D-AIHC

I wonder if we will see an F-22 intercepting a Blackjack one of these days. I'm sure the air-to-air pics would be interesting.

PICTURES: RAF Typhoon intercepts Russian Tupolev Tu-95 bomber

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Lufthansa - Star Alliance member since 1997

champpitbull2

I'm still trying to figure out what the hell Putin is trying to prove? Without modern support planes that can jam radars accompanying them, the Bear doesn't stand a chance against a modern air defense system.

gospodin

Just sabre-rattling at its most basic... The Bear is up there to take pics of the aircraft that come to meet it, and listen in on what's happ'nin in the UK, kind of like what we and the British do to the Russians. They send Bears around near Alaska and Canada all the time.

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Steve

I either want less corruption in government, or more opportunity to participate in it.

D-AIHC

You're not the only one. Perhaps this will provide us with a clearer idea:

Photos of bare-chested Putin create stir - Yahoo! News

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Lufthansa - Star Alliance member since 1997

LOT 737-300

I wouldn't say that, I'm convinced that the Russians have things that they are not willing to show us (like our gov't has). I just think that he dosn't like the fact that there might be a missile system being set up near Russia (in Poland and Czech Republic.) I do recall that they might still have some Tupolev Tu-126 aircraft in service, as well many newer generation aircraft in the works.

I have read somewhere that a Blackjack Pilot claimed that he managed to penetrate North American Airspace. Don't remember where though.

I think gospodin said it best, and it's not just the Russians who do it, pretty much every country does it. It rarely gets recorded though. Somehow though, I don't think these are pure Tu-95s, but a variant more like the Tu-126 called the Tu-120, which I recall are like 126s, but they don't have the giant radom on top and are used more for naval purposes. I might need to quickly research this later.

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champpitbull2

I know that we do it. I used to fix the planes that did it. But the Russians are trying to make a statement whereas our planes are doing those missions everyday around the world covertly. The deliberate release to the press of these missions and the statements that he has made in the recent past aren't encouraging. I don't think Putin is as good a friend as we would like.

centaur747

That always cuts both ways.

centaur747

You think the russians are building paper jets and spending all their oil money on the Arts and Humanities?
While we weren't looking the Japanese came up with this http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...oll-Out_lg.gif

Who knows what others are up to.

champpitbull2

First off I don't have any idea what point you are trying to establish by showing a picture of a plane that is being developed by the Japanese but is being heavily assisted by American companies with permission from the US government. In case you didn't know Japan is our closest ally in the Pacific and there is EXTENSIVE technology sharing that occurs between the two countries. The only thing the US won't sell them is the F-22 and a lot of that has to do with not creating an arms race between S. Korea and Japan. I know it's not the only reason and that the US doesn't want to give up it's best secrets but if the US ever does Japan would be high on the list because they are one of a handfull that could even afford it.

With regards to Russia. The Russian military is a shadow of its former self. Yes they have been developing planes but often times the Russian military doesn't have the money to procur them which is why the Russian Air Force is still flying SU-27's instead of SU-30's. They only recently began taking delivery of SU-34's which is the first new fighter they have recieved in 15 years. The SU-30's you do see in Russian markings are demonstrators that are used to procur export orders from China, India, and whomever else has the money to afford them. According to Air Forces Monthly Russian fighter pilots get about 35-40 hours of flight time per year which isn't much.

Last I checked the Cold War was over. The Russians lost. Russia was supposed to be moving towards democracy. So forgive me if I wonder what Putin thinks he's proving by sending ill trained pilots on long distance missions in antiques which are about 15 years too late for the party.

champpitbull2

Bottom line, Russia could and probably is building something we don't know about, but they probably don't have the money to afford it.

LOT 737-300

Unfortunally, I always concidered the US losing the Cold war too. My view of the cold war is not the good old fashion "good vs. evil" two way we see in story books all the time, but rather a 3 way, where two of the sides are blaming each other for the world's problems and the third side quietly messes with the two while at the same time helps them. In other words, I think the PRC actually won it. They have amongst the most powerful (and massive) militaries in the world (thanks to USSR/Russia) and they also have a very good surplus of cash (thanks to the US/Nato and their need for cheap need for cheap labor.) And yes, all three have fought each other in some degree (the Soviet/Sino split (USSR vs. China, stopped lots of the tech exchange with the PRC a few border squabbles too), the Vietnam War (US vs. China/N. Vietnam for hte most part) and the the Soviet involvment in Afganistan (1979-1988, USSR/Northern Alliance vs. US/muhjahadeem(sp?)). In the end, the Soviet Union pretty much fell on itself and went into economic and political instability, the US, though the victors as far as Europe goes, with a massive debt built up from all spending it did to keep up with everyone else, and the PRC, who has prospered the most thanks to the agreements with the US, as well as countried that the other two would not even consider talking to for whatever reason (large amounts of trade, also many western technology gets made there now, as well as their own versions of military equipment, most of which is built as a licnesed version of a Soviet plane, but with many improvments. Though it took them a small reform movment that started in the late 1980s to make themselves a bit less Stalinist, but it helped them even more and they're basically one of the biggest powerhouses in the world.

