FanBoy2006.01

Yes. Fictitious characters are impervious to cannon rounds. Sorry to be a troll; but FanBoy is not a fanboy of superduperman. Nothing can stop him, so what is even the point of watching his movie. Fly up and catch badguy. Awsome! Boeing falls out of the sky. Superduperman catches it. Oh the suspense! But he only exists in comics and screen. IRL if I am OPFOR and I live long enough to see an A10 overhead, I'll be scared! Sorry to be troll.

Regardless. A truly great fighter. A great platform for upgrades. And great looking as well.

Yes. We will have to see if they change it.

All that I could recall was that the thought it would negatively influence RCS. So most likely it is like you said. I was just surprised in the the way they painted T-50. If they are using radar absorbing paint it is not the (Strangely beautiful.) metallic colour of USA paint. That and they got different colours also! Like you said camouflage is a form stealth. The only things I can think of then is that the big shapes are for camouflage at longer visual ranges or confuse opponent in regard to aspect/heading/attitude of aircraft.

I would appreciate that. I am tired of defending my viewpoints on that OT matter. Does anybody know if that paint scheme is angled like that because for stealth purposes or is it normal camouflage? I have been searching this thread but I can't find anything. I know when an hourglass (Like Black widow.) symbol was painted on YF 23, the contractors was ordered to remove it because it could negatively influence RCS. Just by cursory observation I can see that some of the outer edges of the paint scheme are more or less the same angle as some of the outer edges of the airframe. But that could be for aesthetics.

"An insult is an expression, statement (or sometimes behavior) which is considered degrading, offensive and impolite." Nope. he pretty much insulted me in both posts. In regard to insurgent operations in hostile territory. History is full of examples of how it took place. Bombing attacks was launched on Spain and Brittan in resent years (While they were at war in Afghanistan.). This was done by terrorists. Most terrorists doesn't have formal military training. Now what about special forces? Special forces of many different countries have operated in hostile territories an many different wars. And they have conducted acts of sabotage. I didn't refer to terrorists exclusively in my first post. After all I mentioned special forces (Part of normal military organizations.). Hostile population: That is one of the reasons to do things clandestinely. The biggest two would be the military and intelligence services of the enemy country. You can point out that nearly all terrorist attacks since 11 September 2001 have failed; but like I said, I am talking about actions that can be done by normal military organizations as well. But it will probably not be legal. Remember there is well documented cases where the special forces and intelligence services of different countries have broken different laws. Intelligence gathering is against some law most of the time! But lawfulness is OT on this OT post. Yes and no. Bigger target, but harder to knock out. How many explosives are going to need to knock out a runway for a descent amount of time? How are you going to get them to target? If you are going to use a fighter with Durandals on Creech AFB, from where are you going to take off and what kind of support are you going to need? The biggest explosion I saw when I was in the military was when we blew a "padkrater" (Road crater.). Like bombing a runway from the air you do not want to detonate your explosives above ground. It takes a lot of explosives with detonators, cortex, etc. and allot of time to set up (Plus a specialized explosive device.). So it is easier to attack the control van, satellite antenna, etc. But it is far more easy to attack the unguarded electrical supply to an airbase. You don't need explosives for that. You can steal the things you are going to use. The biggest risks here are burning and electrocution. Like I said then you will have to take out the backup systems of the electrical supply as well. Firstly you will have to disable the ring feed. But that can be done any where along that part of the transmission line. Or you can target the substations connected to those feeders. You will have to physically break into the airbase and disable the backup generators. But here again you don't even need explosives to damage them to the point where it will take a long time to replace or repair. Plus generators are usually placed away from people for several reasons. Here is a couple of reasons why I think so: At this point you get centralization taking place. Pilots in front of control panels. Data cabling to antennas and the antennas themselves. And the list goes on. And this is in a building. Now with a UAV control van you get all that is needed to control that thing in a soft skinned vehicle or trailer! Usually these things are parked together and not dispersed Like you get with hardened cold war aircraft shelters. Predator setup is so that you got control for takeoff and recovery, is forward at point of operations, while control beyond line of sight is usually back. And that is the part that is the least protected. Creech AFB will not have CAS aircraft standing by. There will not be artillery support on standby. Patrols will not be sent in the surrounding area. Their will not be fortified positions for soldiers around the base. Security personnel will most likely be lightly armed. Civilians will stay on the base and travel to and from the base daily. Food, etc will be supplied to the base by civilian businesses and civilian trucks. Personnel will be at a lower level of vigilance because they are not in a combat zone. So this is why I think what I think.

