What is sad is doing the silly reductionism of saying that SA is important while airframes and kinematics are secondary, because "missiles are faster", and forgetting that the enemy is not only going to have a better airframe but also as good as or even better SA.
You are joking right?
Knowing where the enemy is is the most critical thing in air combat, their ability to turn better than you means nothing if you can sneak around behind them and shoot them down before they even know you are there... if you don't know a missile is on its way and approaching you you are at an enormous disadvantage... as you point out if you are flying very fast you must be at altitude which limits your ability to manouver because a 9g turn at high speed is not a hard turn in degrees per second, so while you cover distance the shift in position is not enormous unless you are hypersonic and able to pull enormous g for long periods.
If you are going slow I believe you mentioned the chance of a bi plane evading a supersonic plane or therefore also a supersonic missile... a biplane can't pull high gs... it simply isn't fast enough or strong enough, but with a mach 5 missile it wont matter anyway.
So when they hunt you down with faster, longer ranged planes with more manouverability, service ceiling and payload, you will be aware of the situation but not able to do anything to change it.
What makes you think the faster plane always wins, or the aircraft with the most payload or flys the highest... you already claim planes can turn at altitude, and an aircrafts flight range is not very relevant either.
If you are aware that bigger heavier longer ranged planes are coming, or conversely smaller lighter more manouverable planes are coming then you obviously position yourself to launch attacks on them without getting into a close combat dogfight with a smaller lighter more manouverable plane.
The point is that without SA those better planes will launch an attack you don't know is coming and you are dead before any dogfight can start.
It is the basis of western superiority against third world countries... western jamming and western AWACS means the western aircraft know where everything is without giving away their location. They often have a numbers advantage too so a flight of planes can distract the enemy while the AWACS aircraft vector fighters around behind them and launch a surprise attack from behind... the third world country pilots never know what hits them because their own radar has either been attacked and destroyed or is being jammed... or communications is jammed which means you are operating your own radar to see what is happening so in addition to AWACS instructions the attacking western fighters can locate the target from its radar emissions, but the reverse is not true.
Situations where smaller lighter more manouverable fighters have shocked the pilots of bigger heavier planes... Vietnam springs to mind with bit powerful heavy F-4 phantoms able to carry lots of AAMs at once including BVR missiles, came up against MiG-17 and MiG-19 and MiG-21s in combat... the thing is that despite being smaller and lighter and more nimble the F-4s managed to shoot down some planes... and it wasn't because SPARROW was amazing... it wasn't.
Move the same fight to now and the Phantoms would likely do much better because they could use the increased range and performance of AMRAAM to get some kills before the merge... the main factor being previously the BVR missile was for use against bombers and planes that were not manouvering, but modern BVR missiles are for everything... an AMRAAM at medium to short range is more effective than short range missiles because it has more energy and bigger warheads... but neither is perfect.
Scramjet per definition is an engine that needs supersonic compression.
To operate as a scramjet, but a scramjet is a ramjet that can burn fuel at supersonic speeds... I rather doubt there would be enough internal space for rocket fuel to get a Zircon supersonic by the time the ramjet kicks in, very simply because ramjet fuel gives more energy and thrust than the solid rocket motor fuel...
A scramjet that does not need to slow the airflow through the combustion section to subsonic speeds should be able to generate enormous thrust at altitude and speed... which is why it can go so fast and so high.
Flying at such speeds burns fuel orders of magnitude faster.
I am not saying it would be fuel efficient, and it would be pointless for a missile that requires enormous range for standoff use like an anti carrier missile, but for an air to air missile it would be fine to shorten range a bit.
No, reduce temperature to preserve the engine
They used alcohol injection on the Tu- drone that used the MiG-25s engine... why would they care about engine life on a drone like that?
It is about speed attainable.
Turbojets are superior for high speed flight, but that diagram says nothing about speed. Thrust dependency with air density follows essentially the same mechanism for any turbomachinery.
Turbofans get most of their thrust by bypass air... so when the air is thin they lose most of their thrust which your chart shows rather clearly... and also explains why airliners never fly above about 10-12km altitude.
