tflash

+1 for Phantom!!!!

If you like the "Flight" in Flight Simulation than the Su-25 is for you, whether you buy it with Lockon FC3 or separate. It is really nice to fly, crisp, fast, you really "feel" the aircraft. And less sluggish than the Su-25T. But it's not an anti-tank weapon: the Su-25 is for very classical ground attack and closer-than-you-like air support, with dumb bombs and rockets, or with the rudimentary Kh-25ML laser-guided missile. Super fun if you ask me.

Viggen at Volkel

Not sure I want to dogfight against this one!

We are nearing the end of the most phabulous of them all over German skies: http://www.mv-online.de/Region-Rheine/Rheine/Pharewell-der-F-4F-Phantom-in-Wittmund-Jet-war-ueber-30-Jahre-auch-am-Himmel-ueber-Rheine-zu-sehen-Der-Anfang-vom-Ende-ist-eingelaeutet

Wait whatever you like, for how long you like ... I'm flying the UH-1 right now and it is absolutely wonderful! Superb flight experience!

The Su-25 with new pit is absolutely a dream come true! Superb! What a plane!

RIP

Nice article on F-35 capabilities: http://thediplomat.com/2013/04/25/game-changer-the-f-35-and-the-pacific/

What a terrible loss! I saw Jim at a Simw Brussels event, where he showed me the then demo of Ka-50. My condolences to his family and friends!

Well, there are other sources on the web that confirm this story of P-47's succesfully engaging Tiger Tanks this way. Just do a Google search. Whether it all goes back to the same hoax, I wouldn't know.

I guess CAS is really the last of concerns for the Japanese Self Defense Forces. The maritime environment and missile threat require all attention on presumes.

So nice old memories coming back with Ironhand's tutorials!

I'm not so sure other fighter AESA sets are "delivering": the AESA's on F-15 are also provided by Raytheon, with many parts in common. Don't forget the SH and Growler are operational with these kits, no one has called retrofit or whatever, not even these reports. They just keep up the validation work. I would say that this maturation problem highlights the long road ahead for F-35: ther is no reason to believe APG-81 will work from the start as expected, quite on the contrary. It's the delay that plays in favour of SH, nothing else.

Here link to FY2012 report: http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2012/pdf/navy/2012fa18ef.pdf Indeed still some criticisms of the radar performance, but nothing alarming, no? Funny: not much betetr than APG-73. We'll see if APG-81 can do better, but that will still be a long wait.

Do you mean sources like this? http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2011/pdf/navy/2011fa18ef.pdf I wouldn't worry about that. Seems all normal to me. Same kind of reports that are taken completely out of context by the F-35 critics. The same document, even the more critical one from 2009, states: Overall, the APG-79 radar demonstrates improved capability over the legacy APG-73 radar, providing longer-range detections for air-to-air operations and improved synthetic aperture radar performance for air-to-ground operations. There were no recommendations to change anything to the deployed fleet, neither in 2009, or 2011. And BTW we are 2013 by now.

If ever this unsourced (again?) statement were true, these problems will have been sorted out long before the first F-35 even remotely becomes tactically viable in any situation.

When comparijng how novel the F-35 is against the 4.5 competition one has to take into account that the programme faces a 7-year delay (and counting). If the F-35 had been on time, then the SH would surely be obsolete by now. But it wasn't, and the SH/Growler now sport high-speed fibre-optic network, APG-79 AESA radar etc. While LM has to put enormous resources in trying to make an unproven plastic airframe carrier-capable, Boeing can focus on avionics, human interface, optical systems etc, that can be supplied by the same companies that deliver to F-35. So thanks to F-35 misplanning, there is still a serious lease of life in SH. I would guess for at least 20 years, probably 30.

"Geleid projectiel", yes, that makes sense ! I never realized missile had this broad meaning of projectile.

Anyhow - Dutch language e.g. only has the word rocket, not missile - I'll love to see APKWSII in DCS!

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1697691&postcount=8 Woooohaaaa!!! Some goodies underway for my favourite aircraft, the vanilla SU-25!

Scorpion helmet to be evaluated on F-22 : http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/usaf-to-evaluate-scorpion-helmet-display-on-f-22-raptor-383307/

DAGR is supercool: http://defense-update.com/20130228_dagr-jltv.html