Lucas_From_Hell

Egypt buys 'Vladivostok' and 'Sevastopol' Mistral-class carriers from France, and Ka-52 helicopters from Russia Read more: http://sputniknews.com/business/20150923/1027393230/france-egypt-mistral-sale.html#ixzz3meruKTjJ http://sputniknews.com/military/20150831/1026387554/egypt-orders-russian-ka-52-helicopters.html

The P-38 served a lot in Europe and North Africa too, exactly where the Italians and Germans were. It had long range and good high-altitude performance - needed to escort bombers - and could carry bombs and rockets, plus a lot of guns for strafing. Thanks for the photos!

A lot boils down to taste. That being said, one of my least favourite designs has to be the Yak-15. The Yak-17 fixed it a little bit, but the 15... It might have been revolutionary, and a ridiculously light and compact fighter for its time, but those looks, the tail wheel and particularly considering that it 'ruined' a sleek plane like the Yak-3 kill it for me. And here it is before botox-gone-wrong:

This was up yesterday on TheLocal.se (an English-language local news portal that operates in many European countrines) here: http://www.thelocal.se/20150831/russian-fighter-jets-spotted-east-of-gotland They have updated it since then, the correct version appears to be that the Su-27 were escorting the Tu-22M from Kaliningrad back to mainland Russia through international airspace, and JAS-39 aircraft from Götland went up to take a closer look.

Nearly off-topic, but goes here to display some 'quality' journalism: ED, please add a Swedish skin to the Su-27 and correct fighter loadouts for the Tu-22 :D

Great post! About your questions, it would not have had much effect on anything at all I believe. I have my doubts about the engine mount because this two-engine-one-prop arrangement made another otherwise promising Heinkel design a flying fiery death trap (He-177 "Ural Bomber"). I can't say if it would have done much on the Western front, but when it comes to throughout the Eastern Front battles, while the He-119 could fly fast, high and for long distances (nearly 600km/h at 4500m with a ceiling of 8500m), the Soviet MiG-3 had excellent high-altitude performance and could make around 640km/h over 7000m, with a pretty good range for a fighter (1000km+). It could have made a difference before Operation Barbarossa if used properly, but the real implications of this aircraft becoming operational would have been hindered by doctrine, namely the half-assed German intel efforts on Soviet military and industrial capacity and Soviet reluctance to properly intercept German recce aircraft - in other words, Germany's intel incompetence would have made its high performance overkill, and Soviet incompetent high command would have made it double redundant since anything could have flown unopposed anyway. My 2c of course - either way thanks for the article, good read :)

Russia's new MiG-35S fighter scheduled to enter service 2018 Quoting Colonel-General Viktor Bondarev, Commander of the Russian Air Force: I'm delighted it will finally enter service, I was starting to wonder if it would ever after so many years :)

Putin & Hollande reach agreement on Mistral cancellation All Russian funds, equipment and materials are to be returned. After all Russian equipment is removed, France will gain full ownership and control of the vessels.

Flanker, are these from Aviadarts 2015? :) MiG-31 cockpit, night

1. C (only if feasible however, either work. A Recon version of either would be interesting if DCS allows for it to be useful) 2. A 3. A or B 4. A (if possible) All in all, whatever you guys find more reasonable and fits you better as a company. Great job with the C-101 by the way :)

Full LM article here

Kolga, now you've intrigued me, I'm looking forward to that :D Tirak, I would argue though. When a virtual pilot tries to fly the hardest plane in a sim without previous experience, they will learn not how to fly but how to keep that thing flying straight. Same goes for systems management. Of course, eventually time does the trick but if said person had spent some time flying a subsonic aircraft and mastering flight dynamics and systems in it, they would reach their prime faster when getting to something more advanced.

History has shown over and over that once you throw a newbie into an advanced plane without proper training they will fall out of the skies like a brick. Soviet pilots paid the price when the MiG-3 was introduced for example. No advanced trainers, crashes left and right, because they didn't know how to handle an advanced plane even though they had many available. Trainers exist to create a better pilot overall. Then comes conversion training to create a better pilot for that specific plane, usually in 2-seater versions of whatever they will fly. Baby steps allow for more thorough training in the most basic elements of flying, which one would be too busy keeping a Mach 2 interceptor from crashing to observe. It's the same reason why you learn to stand on a snowboard before doing freestyle jumps with it: your jumps, once you get to them, will be better, because all the elements will be second nature and you will be able to focus on the jump itself. I agree with all of it, but just a note: the SHORT Tucano (dev by VEAO) is a training aircraft. The SUPER Tucano (not in development by anyone AFAIK) is a full-fledged attack aircraft. It won the USAF's light attack competition to arm the Afghan Air Force, and it has been ordered by the UAE recently if I remember correctly. It's more A-10 than Hawk, in short.

