Comments on: Gen 4.5

By: claudio

claudio — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:33:57 +0000

Most definitely agree. So a lot more refining in stock, the canopy, etc. It may have been a case of hurry to get this out there, after the delays experienced. Maybe also reason the test was done in Komsomolsk na Amur (KNAAPO) where it was built.

It will be a good number of years until this enters production. It will be their first generation and we’ll be working on at least our third.

By: claudio

claudio — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:28:01 +0000

The Russians give them couple things that we and most of the Europeans won’t

Cheaper price, manufacturing, and access to some proprietary mat’l

As far as main weapon supplier, I believe that until they’re able to get their Defense industry geared up, they will still depend heavily on the russians. more bang for the buck, data, and limited other options. They are still not sure what game we’re playing there visavis the Pakistanis, the Chinese? not for a long time. Europeans, not for more than one or two systems. whats left other than the russians. Also, they’d rather get their domestic production ramped up to be less dependent and keep those billions in house. Just can’t happen as fast they wish it.

By: Rooskie Fourth-and-a-Half

Rooskie Fourth-and-a-Half — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:26:25 +0000

[...] Neptunus Lex writes a bit about the T-50, a supposed fifth-generation fighter from Sukhoi: The Sukhoi T-50 prototype, a “fifth generation” fighter, completed a 47-minute maiden test flight in Russia’s Far East. The project, three years behind schedule, has been shrouded in secrecy during almost two decades of development and aims to rival the F-22 Raptor flown by the US Air Force, which began flight tests in 1997. [...]

By: bc

bc — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:51:27 +0000

Nice work. I keep forgetting to check in with you from time to time. So much web, so little time. (just lost 20m over at kiwidave’s link to sweetman, which linked to secretprojects.uk. Funny domain name, interesting discourse). What fun.

By: Larry

Larry — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:41:46 +0000

I’d give this T-50 a 1 in 3 shot of making it into quantity production, at best. The Russians are still focused on recapitalizing their strategic forces (and having a bad time of it). Unless India really likes this a/c, I don’t this program happening. Russia hasn’t had sufficient money to modernize and extend the service lives of more than about 10% of its Flanker fleet, so a new program sounds very questionable.

I think this is a program looking for a sponsor.

Still – interesting design tradeoffs. It would be fascinating to watch it change as it developed.

By: Sukhoi’s little plane: Chewing up the old teen fighters « Chockblock’s blog

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:58:20 +0000

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