I say it's is easier to disrupt UAV operations than normal fighter operations because their control is stationary and their position is known. And I am equating nothing. I am straight out saying that any military base would be on a higher level of vigilance in a war zone than in another place. Or do you think when you are in place where people are trying to kill you, you should be more at ease? You are insulting me in both your posts. Yet you are very vague about how I am wrong in my statements. If there weren't certain rules on this forum I would tell you what I think of you.

Man, what do you know about me? Here is a couple of things I do know: I served in the SADF/SANDF Engineer Core. I do not think that I am an expert at any thing but I did get training in, amongst other things, demolitions and mine warfare (Including regular infantry training.). I am also studying electrical engineering and have done my practical year as part of my course. I have learned how electrical distribution systems work and what they are made up of. I have also done maintenance on them. I know how distribution and transmission networks' backup works. I personally have seen on many occasions how construction workers have damaged high tension underground cables with pickaxes (Causing power outages.) and walked away without a scratch. I also know of two attacks on airbases (28 October 1965 and 14 September 2012). The attack on the airbase in Afghanistan was made by a maximum of only 19 insurgents! Now it is impossible if I suggest something to be done in peaceful areas that had already been done in war zones? Also I know that electrical networks are prime targets in war to diminish an enemy's capabilities. Like in 1999 Balkan conflict and 1991 Gulf war. Lastly I am not suggesting that I am going to personally lead an attack on RAF No. 39 Squadron at Creech Air Force Base Nevada (Basically attacking two countries I respect greatly.). What I am suggesting is that current UAV systems have certain vulnerabilities that normal manned fighters don't. I bet it's harder to hit an F22 with an ARHM than it is to hit a the pilot of a UAV's stationary van with a ATGM!

Personally I don't get taking the pilot of of the cockpit period. How survivable is a guy sitting in a container at an airbase in the Nevada desert? Here I'm revering to RAF pilots controlling UAVs in Afghanistan. This was shown on TV for the world to see! It is so far away from the battlefield that security will be much lower. A couple of guys with handguns can just cut a hole in the perimeter fence and sneak up there and shoot them! This kind of operation will also be so much easier if you got guys that don't worry about what happens after the mission is completed. Also you can target the antenna that transmits signals from the pilots to the satellite. Not as hard to hit as an 5th gen fighter. But personally I would just blow up one of the pylons from which overhead transmission lines are suspended that feeds the airbase. If it is underground cables you just need a shovel, axe and a really dumb guy.:thumbup: But get a couple of special forces operators to fubar their backup generators clandestinely first. An electrical power grid gives you so much places you can attack which are unguarded. Your biggest problem is knowing what backups they have in place and getting at that. That would take their UAVs off line for a while. A normal fighter + pilot setup is more robust to damage. As for autonomous killing machines. I don't think it is in a county's best interest (On even tactical level.). To have things like that. You need tight control over what to shoot and when to shoot. So you don't necessarily need a very smart machine but one that can make decisions like a soldier with security clearance, acting lawfully and acting within the ROE. Of course here I don't think that countries should stop developing UAV technology. I just cant see the benefit of taking pilots out of cockpits of all aircraft.