As for antiques, please forgive me, but if I recall, the US has it's own fair share of 30-50 year old "antiques" in their fleet too. Yes, some of the technology is really old school, but the Engineering can work pretty well in the right hands. But yeah, more training can always help the pilots. Su-27s are not very bad planes too I should add. Perhaps we should start discussing how the US uses F-15s and F-16s, as well as A-10s insted of updating to a modern designs at once. But unfortunally for Putin, I don't think that he might have much of a chance if something does happen, but he is known to flex his muscles in other ways too! One of them by cutting off gas to countries that oppose him and even try finding ways to bypass them too. Russia supplies a good amount of Europe's natural gas nowdays, and he has done it many times before.

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champpitbull2

The PRC is large but that isn't what wins battles. I'm not trying to get in some discussion over who would win what. The fact of the matter is the US military budget accounts for almost half the worlds military spending. Take it for what it's worth.

The F-15 and F-16's you talk about are quite capable and have proven themselves time and again against Russian fighters. They are undefeated on the field of battle. Their designs may have originated in the 70's but they are a far cry from those planes today. The F-15 for instance is now being equipped with an AESA radar. The A-10 doesn't need to be sophisticated, it needs to hit hard and survive. They would have trouble with a new SU-30 but that is what the Raptor is for isn't it? The last Red Flag it participated in it scored an 80-1 kill ratio. The JSF debut isn't too far away either.

The Bear wouldn't survive in todays battlefield without other planes accomplishing air superiority first. Russia doesn't have that capability anymore.

Old school technology does work well when you take care of it. As a mechanic on an antique myself I know that first hand. If you don't have the money to maintain and fly older planes they break just sitting on the ground. Russia once had a great Air Force but it is nowhere near what it once was.

LOT 737-300

So are the Russian fighters, or else they wouldn't be used anymore. If you wanna be really specific, the Su-30, 34, 35 and 37 are actually derived off the Su-27 (hence why they all have the NATO Codename of Flanker.) The only thing that kept these birds down from the inside was the tech inside. The MiG 15 for example was a easy prey for the F-86 during Korea, not because it had bad engines or was a crappy design, but because it had a flawed aiming system, where as the US's F-86 used more advanced aiming tools. I'm sure this was fixed in later Soviet fighters. Again, the most important rule of Air Combat, it's not so much the machine that matters, but the men in the machine, if you have a total idiot in a F-22, and a very skilled man in a MiG 21, then the pilot of the MiG might have a upper hand (note this is if they're fighting with a clean wing/missile bay, though a smart pilot can always outrun a missile if they know the right manuvours. So I agree with you on the good training/experiance=great results.

Should add that different A/Fs will manage to put different toys in their birds, (rumour has it that the Iranian F-14s have russian tech in it, with even more powerful engines, can't confirm how accurate this is since it was from wiki.) Also, you can always update the birds to have the tech right now. I don't think anyone outside the Russian AF knows what new things those old birds might have nowdays. Russia obviously does have the money to buy more, all that gas and oil they have helps a lot. Only that the AF isn't being updated very quickly, I don't think any AF gets updated that quickly.

You should see some of the designs that the Eastern Bloc in general was making or working on towards the end, but sadly never made it):

PZL: PZL-230f (Poland's answer to the A-10 using lessons learned in VietNam and Afganistan.)


Yak: Yak-141
Yakovlev Yak-141 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MiG was planning the MiG 38, which would also be stealth too if I remember. Think it was cancelled.

Just 3 planes, but they had many other ideas, and they probebly would've seen day too had it not been for money issues caused by the decaying of the Soviet Union in the 80s.

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champpitbull2

Again as I said earlier, Russia doesn't even have the money to afford those planes. They just recently purchased 18 SU-34 which are the first new build fighters they have received in 15 years. The US just took delivery of it's last F-16 last year. When the F-22 went to Red Flag it was flown by some pilots who have never flown another plane. They were far less experienced than the pilots they were going up against in the Nellis Aggressor squadrons. 80-1 Kill Ratio is unheard of. The Raptor has only been hit 2 times in all of it's mock engagements. Both times it was severely outnumbered and the pilots that hit it basically had to fly a sucide mission because they were hit too.

