Lucas_From_Hell

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

Funny how the F-117 - with the aerodynamics of a matchbox and defence armament consisting of prayers and an ejection seat - was revered as a force to be reckoned with, and a commander's worst nightmare. Enough aircraft were lost over areas like Baghdad because of SAM/AAA, in situations where the F-35 would have come out unscathed, and the F-117 did so repeatedly. Make that supersonic, more maneuverable and able to bite back and you have a lot of trouble to deal with. Stealth was always a pain to deal with. Remember, German troops were extremely demoralised by slow defenceless training biplanes dropping lead on their heads with the engines off at night. The Bf-109 outran, outmaneuvered and outgunned the U-2, but it couldn't see it in the first place. As they say, lose the sight...

While I have some reservations on the F-35, I think people behave like over-expecting parents with it. The degree of pickiness is just gone overboard. The F-35 doesn't have to be better than all of the aircraft in every single aspect, and people don't seem to grasp that. Its purpose is to increase the overall battlefield capabilities of the air forces it will equip, even if that means some performance trade-offs. Example: the F-4 at its inception also had terrible maneuverability (a 'jaca', as Brazilian pilots would say), no internal cannon and missiles with less than enviable performance. It still was a substantially more capable aircraft than the Century series aircraft it replaced, despite many of the latter being much better dogfighters and having a gun to finish their business once the missiles run out. Even if the F-35 fights worse than all present teen series aircraft, it can infiltrate heavy air defences more easily and probably without getting shot down as it happened to so many of the F-16s, F-15s, A-10s and so on in the same situations. It may indeed be in trouble if it flies low enough for IR SAM coverage, or if other fighters manage to scramble in time, find it and avoid getting shot down before being able to engage. Then yes, you are in trouble. In all other situations however, I would rather be in the F-35 than the F-16.

A curious bit is that the USAF Have Doughnut evaluations of the MiG-21 (albeit an F-13 version) were not so confident of the advantages of their designs except for the F-4, to whom they gave a manoeuvrability edge despite IIRC reports of the contrary by USAf pilots in Vietnam. Teamwork was deemed essential, and if mutual support is lost, go above M0.98 and run away fast. In the same evaluation the F-5N was said to perform better under 15,000 but generally the aircraft perform nearly identically (it was also recommended that the F-5 be used for DACT, which happened). It was noted that while mil power and turn capabilities were about the same, the MiG-21 was better at afterburning acceleration and instantaneous G turns. Another interesting thing is that the fire control capabilities were found to be the same, when the F-5 was regarded as superior even against latter MiG-21 models for its modern HUD.

ANG F-16 flown by Iraqi pilot crashes in Arizona No additional information so far.

Pacific Fleet drills: two P-270 Moskit hit target ship. Someone call Michael Bay :D