I guess, *where there’s a will, and lot’s of money, there’s always a way*! 😀

I agree that the Super Hornet is a good aircraft, and the RAAF should be buying those over the F-35. Hell, the RAAF wants to buy more Super Hornet’s! But the US Gov is applying a lot of pressure to everyone to but the crappy F-35’s! If the USA Congress were not such a bunch of myopic self-interested crooks, they really should scrap the JSF and focus on enhancement & upgrade programs for the Super Hornets! But, they are what they are. *shrug*

The way the USA is going, they will end up where the USSR ended up in the 90’s within 10-20 years! And personally, I think that’s the plan. 😉 I (and others) suspect that a group of countries, including Russia, are planning a Ronny Raygun *Star War’s* type smoke and mirrors deal. And since the USA just loves knee-jerk reactions new, are crippling their revenue streams, have crippled their Intel services, and pissed off most of their friends… It just may work. 😉 I think the whole PAK FA and Carrier programs (which are VERY real programs) are part of the first salvo in a multi-national *yank the USA’s chain* exercise. 🙂 All that money is coming from somewhere! Russia should have run out of money by 2009 (at the latest) on the PAK FA program.

For me, the really interesting part of the Carrier building announcement, was the plan to build about 30 new oil wells, and some super tankers! Either, that was just to annoy fools in Washington, and their master’s, or it’s part of the payback deal for the money for China/Israel/India (and quite possibly, both). 🙂

No matter what anyone may laughingly think of Russia right now, they are making friends, and they have been getting a ton of money since 2008, and they are smart and pissed! 😉 Not a good combination for the USA IMHO. 🙂

Regarding the F-35 vs the PAK FA, you have a point that the PAK FA is at least based on the very good Su-27 airframe, rather than being an all-new construction. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the Su-27 airframe, and re-skinning it with radar-absorbing composites and upgrading the avionics and engines is unlikely to ruin the basic goodness of the airframe. So you have a point that if it’s a contest between buying the PAK FA vs. buying the F-35, any sensible arms purchaser would be looking very closely at the PAK FA. On the other hand, the Brits are on the verge of pulling out of the F-35 program and instead buying Super Hornets for their new carriers, which would allow them to buy sufficient fighters to outfit both carriers. The Super Bug is a mediocre fighter from the viewpoint of dogfighting and overall performance, but has a decent range and is durable and cheap and easy to maintain and has good avionics and weapons systems. And let’s face it, for pretty much any opponent that any Western power is going to go against over the next 20 years, the Super Bug is plenty good. It’s not as if the Taliban Air Force actually exists, after all… and as long as the typical pilot in these 3rd world nations has less than 30 hours a year of actual seat time, the likelihood of them being a real threat even if world-class hardware gets plunked into their laps is, err, nil. And of course there are any number of other nations also interested in selling you fighters, the French, for example, would be overjoyed (merci beaucoup!) if you bought fighters from them…

Unlike US Carriers that are essentially a sea-going flight deck with hangers, the Russians are essentially building Cruiser Carriers. Think of a Ticonderoga Cruiser with a flight deck and aircraft storage (hence the reason for smaller compliment of aircraft). Russia received a massive cash injection in 2008 to restart the Carrier project put on hold since the 90’s (probably from China & India). From GlobalSecurity:

The program of building new aircraft carrying cruiser ships that Russia is adopting after President Medvedev’s announcement was not born recently. The first Russian cruiser ships with aircraft carrying capability were built in the 1980s and 1990s. However, a lack of money prevented this programme from its natural course and finally it was abandoned, only to be restored in full and with a vengeance in 2008. It is due to be completed in 2015. A US aircraft carrier is a floating flight deck with hangars for the aircraft and barracks for pilots and marines. A Russian aircraft-carrying cruiser is a slightly smaller ship with fewer aircraft on board but heavily armed with missiles, both operational and tactical, plus a strong anti-aircraft capability. The result is that a US carrier cannot travel without its support group, while a Russian cruiser is capable of conducting combat operations alone.

