Sukhoi PAK FA

Ok know, could someone explain to us how can a country who is supposed to be in an economic crisis for quite time know, and a third world country are developing a Fith Generation bird to compete with our Raptor. How can this possible? Arent we the most technological advanced air force?

The PAK-FA, believing many reports on the net is co-funded by india wich will get its own variant. No only that but russia is not is ruins as it used to be. It recovered albeit not yet in the same platter as european countries, it also diverted much of its money away from defense budgets. Russian goverment has laxed air force updates somewhat. They didnt show much interest in upgrading existing aircraft, such efforts are very limited as you can see by their scope of upgrading a handfull of Su-27's and Mig-31's. russian R&D is mainly foccused at export right now.

Pak-Fa is a big mistery: no one knows exactly its configuration. Most beleive it will be on the JSF class, though a little bit less stealthy. We remain to see this, its suposed to be unveiled this year as its maiden flight aproaches.

Oh, that's easy! They're not! They are building a fighter to compete with the F-15. The new Russian fighter should have an RCS smaller than a barn.

....and it's still in the 'artist's rendition phase'.

calel wrote:Ok know, could someone explain to us how can a country who is supposed to be in an economic crisis for quite time know, and a third world country are developing a Fith Generation bird to compete with our Raptor. How can this possible? Arent we the most technological advanced air force?

What money the Russians have doesn't tend to be spent on the population, the people can and do suffer so long as the 'motherland' is intent on defending itself (or attacking others) and add to that the iron rule of its leaders ( its not a democracy even if it's labled as one) and you can see why what little money there is is thrown at 5th gen fighters.
Russia can spend away all it likes, afterall the rusults were pretty good (not for Russia) last time the spending got out of hand...

darkvarkguy wrote:....and it's still in the 'artist's rendition phase'.

And not scheduled for its first crash until later this year...

Calel,
Please, no offense intended, but from your writing English does not appear to be your first language. Just curious what is? I know we have participants from all around the world.

JetTest wrote:Calel,
Please, no offense intended, but from your writing English does not appear to be your first language. Just curious what is? I know we have participants from all around the world.

Place your bets here [ ] I'm going with American, maybe mid-west, 16-17 years old, just writing lazy... Notice how he says "our". Definitely American.

I think the Russians may really be targeting a niche market between the most advanced 4Gen fightersand the 5Gen F-22/F-35. If they can offer something that is clearly superior to the Typhoon, Rafale and -teen fighters at a reasonable price, then they have a rpoduct that will sell. Still remains to be seen though. I think its totally unrealistic to expect that they can leap to the front of the line in their first attempt. In addition, US 5Gen tech is not standing still.. Russians will be even more hard-pressed to hit a moving target.

Tank,

I don't know. I deal with many foriegn customers, and the grammatical errors seem to me more like I see from non-native English speakers that are fairly proficient in conversational English, but not quite so much so in written English. And again, I am not trying to be critical, just curious. As I said, I deal with people from all around the world, and I do appreciate that there is much to be offered by the opportunity to have contact with them.

JetTest & TankTop: You are right of one thing; english is my second language, spanish my first. Im from Puerto Rico (US Commonwealth) and I would like to express my questions in a more technical way but so far I think everybody understand the ideas I want to project!!!! Oh! one other thing, I can assure you that I love more the US than our current president.

Calel,
I made no assumption about you other than English not being your first language, and I hope you took no offense to my question. Your English is certainly much better than my Spanish, and having some idea of where someone is from helps put their questions and comments in a better frame of reference. Regarding your questions, I have always thought there are not really bad questions, only sometimes bad answers.

JetTest:

It's ok. I dont get offended by not been able to express my ideas in the way I would like them to be expressed. As you have come to know I dont know much about combat aviation and I thought these forums would help me learn information that is unavailable in other communication means.

darkvarkguy wrote:....and it's still in the 'artist's rendition phase'.

I've answered your statement.

Look at the possible PAK FA configuration. It comes the closest to matching that of the Raptor. Take very careful note of the planform alignment.

The 3D TVC nozzles will make the difference.

There are plenty of pictures circling around as to what this acft will look like. Since this the first attempt by Russians to complete an all aspect stealth, it will be interesting indeed to see what they come with. I would not be suprised though if it didn't resemble the F-22 somewhat.