Great photos, Terence! By the way, that's the Egyptian Air Force roundel, check out their F-16s for example.

Grey Su-25, 2013. Minister of Defence Sergey Shoigu reversed his predecessor Serdyukov's order to paint all aircraft grey back in 2012, but "only new aircraft and those that have undergone major repairs" are repainted with terrain-specific camouflage.

My impression is that generally speaking there are far less flights including routine operations, but that's hard to check without insider's knowledge. Anyhow, something for the Su-33 fans: (Source) Good news for the Su-33, hopefully the arrival of the MiG-29K will motivate the VMS to really change its attitude considering the Adm. Kuznetsov's previous sea record.

That's a Mirage 2000N-K3 from EC 2/4 'La Fayette'. It was formed in 1947, and the interesting thing is that it combined traditions from EC 2/5 'La Fayette' - itself a followup of the American Escadrille Lafayette - and EC 2/4 'Les Diables Rouges'.

Politics aside (as per rules), activity has still been minimal on the air force's part if compared to last year's endless processions of snap drills. The navy, army and air defence elements are the busiest this year (particularly in the Arctic). Tu-95 activity has always been constant even when the climate is calm, I don't see why these flights are so newsworthy all of a sudden. Tons of good photos exist even back in the Tornado F days of NATO interceptions of Tu-95s, including even Alaskan F-22s. That asides, today everyone is building up troops and making recce, SIGNIT and etc. flights. It's just not considered newsworthy. :)

Msvegas, I honestly don't know what is the appropriate organization. I keep informed through online news channels and occasionally 1TV, sorry. But if you research Russian Air Force crashes and limit the results to 2014 you will not find many instances. A fun fact is that one of the MiG-29 crashes had the chief of the safety department at the commands, a general nonetheless. Needless to say, the fleet was grounded right after the incident, from which he and the backseater recovered already. Karambiatos, the thing is last year's flying schedules were way tighter and involved much more complex operations and exercises. Plus, while I don't know the model of the Tu-95, Su-24 and one of the MiG-29 which crashed, two of the incidents included a MiG-29KUB and a Su-34. Both are fairly new aircraft. I will be waiting out for the preliminary investigation results, hopefully that should teach us more.

Maybe in the United States, but unless I missed some data the Russian Air Force has had more accidents these past two months than in the whole of 2014 despite having more and larger-scale exercises back then.

I don't see how a flight of F-35 cannot provide cover for a strike package against fighters, especially since it can mix up with the attack element making it harder to see who is the real target. Even up against stealth fighters, you need them to find you. If they do, and you can track them reasonably, it's likely both parties will fire whatever IR missiles they have at each other way before going "vertical scissors Kobra kung fu guns TVC" on each other. Finally, even when this does happen it's all down to tactics and a number of other factors like numbers, weapons load, fuel/distance (ie how long can you engage for before BINGO), ROE and etc. which combined mean WAY more than who can climb/turn better. In fact, go read that thread on this section about the Soviet evaluation of the F-5E versus the MiG-21 and MiG-23, which outperform the Tiger greatly. Says a lot about how far parameters get you in a knife fight, whenever it does happen.

What a disastrous couple of months for military aviation... :( From the top of my head, we had 2 F-16s in the US (1 dead), 1 MiG-29, 1 MiG-29KUB, 1 Su-34, 1 Tu-95 (1 dead) and 1 Su-24 (2 dead) in Russia, plus that horrible Indonesian C-130B crash with 141 deaths.

Bad day for the attack aviation A Su-24M crashed upon take-off in the Khabarovsk region, Russian Far East. Unfortunately, unlike luckier pilots who escaped in the past months, both crew members died at the scene. (Source) All Su-24 flights have been grounded until further notice. (Source) On a separate note, investigators suspect either a bird strike or a technical failure of one of the engines caused last week's MiG-29 crash in Kuban'. (Source)

MiG-29K refueling Yak-130. Did not know the Yak had a probe.

Short version: Russian Air Force MiG-29 crashed in Kuban region. Cause: pilot noticed on-board fire, contacted base and ejected; aircraft crashed in a deserted area. http://rbth.com/news/2015/07/03/fighter_jet_that_crashed_in_kuban_had_fire_onboard_-_source_47456.html