On 12 June 2007 ShipbuildingRu reported that former Secretary of the Security Council and member of the Duma [Russian parliament] Andrei Kokoshin spoke in favor of new aircraft carriers. Kokoshin stated that the new building program could start with a series of small aircraft carriers. Before, when he was the First Deputy Minister of Defense he personally supervised deliveries of the deck aviation to the Russia’s existing aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov”.

Admiral of the Fleet Vladimir Masorin, head of Russia’s navy, said on 09 July 2007 that the construction of another aircraft carrier for the Russian military fleet would take time. “It is a very expensive operation; therefore, it will be performed in stages: The first stage is the maintenance of the aircraft carrier we have to that we don’t lose the airmen, don’t lose the skills and, in general, don’t lose the aircraft carrier school,” Masorin said. “By the end of this year we are supposed to define with industry, with science and the institutes, what kind of aircraft carrier we want to see, and of course, it is supposed to be not huge, not like the Americans, it is supposed to be sufficiently inexpensive, for those airplanes we have and are developing, and after this its design will begin. … Further, we are hoping, but this is already beyond 2015 somewhere, construction of this ship will begin, but at least, there is a lot to do today.”

Admiral Masorin, announced that within 20 to 30 years, there will be two aircraft carrying strike groups in Russia’s navy, each of them including three aircraft carrying ships. “We plan in this time to create two strike aircraft carrying groups in the North and the Far East … One will be at sea, a second will be getting ready to replace it, and the third will be at anchor ” V. Masorin said. … Today the U.S. Navy plants to have 13 aircraft carriers, the leading “gendarmes” in the world, in it military, We don’t need so many.”

The government approved the “Basic Directions of Development of Civil Naval Equipment 2009-2016” program on 08 November 2007. It allotted 140 billion rubles over that period for the establishment of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, of which 91 billion rubles was to come from the federal budget. The director of United Shipbuilding Yury Yarov and chairman of the board Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Naryshkin were presented to the government. The USC planned to build 30-35 platforms for the exploration and production of oil and gas on the continental shelf by 2015. Subsequently, the corporation was to focus on the construction of tankers of 140,000-160,000 tons displacement, with the first of these ships to be launched in 2015. But existing wharves can handle ships of a maximum capacity of 70,000 tons displacement. Projects to build new wharves in three regions – western, northern and far-eastern – were to be chosen by VEB–Development Bank in the first half of 2008. While the formation of the United Shipbuilding Corporation and plans for new commercial ship-building facilities do not directly impact plans for aircraft carriers, there may be indirect connections between new commercial ship-building facilities and a competition to build new aircraft carriers.

Russia’s Navy commander, Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky, said in July 2008 that the Navy command had decided to form in the future five or six aircraft carrier task forces to be deployed with the Northern and Pacific fleets.

On 07 September 2008 Maj. Gen. Nikolai Kuklev, the deputy commander of Russia’s naval aviation, said “We are considering extending the service life of the carrier. It will stay in service until 2020 and may be even until 2025.” The general also confirmed that a decision to build new aircraft carriers for the Russian Navy had been adopted. On 24 September 2008 Vyacheslav Popov, a former commander of the Northern Fleet who now sits in the upper house of parliament, said Moscow may offer Ukraine contracts to build aircraft carriers for the Russian Navy. He commented on Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov’s statement on Tuesday that Russia could make several lucrative proposals to Ukraine that could convince Kiev to allow Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to remain in Sevastopol after 2017, when the lease on the naval base in the Crimea expires. “We can offer Ukraine extensive and lucrative opportunities in the sphere of shipbuilding. They have the Nikolaev shipyards that used to build aircraft carriers during Soviet times,” Popov said. “These shipyards are bankrupt and abandoned at present and with mutual consent we could help reactivate them,” Popov said. Russia currently lacks the capacity to build aircraft carriers and modernizing its existing shipyards would be an expensive and lengthy proposition.