Russia does fly outdated planes because they don't have the money to modernize them. They just recently began to take steps to fix this but it will take a long time to fix.

As I said earlier they don't have the money to maintain, train, or put those planes in the air. The USAF and her allies are the best trained and equipped in the world. There are more F-22's flying now than the total # of SU-30's. The situation you described about an idiot in a Mig against a Raptor is far more likely to be an idiot in a Mig-21 against a seasoned Raptor fighter jock. The Mig wouldn't even know what hit him.
One other thing, why is it that you haven't heard of a new US fighter or bomber lately? Do you think that one doesn't exist? A $30 billion annual budget for top secret projects almost assures that there is. Also a comment by the USAF Chief of Staff Gen Mosely, hints that indeed there is. The USAF is supposed to field a new bomber before 2018. He said he wishes he could bring some things out of the black earlier. I wonder what that means?

gospodin

The F-86F and the MiG-15 were fairly evenly matched aircraft. The MiG had the advantage of being smaller, faster in climbing and more manueverable, with 20 and 30 mm cannons mounted under the nose. The F-86 was a faster diving and straight line runner, with 6 50cals in the nose, and US pilots were generally better trained (except when facing Soviet pilots, which was frequently...the Russians were very good). The US/N.Korean kill ratio was actually smaller than you might think. If the British had just never given the Russians that jet engine... Also, the F-14s in Iranian hands have never flown since the US left Iran. The engineers stole several key avionics components out of the aircrafts, the most important was the weapons firing system. The Iranians have never been able to substitute this function. Those planes are still in the desert, high-altitude pics show they've never moved.

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Steve

I either want less corruption in government, or more opportunity to participate in it.

LOT 737-300

Good point on the I've also been corrected by a friend about the aiming system of the MiG 15. Initially in the war, they had a very outdated and flawed system to aim, but later in the war, it was replaced by something more like the F-86's. You bring back the point of that is frequently said over and over that training makes a difference. Again, thanks on the F-14 thing, it was something I read off of wiki (hence the disclaimer saying I read it on wiki, so it could just be a story.)

Hmm, perhaps you should read my first post:
Point is that they both have their own little toys that only higher-ups might only be aware of. Brings me back to asking where the oil and gas money they make goes. There are possibly more of the advanced stuff out there than we may know about. I also didn't say that there was no secret aircraft in the US inventory. I'm not denying that the Russians had developed something too. Russia is a big place afterall with many hiding places.

Yes, but this is a hypothetical situation I described, you described reality. I was describing what would happen if a senario came about that was similar.

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champpitbull2

Russian aerospace has plenty of toys and brilliant aircraft. But, they are so hard up for money they offered to sell the US fighters straight from the factory, but the US declined. Chances are the US already has a bunch. It was just revelead last year that the USAF has been running an aggressor squadron full of Russian fighters for years. Since it is known that the US military already owns a squadron of Mig-29's it doesn't seem unreasonable that they might have a few other planes that are more advanced.

The Russian military however doesn't have the money to afford those planes. I don't know how many times I need to say it. If they do have any sort of ace in the hole the numbers would be very limited. Could they have some planes we don't know about? Yes they could but they don't have enough of anything to really matter.

With regards to the Iranian F-14's, they fly. Combat Aircraft the magazine did a special on them around this time last year when the F-14 made it's final flight for the US Navy. They had plenty of air to air pics and when Iran conducted war games last year in the Persian Gulf the F-14's participated and they were using their old engines. Other than that they are capable of flying, most everything else is unknown but there are plenty of educated guesses.

L-1011-Heavy

Champppitbull2= 10 Points
Lot 707 = 5 Points
Gospodin= Referee

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The Heavy Armada
"In The Absence Of Excellence, There Is Only Mediocrity."

champpitbull2

Heavy you must enjoy watching other people have a disagreement other than you and.......... I won't say his name.

L-1011-Heavy

In This Case Yes. I Learned A Few Things. You Obviously Have More Knowledge
Than Lot 707(737 Oops, I Like 707 Better) Or Me Even, Which Puts You In A More Qualified Postion To Make A Good Analyisis.
My Other Option Would Be To Interject With Tons Of Text.
This Was Simpler.
My Post Was Not To Be Adsversarial or To Throw Gasoline Into The Fire.
Just Simple But Perhaps A Little Facetious Observation...