototype plane as yet unknown to internet aviation nerds; news at 11.

FrozenVent posted:

Foreign plane-acquisition personnel less knowledgeable about planes than internet aviation nerds, special feature after the break.

madeintaipei posted:

Come on now, folks. This is grover you're "discussing" with. Y'all spend more time trying to untangle his inane horse-poo poo than anything.

Smiling Jack posted:

Is your costly 5th Generation All-In-One plane a costly failure? Field reporter Brian Fantana investigates!

PhotoKirk posted:

This one weird trick helps reduce RADAR cross section.

Cyrano4747 posted:

Special report at 11 on the deadly "Choking Game" sweeping our nation's airfields. We have the information you need to know to talk to your F22 pilot.

quote:

Under project Cadillac II, an AN/APS-20 radar was fitted onto the B-17G, making the PB-1W the first AWACS.