Apparently, this year the Ukraine decided to work with Russia on the Carrier fleet building program. I’m sure part of the deal will be that they will no longer actively seek to join the EU, or be part of NATO. 🙂

The engine problems were because Saturn were trying to modify existing designs. Russia did the deal with the Indian HAL company, and they worked with Saturn to design a new engine based on both their experience. (HAL manufactures engines for several companies under license, including a multi-billion $ JV with Boeing and Honeywell (Garrett AirResearch). It’s one of the reasons the PAK FA project was delayed almost 3 years, waiting for the new engine that has been successfully trialed this year. Also, Vietnam has expressed an interest in the project (in 2006), which is why the RAAF is getting a bit worried. It wouldn’t surprise me if Iran was on the list also. They gave Russia a couple F-14’s and an F/A-18 (and other US tech) to play with after all (which they have passed on to HAL & China). 🙂

I find it very amusing that major US MIC corporations are outsourcing to companies who are also working directly with Russia. There are very good reasons Sukhoi/HAL are very confident that the aircraft can deal effectively with the new AIM-120D for the F-22.

But that’s just me (well, not really, senior members of the RAAF and other air forces think so also) 😉

If it were just the Russian’s, I’d be skeptical (for several reasons). But several Nations now have a vested interest in the project, and not only the ones I’ve mentioned. The PAK FA project is fully funded. 🙂 And there is another joint Russian/Ukraine/Indian/China project to develop a new Aircraft Carrier for the T-50 aircraft and it’s STOL capability. Russia has just finished building a new full-fledged training complex for training deck aircraft pilots. They are not messing about. 🙂 Russia is planning to have two complete carrier battle groups within 20 years. Each with 3 Carriers each capable of carrying at least 30 T-50’s with the ability to launch/recover 4 at a time, and a compliment of Helicopters. The Carriers will be smaller than Nimitz class, but faster and more automated, requiring a smaller crew compliment. They have also started to refurbish their land based Naval facilities, including ship building. Russia is getting a lot of money from somewhere.

Again, if it was just Russia… I’d just smile and say “Yeah… Heard it all before *yawn*”, but… it isn’t. 🙂 Many very serious analysts are not at all skeptical, including a couple within the USA. Of course, nobody listens to them these days. 😉

A lot of countries REALLY do not like the USA right now, and their overbearing “our way or the highway” juvenile attitude towards others. 🙂 Some people in the USA really have no idea how many Nations would really love to stick it to the USA and teach the USA a hard lesson in Economic/Military reality!

The USA has achieved something no other Nation could… Russia and China are working together on a major project. Sure, they still don’t actually *like* or even really trust each other, but they (and others) have decided that the USA is a common problem. 🙂

In 5 or 6 years, well see what happens. One way or the other. Interesting times… indeed! 🙂

The Soviets always had very smart people, and many are working for Sukhoi now. The biggest issue they have always had is that the ramshackle Soviet, then Russian, economy has never been able to support them in a way such that they could do things right. That is still true — Sukhoi is being supported by export sales. What that means is that you pay a premium for Sukhoi fighters, whereas the U.S. is subsidizing the sale of U.S. fighters. One interesting thing I’ve heard is that the U.S. won’t allow access to the source code for the fly-by-wire avionics to even the closest U.S. allies, not even to their lapdog, the United Kingdom. Makes one wonder about deadman switches in the avionics that kill the fighter upon reception of a certain encrypted signal, there to avoid a repetition of the Iran F-14 fiasco :twisted:. Arming possible future adversaries with U.S. weapons that have built-in deadman switches? Hmm… no, I’m probably ascribing competence to the Pentagon that is unwarranted :).

The Israeli connection has been active for quite some time, BTW. It started shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as part of the collaboration wherein India got upgraded Su-27’s (renamed “Su-30”) with Israeli avionics. I understand that Israel also sold the design for their Lavi fighter (the one that the U.S. bribed them into not building by giving them F-16’s basically for free) to the Chinese, which the Chinese are now heralding as their first world-class domestically designed fighter jet (SNORT! It’s a Lavi with Sukhoi engines!). Yes, quite an ally Israel is, eh? 😈

As far as the thrust vectoring goes, Sukhoi has been experimenting with that for some time now. The main issue has been reliability and service life, they offered it to India but even India turned it down after testing it and experiencing those issues. As I said, if I were an arms purchaser I would be very dubious, Su-27 derivatives simply haven’t been tested in modern air forces the way that Western fighters have, and the Russians demand a premium for them. Of course, the same is true of the F-35 too :).