After I read the thread up to here I just want to make a couple of comments to posts in general. And I must come out straight at the beginning, and say I am on the side of keeping BVR capability as an important part of fighter development. GGtharos - I just want to point out that the writer of the article used 5nm as the border between BVR and WVR! This is much closer than the 8nm limit which you gave for BVR engagements. And he is giving evidence of how in actual combat, BVR combat largely failed! Meaning, that in the real world, fighter engagements beyond 5nm largely failed to result in kills or didn't even materialize because of real world circumstances! Another important thing is; regardless of what the conclusions of the author are, look at the statistics. Let them speak for themselves. He is giving us real world figures. And now for my biggest critique against this article. Because of certain limitations of information available, the author does not include figures of air-to-air combat after Desert Storm (1991) or Iran-Iraq conflict. But what does he show us (Actually allot more than these few points below.): Firstly, the cost (Including running cost.) of a BVR focused fighter is much higher than non-BVR types. A low percentage of real world kills have taken place with radar homing missiles (RHM) compared to guns and hearers. RHM achieved a low Pk. BVR engagements (Beyond 5nm!) are rare and mostly unsuccessful. BUT! His statistics also show that in Desert Storm: 59% of air-to-air kills were made by radar homing missiles. Radar homing missiles had a 27% Pk (WVR and BVR shots together.). That means a dramatic improvement for radar homing missile effectiveness before 1st gen. Amraam. What possible alternative to BVR can I personally suggest. Spend R&D budget in developing a fighter that is specialized to win the WVR range fight. But give it improved measures to successfully defeat BVR attacks against it. Like anti-radiation AA missiles, ECM, low RCS, etc. Yes, I am saying that BVR capability can be completely removed by incorporating BVR anti-radiation missiles. Eh...Cough...Cough:clown_2: But my strategy would have severe shortcomings. It firstly assumes that you could get a much greater enhancement in maneuverability, performance, RWR, ECM, IR missile capability, etc. over current and proposed future BVR capable fighters. Secondly it assumes that enemy BVR capability will not catch up to your advances to counter it. Thus, I can only conclude that a balanced approach should be followed (Fighters with both BVR and WVR capabilities.). In the end. If you look out of the HUD of an F15 or a MiG29, you will see a range scale which shows you when you can engage a maneuvering fighter and when not to (Rtr, Rpiand Rmin.). This should have dispelled and misconceptions about what BVR missiles can do and not do.

I can better that one. When I was in the SANDF in 1994, during training at Luatla Army Battle School, I was assigned to monitor the radio in our squadron's command vehicle a couple of times. Well the one time I found the formal briefing for our leaders lying around and with no one around I started reading it. I can't remember much any more but there was a nice order of battle for both sides (Not blue and red but green and orange!) amongst other things. But what freaked me out was that we were training for civil war! :shocking: PS. Way off topic. The unit which I was part of, was divided in a Motorized and a Mechanized squadron amongst other things. I was in the motorized squadron and we drove around in Casspir mine-protected APCs. The Mech. guys had Ratel 20s. The reason that I bring this up is because years ago when the Afghanistan conflict started I saw that soldiers from First World countries driving around in unprotected utility vehicles?!?!? Man even our logistical vehicles were mine-protected. Well at least military commanders have woken up...

@ I2obiN In regard to drifting... "I'm assuming this is wind, if so it seems absurd. In an aircraft that weighs in at 2,000 lbs I would expect strong winds might have this affect on it, on my bike that weighs in at 300lbs I can go 80 knots and not have the wind blow me into another lane of traffic, even with 15 km/h winds. A 60,000 lb jet should not really be affected this much by 5 meter winds." I do not have FC3 and will not for a long time. So I might be totally off on my remarks. But you must remember that that aircraft shapes is much different than a guy on a bike. The faster an aircraft goes the more lift it's body provides. You have much better down force on a bike. Also, your center of gravity is much lower, than that of an F15 rolling down a runway. And the grip of your bike's tires are much bigger in relation to total weight than that of an F15's. The grip will also diminish as down force decrease. Lastly the big vertical surfaces (Especially the vertical stabilizers of an aircraft make a great "sail" to capture kinetic energy from the cross wind. Of course (With their rudders.), they are the main control surfaces to counter airflow from the side.

Thanks for the link.