Turbojets on the other hand like very cold air coming in the intake and the high horizontal speed makes up for the low airpressure, but even a turbojet would choke on supersonic airflow through the combustion section...
All your opinion and little else.
Are you expecting me to post your opinion?
That has nothing to do with fighters in general or engine reliability on its own.
Survivability in combat is as important as cost of use... it makes no sense having a plane that is cheap to operate in peace time that just gets shot down easily in combat.
In the late 1980s there was a plan to replace the A-10 because the supersonic fighter jocks didn't like it. They wanted a ground attack modification of the F-16 to replace it called the A-16, and to retain performance it had no armour... it had payload and speed, but for ground attack speed is counterproductive.
It was not put into production because it was too fragile, so combat survivability is certainly an issue.
That just protects from small arms not missles.....plenty were shot down still....those are slow moving and their role in combat is not in contested air space.
Plenty were shot down, but in your professional view... what damaged these aircraft.... they clearly managed to land again because the damage suggests a missile hit but not a crash afterwards...
And there are similar pictures of A-10s getting engines damaged to the point of them failing but have clearly landed anyway...
They wont last a minute against a fighter even of 2 generations back.
I appreciate what you are trying to say, but the Su-25 is probably a 3rd gen fighterbomber, and can shoot down enemy aircraft as it normally carries an air to air weapon... previously R-60MKs which were quite effective little missiles, but these days R-73s which are old but as good as it needs for dealing with enemy aircraft and helicopters.
therefore may have some positive benefits but i have not read anythign that it saves a lot practically speaking.
And yet twin engined aircraft exist, so there must be some positive benefits... there are very few four engined fighters and very few three engined fighters and very few five engined fighters, yet there are probably more twin engined fighters than singles.
The fact that we are not sure of the reasons for a twin should not be dismissed because there are enough twin engined aircraft out there to suggest they are pretty important reasons.
ya, they are simple only in writing on a forum. How many have you developed and how many countries develop them?
I am saying the are conceptually simple... more countries could make ramjets than could make any other form of jet engine because it has no shafts and no blades or disks... it is essentially a hollow tube that gets narrow to compress incoming air... fuel is added and burned and thrust is created. A ramjet is a very simple engine... scramjets are much more difficult in terms of design and materials, but they are still tubes where air is sucked in and compressed and fuel is added and burned... but it needs special design and materials and some secret sauce to get the fuel to burn at supersonic speeds with stability.
You should read more about and their J planes combat record if there is one. I already said that single engine vs twin engine may matter in training and non combat scenarios as far reliability comes into play.
It is designed to be a super cheap upgrade of a MiG-21... I would not expect it to be what an F-35 was supposed to be, but they have experience with that jet engine and they have chosen to use it in a single engined fighter... and another country has agreed to buy it.
If the engine was unreliable it would be an expensive to operate aircraft because of all the crashes, but that does not seem to be the case.
India is not buying it.So irrelevant whether they go back to piston engine or 10th gen super duper startrek engine
But India is still buying batches of MiG-29s... the old model ones with upgrades. Your claim is that the MiG-35 is no better than a MiG-29 you already have... if India keeps on buying MiG-29s with upgrades then buying the brand new model with its problems eliminated would make sense wouldn't it... despite you being dead against it.
The new carrier India is building are too small for American or French fighters to operate from unless you spend a few billion and buy catapults for them... or tens of billions and develop EMALS cats for them, so despite what India wants they might end up ordering more MiG-29KRs anyway.
Unless they want a Ford equivalent...
(helicopter carrier).
Evidence is in front of you, a plane that has not seen its logical adoption for this long with nothing more compared to what is already in market and not even taken seriously in home market does not derserve benefit of doubt from customer. Would you make an individual purchase like that for any product if you have finite money to spend on something? Be rational...
The Russians had the choice of buying the new MiG-29M with the same new airframe but not state of the art components, or they could wait till the MiG-35 is ready with DAS and AESA radar and all sorts of flash things... they chose the latter, which meant delaying its introduction, it is still in the process of the new planes being tested, and performance confirmed before they make a large serial order.
The Russians work different from the Americans, they test their products and try to get them up to spec before handing them over to the customer... the Americans seem to have embraced beta testing for their customers... you would think that would earn reduced prices, but no...