From the above linked report:

In a position report on the PAK-FA and the US decision to limit production of the Raptor and deny its sale to allies, RAAF Wing commander (retired) Chris Mills says the killing of that program was a ploy to ensure that the F-35 JSF would become a forced monopoly in the production and sale of US air combat aircraft.

But he points out that this could fail massively if Israel, which already makes avionics for the Sukhoi range of military aircraft, and Japan, were to join India in buying the PAK-FA to ensure their future survival and combat superiority in battle zones in which the JSF would not prevail.

Note that this is intended to be solely somewhat of a (vague to be sure) validation of what my friend told me (about Israel’s actual involvement). Israel apparently wants the PAK FA badly. 🙂

People who should know (and many who don’t) seem to have forgotten that the whole idea of *stealth* was developed by the Soviets, primarily by Pyotr Ya. Ufimtsev. Among his fundamental contributions were the the Physical Theory of Diffraction (PTD), and the discovery of new physical phenomena related to surface waves in absorbing layers. PTD is used worldwide in the design of microwave antennas and in calculations of radar cross-section of scattering objects. In particular, this theory was used in the design of American stealth aircraft nearly invisible to radar. The Russians have continued work in secret and have finally the ability (thanks to the JV with India & Israel) to produce a platform to make excellent use of this. It also gives them a rather complete understanding of the stealth capabilities of the F-22 & the JSF. 🙂

I should also note that France is also involved in developing the communications systems, especially for the export version (which will require a multi-National comm’s system). I am sure France ha not forgotten (or forgiven) the USA for the debacle in ’91 when the US *accidentally* shut down french-owned, US built radar/comm’s systems via an undisclosed back-door. 😉 Yes… The USA is making friends everywhere! 😈

BTW, the Indian partner company is the State owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL). They have built (under license) several Russian and European fighters (eg: MiG 21 & 27, Su30), and have also contracted to build two Rolls Royce jet engines (Turbomeca Adour Mk 811 & the new 871), and also components for several US companies, such as Garrett, Boeing etc. They have also begun designing India’s own new Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA). A 5th Gen multi-role aircraft that will be designed to compliment the PAK FA.

Of the things he could tell me were:

The *official* specifications, especially performance related, are underrated (of course!) This includes the weapons load out, which is stated to be 7500 kg max.

The PAK FA is being jointly developed with India and India have placed an advance order for 200 of them.

The new engines are amazing, light, very powerful and have a SuperCruise (high efficiency) mode. They also have full independent (each of 2 engines) 3D thrust vectoring! (The thing can literally corkscrew). Originally, (before the JV with India) it was planned to use a varient of the Saturn 117S engines, which are known fuel hogs. One of the reasons that the PAK FA was delayed 2 years was because a completely new engine was developed.

About 3/4 of the surface of the PAK FA are made from low RCS/low observability composites. They are also used internally to reduce weight and are reported to be very strong. The airframe is mostly composed of titanium alloy. So, he said, that for it’s size, the aircraft will be relatively light but strong, and be able to carry a significant weapons payload.

Efficiency (low drag coefficient) has been achieved and the design includes 4 internal weapons bay’s, two primary, 2 auxiliary. The intention is that the two primary bays can carry either various long range missiles, or bombs. The secondary bay’s will carry short range AA missiles. If needed, the airframe has 6 external hardpoints for additional weapons or various pods or a mix. New missile systems have been developed, including a new long range (450km+) Anti AWACS hunter/killer. The main bay’s can each carry 2 Izdeliye 810 extended range missiles, or several Izdeliye 180 (K77M) extended range missiles, sor several K30 or K74 short range missiles, or 2 KH38M or KH58 USHK AGM’s per bay, or up to 10 500 kg precision guided bombs in the two main bays, or 2 1500 kg thermonuclear bombs (1 per bay). The smaller secondary bay’s can carry several new small AAMS (he said they are being kept very secret, primarily because of the aircraft’s new detection/control/communications capabilities).