Very nice read. Thank you. But I don't agree with all that he is saying. Basically you need to have best possible detection range and best possible accurate engagement range with any weapon. So you will strive to for increased BVR capability for fighters regardless of what it is now. Besides in FC2 the PK for AMRAAM is something like 30% (I think.). And engagements ending up WVR is a common occurrence. Sounds close to reality to me. "US air supremacy faces asymmetric challenges in the future—anti-radiation missiles, counter-network operations, directed energy, electromagnetic pulse weapons, or geopolitical legal constraints. Incrementally improved BVR capability (i.e. F-22 and AMRAAM) does not help counter any of these challenges." Agree and disagree here. A stealth aircraft with a long ranged stealth cruise missile will work here. I know he is talking about BVR here but F22 is not just a one trick pony (AMRAAM). Further more, in air-to-air (Not interceptor against strike package.) the heavy BVR fighter (F15 and F4) have beaten the lighter fighter (MiG 21 and MiG 23). Also, even after the success of the "light" Mirage IIICJ in the Six Day War Israel still got the "heavy" F4E because of the shortcomings that the Mirage had. Lastly, the author completely ignores the fact that there are limitations in all aspects of aircraft development. Not just BVR related problems. For instance limited armament on MiG 21 and Mirage III. Gun predictor radar that couldn't lock on to targets at low altitudes. Unreliable engines, etc. The only conclusion I can come to, is that a country with a big budget must get combat aircraft to deal with a wide spectrum of problems. At the top - Air Superiority (F22/Typhoon/Su Pak-FA). In the middle - Multi Role (F16/JAS 39). At the bottom - COIN (Super Tucano). In short. I think the USA (And any country, for that matter.) should dramatically increase their defense budget!:thumbup:

Here is a fiction book I can recommend. Quite good. It's about F111s.

Personally I am against it; because there is only a limited amount of resources available for development. Thus I would prefer if it all goes to DCS level aircraft. I think a FC level helicopter, especially AH 64/Mi 28/AH 1 would be nice; but it would take manpower away from the development of DCS modules. ED have given the sim community FC3 to bolster the number of aircraft in DCS world. That I think is great. But now they should focus on the highest fidelity possible. Bare in mind that the level of difficulty of DCS aircraft can be reduced in the options menu any way. And maybe there should even be an arcade mode server somewhere. DCS World could revolutionize the PC sim world, if it hasn't already. I hope more and more aircraft get produced and that it will draw in more and more people in.

I can not really add allot here, seeing that I don't fly online and have limited cockpit time nowadays. I am a full-time student again and that means that I have a non-existent budget. I only have FC2 and Black Shark1. No Track-IR. No nothing. Can't wait to finish my studies so I can get all the rest! But this is my unscientific way of flying the MiG 29S. Firstly. MiG29 have low fuel and less missiles than the rest, so I treat it as a point interceptor. Also only take on even or less number of opponents. In head to head BVR. I F-pole. Basically when I get locked up I jettison the drop-tank and go to full burner till I am at Mach 1-ish. I wait till I get launch authority and launch one R77 at max range. To help myself to lose altitude in F-pole maneuver. I first push the stick forward to get my nose pointing downward. Then I break right or left depending to complete f-pole while keeping lock on target. I usually go much lower than my opponent. Of course this is all pretty standard. But I just want to tell you how to do f-pole easily with Russian birds as not to push radar beyond 110º rotating limit (So nose down first, then turn.). When MiG becomes sluggish I go to burner. Hell, I usually just keep it on burner. When bandit's Amraam goes active I break towards it's direction using the SPO RWR. But then (Definitely on burner here.) I start doing a violent scissors maneuver and liberally drop chaff. All the while I am trying to keep radar lock and to remain much lower that my opponent. You can either wait a while and just guess when to launch your second R77 at the bandit (Before his Amraam goes active.). Or you can wait for your your RWR to fall silent. Or you can even let up a little on the scissors with an incoming Amraam and launch and then continue to try and evade! If you get hit by the Amraam you don't have to worry about the fight any more.:doh: Launching the second R77 just before his Amraam goes active would probably be the best. Most (If not all.) of this have been mentioned here many times before. I usually do not even switch on my ECM when doing this. A couple of days ago I did this maneuver without firing back or using ECM. I evaded two Aim 120s and three Aim 9s before I took a third Aamraam in the face while trying to turn to engage the F15 that was at this stage above me. Where also out of chaff at this stage. Clearly this tactic has some major limitations. But it is a crudely effective way of putting up a fight in a one-on-one head situation against an F15. Being in burner the whole time makes you more vulnerable to IR missiles but you are maneuvering more violently. Also you better end the fight quickly before you run out of fuel. Because of fuel one should use MiG 29 for GCI or only patrol for short periods before returning to base. Trying to compete with the endurance of the Flanker and the Eagle is a sure fire way to get medals (Posthumously.). Lastly, in a dogfight, when launching missiles I try to pull a HUGE amount of lead. Then I ease up on the stick so that the missile don't have to pull allot of launching g and is aimed well ahead of the turning bandit. This will dramatically increase Pk. But if you try this against a human and he see that he is disappearing under your fighter's nose, he can break away without you seeing what he did. This will also not work at very close range.