There can still be problems with Russian products simply because of all the potential variables but they eliminate the bugs they can find before handing it over to the customer , which I think is sensible.
I understand Americans wanting to get stuff out now so they can make some money and charge extra for fixing problems they should have found and fixed themselves.
I don't understand the customers wanting delivery of something that does not work out of the box.
I don't have a lot of money, which is why I never buy a Microsoft operating system until at least Service Pack 3 is out.
Currently I run a computer on XP and a computer on a very old linux OS.
We all know the drama that happened...Russia is no soviet union when it comes to guts or stupidity. Russia is Russia and they navigate based on their interests and they make mistakes like every one else except in your own mind where you think there is some grand master strategy behind every restraint and mistake.
They are not and have never claimed to be the worlds policeman. Without them Iran would not have S-300 and would be a lot weaker to threats by the US and Israel, and there would be no nuclear power generation in their country.
Whether they are using it to hide a bomb making capacity or not is another matter but the actions of Israel and the west mean she has more to gain by having nuclear weapons than by not having them and being open to attack without the ability to retaliate effectively.
Everyone has a potential...potential is just that. We are talking 35 not 29. Problem with these countries is they get a new dictator at any time....not very reliable.
According to the west Putin is a dictator... why should Russia care about how a country puts its leadership in power. The real power behind any country is its most wealthy... and no election will shift them from "power".
The Egyptians wanted MiG-35s but they are not ready for export, so they got MiG-29Ms with some of the features of the MiG-35 that are ready and will likely be upgraded to MiG-35 when the AESA radar is ready likely amongst other things that might not be ready for export.
This sounds ridiculous, if Russia has good relations then its ok I guess like they did not know who they were dealing with on the other side Germany, US and Canada and so on. But Korea or India as an American ally should somehow not use foreign componentry?
Venezuela didn't get F-16s because it was pro Cuba or anti US... Turkey isn't allowed the F-35s they paid for and were going to make the wings for... Saddam was Americas best friend before they turned on him... he supplied cheap energy to the US in the 1970s when many other OPEC members wouldn't.... and then in the 1980s he became their best friend by fighting the Iranians who had recently kicked the CIA out of the country.
Much of the components the US uses are made in China.... ironically.
Did you not notice the 3M face masks needed for Covid were produced by US company 3M, but actually made in China so Americans actually went to China and made sure shipments of 3M masks went to the US instead of other countries that had ordered them and paid for them before the US did...
Buy all means buy them from the west, but don't expect to always be able to get them... you just need to do something wrong... Saddam invaded Kuwaite and therefore risked an oil monopoly... imagine if he invaded Saudi Arabia and declared himself leader of the arab world... we can see the houthies ripping through the best Saudi Arabia can afford so he probable could have done it easily at the time despite on paper being more powerful than his forces.
Turkey stopped being hostile to Russia and bought S-400 missiles... Venezuela simply voted in socalist leaders... Chavez and then Maduro, who tried to help the poor with cheap housing and improve life for them... the rich didn't like wasting money on people and with the US help tried to overthrow them, but the majority are poor so the rich can hire some mercs but against the majority of the population there is little they could do. One American plan was to raid a Venezuelan army base and break out prisoners in a nearby prison and arm them with the army weapons... peace loving democracy promoters... but it was never about the suffering of the venezuelan people and more about the enormous amount of estimated oil reserves in the area....
You can't train a general that is not a soldier.
If all managers have to be engineers first the world is in trouble because most governments give departments and jobs to politicians in terms of prestige rather than competence or experience.
A person running the accounts at a shipping company does not need to know how to wield or move shipping or to have ever been a sailor.
At certain ranks in the military the job is more about administration than shooting people so if you haven't crawled through the mud with a rifle isn't critical.
Obviously managing a group of people in a job you have to understand the job, but you don't need to have done it... this is where communication skills are important, which is rather more important for a manager than an engineer.
When I was at university I had several lecturers that were terrible at communication. Their skills were computer programming and they were amazing... if you talked to them one on one they were brilliant... they would make excellent workmates, but they were not good teachers and their interpersonal skills were quite weak... they were actually a bit shy... but very clever. Almost like they expected everyone to be a bully and force them to do their homework for them...