He said one amazing new feature is that the FA is designed to operate solo, or in a pack. He gave me an example where 6 (or more, but 6 for this example) FA’s can be linked electronically via a new high-speed, encrypted digital pulse comm’s system connecting each FA’s mission computer system (developed in India). The system has what Sukhoi terms “artificial intellect”. Essentially, each mission computer becomes one component of a larger system (he said it’s like a hive-mind). All information from individual FA’s sensors (and they have many) are collated and attack/defense options (based upon mission profiles) are presented to the pilot. The system is said to be very fast and can be dynamically updated in real-time. The F-22 has a similar capability BTW, but the FA (according to my friend) is in fact superior. One problem (he said) is that whilst the US claims the F-22 system is capable to about 100nm, it’s actually only really effective to about 40nm. Also, the FA has been designed to evade the new AIM-120D’s the F-22 will carry. 😉 The new FA IRST system can operate at greater range and accuracy than the US believes. It can detect the launch of air/land missiles from *some* distance. My friend also said that this is not just theoretical either. 😉

The sensor suite will include new X-Band AESA radars for front/sides/top-bottom, and new L-band radars that have already proven to be very effective against VLO (stealth) aircraft, a new IRST (IR/optical) search and track system, and a full suite of environmental sensors, as well as a new (secret) rear defense system. in the cockpit, they system will have 2 very large MFD’s and a full screen and/or helmet HUD with eye tracking.

anyway, you can read my friend’s (VERY redacted) summary report here:

PAK-FA analysis and high level advice point to JSF crisis

In their report the co-founders of the Air Power Australia defence think tank, Dr Carlo Kopp and Peter Goon say:

“Analysis of PAK-FA prototype airframe aerodynamic features shows a design which is superior to all Western equivalents, providing ‘extreme agility’, superior to that of the Su-35S, through much of the flight envelope. This is accomplished by the combined use of 3D thrust vector control of the engine nozzles, all moving tail surfaces, and refined aerodynamic design with relaxed directional static stability and careful mass distribution to control inertial effects. The PAK-FA is fitted with unusually robust high sink rate undercarriage, intended for STOL operations.

“The available evidence demonstrates at this time that a mature production PAK-FA design has the potential to compete with the F-22A Raptor in VLO performance from key aspects, and will outperform the F-22A Raptor aerodynamically and kinematically.

“Therefore, from a technological strategy perspective, the PAK-FA renders all legacy US fighter aircraft, and the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, strategically irrelevant and non-viable after the PAK-FA achieves IOC in 2015.

“Detailed strategic analysis indicates that the only viable strategic survival strategy now remaining for the United States is to terminate the Joint Strike Fighter program immediately, redirect freed funding to further develop the F-22 Raptor, and employ variants of the F-22 aircraft as the primary fighter aircraft for all United States and Allied TACAIR needs.”

They warn that, “if the US does not fundamentally change its future for the planning of tactical air power, the advantage held for decades will soon be lost and American air power will become an artifact of history.”

The main reason for this is that the F-35 is a) a fairly big jet, and b) only has a single engine (as vs. two smaller engines as for previous Navy fighters). Meaning that this single engine has to be *big*. As in, *ELEVEN TONS* big.Well, nobody checked to see whether fleet colliers had cranes capable of lifting the engine cores from their decks to the cargo deck of an underway aircraft carrier, or whether these cores would fit on any Navy transport aircraft capable of landing on an aircraft carrier that’s underway. Ooooops!

The navalized F-35 is proving to be as daft an idea as the navalized F-111 was, albeit for different reasons. A single-engine fighter simply isn’t suitable for Navy use, if you bail on an Air Force jet you’ll be a POW, if you bail on a Navy jet you’re likely shark bait. So having two engines is something Navy pilots really, really want for some reason that I can’t fathom :twisted:. The reality is that today’s fighter jets are weapons trucks whose sole purpose is to get weapons up into the sky where they can take out the enemy with AMRAAM’s or GPS-guided bombs or missiles at distances where the enemy can’t even see you, and the Super Bug is plenty good for that purpose — and much, much cheaper both to acquire and to operate.