Even more good news for F35. I really have to question the agenda of the media for badmouthing both the F22 and the F35. I watched a news report a while back on youtube that totally trashed the F22 (Called it the wicked witch of the east.). Then I read as statement released by Lockheed that debunked all their claims. Some time ago there was a post about claims made by the Rand Corporation about the F35 being "double inferior" to latest Flanker variants. This thread also contained a statement by the Rand Corporation itself that they never made these claims. Um, maybe it was this thread? @Invader Zim Yes, that is very good points you brought up. It is expensive; but there are allot in that package.

Actually it was widely reported that when designing stealth aircraft, certain concessions will have to be made. Specifically, in regard to what can be done with aerodynamics. Things that will affect maneuverability and top speed. And now it is stated in the media as some kind of big shocker that the Super Hornet is a better dogfighter than a F35! Give me a break. I will tell you what shocked me. That the F22 is great in a dogfight and can out-accelerate everything else! Do you expect a sniper to go toe-to-toe with a rifleman? No. But I expect a sniper to use superior camouflage and accuracy to be more lethal than a rifleman.

Why does F35 need to be as good in performance, turning ability, etc. as gen 4.5 fighters? It has a much smaller RCS. So look first-shoot-first capability against gen 4.5 fighters. Also higher survivability against IADS.

Point taken. But I am revering here to a war where territory is taken and then claimed to be that of the victorious country's own.

If we don't get solutions for our need for energy, rising dept and rapid population growth in some regions; I expect major conventional wars in the future. If the UN is disbanded (Although that I don't expect to happen.) for whatever reason major "territory grabbing" wars are back on the table. And Australia is a prime candidate. It is large with a low population density, big mineral wealth and relatively isolated. It seems that with the far reaching Flanker and Fullback specifically, Australia could face similar (But worse.) problems it had in the Second World War.

Jumping in extremely late here. But in regard to amraam effectiveness: Remember square rule for g. If your missile pull the same g as the target at twice the speed, then its turning circle is four times the size. By flying at night (I assume for all the evasions.) you can more easily spot the launch. If those Serbian pilots saw those missiles coming from say half the distance they did in reality, what would have happened? Increased Pk. Regardless... No matter if amraam's Pk was 30% or 60% (Or whatever.) back in 1999, what do you think will the Pk of the latest versions be now? Do you think an AIM 7M is only as good as an AIM 7E? I hope there have been a dramatic increase in fighter protection systems in this time frame as well! In my mind, the only system that was shown to be inadequate was the RWRs on the MiG 29. When it worked it was overwhelmed (According to some of the posts in this thread.). My hat off to those Serbian pilots that flew under those circumstances. They have BIG BRASS B@#$$!

My point is, that the thing is a political ploy and nothing will come of it.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I can not truly know what they are up to. But that is the worst display I have ever seen. It looks to me like they are bluffing. Hell, it looks like they unveiled the thing at the local Rotarian club! Avionics look like civilian stuff. Compare it to pictures of the HESA Shafaq. The F-313 mockup looks like it was done by spin-doctors and not by engineers. That is why I think it as fake and not an actual project.