They are called back room strategists nothign more and wont last a 2nd on the battle field....managers are over stepping and everyone that worked in any special field these days know it.
I think with management being a separate skill and field they have become a bunch of yes men within their branch and simply wont listen to anyone in the field despite the fact that they should be listening to the people who work for them because their experience is more valuable than anything they learned on a management course.
All you can really get from a management course is communication and motivation skills, which are important, but when you get to your job the learning starts again, because of all the team cliches... everyone has to work together or you end up going in circles wasting effort and energy.
There are superficial ways to talk about things....you don't go to a prostitute and talk about your religious morals...you can do that too
You would be surprised how many men just want to talk... apparently...
It is cheaper than a psychiatrist or a lawyer these days...
There are superficial ways to talk about things....you don't go to a prostitute and talk about your religious morals...you can do that too. Looks are looks and I applied that constraint in my statement.
Can't remember the last time I saw the results of a government evaluation of a group of aircraft where they said these planes are all very very similar... good in some areas and worse in others... so we picked the prettiest one...
I mean I have heard the joke about the Batchelor with three women wanting to marry him... he gave $10K to each of them and so the first got a full makeover and new clothes to look pretty for him, the second took the money and bought him all sorts of stuff she knew he liked, like a motorbike and helmet and leathers, and the third one took the money and invested it and tripled his money in two weeks... gave him back $20K and kept $20K for herself.
So he thought about it, weighing up each gesture and response and the morality and ethics and idea behind each response from each woman... and then he married the one with the biggest tits.
Chill out, sure I can track it from my phone.....I don't beleive claims that easily whether its from my side or the other without some evidence....stealth is real and detection is also real...thats how military leads are....one has an edge momentarily until someone else creates an antidote.
The thing is when one side already has the antidote to something the US is paying 1.5 trillion to put into service and expects to be the main body of their future air fleet whose core feature is invisibility at a point where Russia can warn Iran of these aircraft operating near Iranian borders and they have maybe 500 of the 3,500 they were going to make produced...
The original Soviet plan was to produce 350 Whiskey SSKs... they were good subs but new technology meant the production run was dramatically cut... same thing happened to the F-22. The Commanche stealth helicopter didn't even make it into service... it is a lot of money to spend on something that wont now work as intended... but they continue to make F-35 because there was no plan B.
Think of the doo doo they would be in if they made stuff solely for looking cool...
Agreed, they should have iterated before they went with that one for all idea. Regardless F-35 was a good idea if done correctly with proper wisdom check.
But the problem went deeper than that... another part of the F-35s problem is their distributed development and production paradigm to make it cancel proof... it works but destroys efficiency and cost effectiveness completely... the C-17 didn't need to cost that much, and the F-35 didn't need to cost that much either... some of the time and effort in logistics they spent on the spread out F-35 production could have been spent fixing problems and just making the plane better... but no one will lose their job... America can afford it... because they are so far in the lead... but are they?
Printing money solves the cost issue for America... but not for Americas allies who suffer and will struggle to keep these aircraft in service... the UK announced it costs 90K British pounds per hour to keep their F-35s flying... that is more than the B-2 costs... a big heavy strategic bomber...
The UK can't afford to give their healthcare workers a pay raise of more than 1%... considering many of the workers that helped them out with Covid were students and retirees that probably weren't paid anyway, that is an insult, but they have to pay 90K pounds per hour to fly some planes the Russians really probably are not afraid of.
At least they wont have any problems meeting US demands to spend more than 2% GDP on weapons to meet their commitments to HATO.
They wont replace their tanks, but they will have more Tridents...
It is less relevant now and even more so for most countries.
It is the most important aircraft in Russia in terms of air defence, and naval defence.
It can shoot down air targets at distances of more than 300km and sink US carriers from 2,000km with reasonable confidence... but of course most other countries are not challenged by the US, or could not expect to survive the retaliation of sinking an attacking US carrier group.
Russia has a purpose for it as a country that is usually defense oriented and its geography also can use that effectively.
Most countries outside of the west are defence oriented...