willedoo

The interesting thing in the future will be the development of the 6th. Gen. fighters and how what they learned from the F-35 programme will impact their future way of doing things. As they say in the article, a one size fits all programme is unlikely to be repeated. At the moment, it's the first time that the U.S. has had only one design in development. Russia and China both have a light fighter as well as a heavy air superiority fighter design on the go, as the U.S. used to have, so it would be reasonable to guess that the U.S. will revert to that combination with new 6th. generation programmes.

Snouts in the trough drive a lot of conflicts, very much so these days.

The pilots would be glad to get back home to their families. A smart move all round to rest the crews, and I'd guess some of the aircraft would also be due for engine changes; a job better done at home.

Here's the original clip that the gif image in post#42 was taken from, starts at 2.23:

Testing on the prototype lightweight Gen.3 helmet will start this month: http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/2016/03/14/light-f-35-helmet-tests-begin-dod-aims-fix-escape-system-year/81646430/

President Putin has ordered the Russian Air Force to withdraw from Syria: https://www.rt.com/news/335746-russia-syria-aircraft-withdrawal/ http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160316/1036368838/russia-withdrawal-versions.html;

Well, mnewbery, thank you for complimenting all the thread contributers for having a crack at it. And also, enjoy the briefing, and I hope you learn much from it. People have contributed to this thread for their own personal interest and in the interests of general discussion, rather than trying to educate any one forum member. No-one needs to come here to learn anything, that's obvious. Some people just enjoy lively and thoughtful discussion. Hopefully, you'll find a bit of that at the briefing.

As I see it, the obvious thing in this thread is that it is all very interesting to discuss the situation and speculate, but the reality is, that the more intertwined countries are with their trade relationships, the less likely the chance of any major conflict. I can't imagine too many people or countries seriously believe there will ever again be a major conflict with our regional neighbours. It's all about deterrant, which also boosts industry, corporate profits and jobs.

Always interesting to read these hypothetical scenarios. Some are a bit tongue in cheek, but nearly always make a lot of good points. I guess we are sometimes tempted to think of potential conflicts with an outdated WW2 type of mentality, but the reality would be a lot more different nowdays. Interesting reading the Rand Corporation assessment on a hypothetical Russian take over of the Baltics. They came up with the figure of 30-60 hours for the Russians to defeat NATO and gain complete control over Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The Pentagon did about 15 or 16 simulations, all with factors in NATO's favour, and came up with a NATO defeat every time. It might not work that way in reality, but it's good for business if Congress will agree to more defence spending. With our defence situation here, it makes you wonder which areas are the higher priority for funding.

It looks like he's got some shrunken heads on his belt.

It will be interesting to see what the eventual combat plan for the F-35 will be. Let's hope they don't just go on the theory that we're really clever and no-one can beat us. I'd guess they must have some sort of Plan B for that scenario, where you are in your F-35, with no armament left and in visual range of the enemy, who has faster, more agile aircraft (with some AA missiles left). Top Gun training would be a good thing to keep. The Russians have a different way of looking at it. They've always maintained that sooner or later it will merge in a tangle, and they build their aircraft and train their pilots accordingly. They all do a lot of regular dogfight training and a situation like that is second nature to them, plus they have the power and maneuverability to back up their piloting skills. If we could put our ego back in the box for a while, we could learn from them. Something that could be interesting in the future is the joint Australian/Indonesian exercises. By the time we have operational F-35's, the Indonesians will have a reasonable compliment of Su-35S's, so it will be an interesting close up comparison. Call me a sceptic, but I can see a bit of deja vu here. When the F-4 Phantom was built, the nobs decided that the era of the gun was gone and it's all missiles from now on. Vietnam sorted that theory out when Phantoms were being shot down by legacy MiG-17's. Now the descendants of those nobs are telling us that the era of dogfighting is gone, and with our technology we can destroy the enemy beyond visual range before they can detect us. Yeah, right.

Guard From Above is the company name - I think they're Dutch. They say they're the only company using birds of prey to intercept hostile drones. Hard to see it turning into big business, but who knows. I guess it might be viable for military base security. Cheers, Willie.

Link to an article on the problems and proposed fixes with the F-35's Martin Baker MK.16 US16E ejection seat: http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2016/01/08/f-35-ejection-seat-fix-delayed-2018-pilot-restrictions-continue/78519892/ Pilot weight restrictions are expected to remain in place until 2018. The risk is 'elevated' for pilots under 75kg., and 'unacceptable' for those under 62kg.. The way I understand it, is that the risk is present in low speed ejections. The lighter weight pilots cause the seat to rotate forward too much, leading to a snap back of the head and neck with deploymet of the main recovery chute. The proposed fixes seem logical. A lighter design helmet, a head support panel between the parachute risers, and a time delay switch for lighter pilots. I'm assuming the time delay for main chute deployment would allow the drogue time to stabilize the seat into a more upright position before the main opens. There's been no mention of the problem in a zero/zero ejection where a time delay would be an issue.

Kiwi, I'd tend to think that from a political point of view that the U.S wouldn't be too happy if we bought Chinese made fighters. But they'd probably get over it to a degree, whereas if we bought Russian, they'd think we were dancing with the devil. We already buy Chinese cars, clothes, food, tools, machinery and almost everything else, so it's not like it's some radical new thing to buy Chinese.

The video presentation I watched on the Red Flag de-briefing was centered on U.S. evaluations of the Indian Air force Su-30MKI. Probably a good insight into how the Russian Su-30's would stack up against U.S. fighters. They said that the best Indian pilots came over in the Bisons. One thing that I'd never really thought about until the presenter mentioned it, is that the MiG-21 has a naturally low radar signature without the jammer. Long and skinny, sharp features with delta wings and pointy intake shock cone etc., it would be harder to track than a MiG-29 or Su-27.

That's bad news for the bears, Kiwi. I don't know whether the ejectee in the photo is a test pilot or SKIF, the Russian test dummy. The seat is a K-36D-3-5A, the seat developed by the Russians with British partners for potential U.S. use in the F-22 and future tactical aircraft such as the F-35. Back in the 90's, some in the USAF recognised the superiority of the Russian ejection seats to the ACES2 and NACES seats, particularly at higher speeds expected with supercruise ability of the F-22 and future aircraft. The Foreign Comparative Testing Progamme was jointly undertaken in the U.S. and Russia using the K-36DM seat. In the end, the U.S. requirements were for a lighter version, mainly to enable a quicker chute deployment at low speeds. The Zvezda/ British joint venture developed this seat, the lighter K-36D-3-5A (A for America), which is based on the Russian K-36D-3-5. Zvezda did the science; I think the British partner was just to make the marketing more politically palatable. The original idea was to license build it for the F-22 and the F-35, but it never happened. The U.S. stuck with the ACES2 for the F-22, and the Martin Baker for the F-35. MB has gone back to the drawing board for a while with the MK.16 F-35 seats, as it's breaking the necks on the test dummies weighing less than about 10 stone. The only woman pilot is heavier than that, and only one male pilot has had to be re-assigned. But I guess their concern is that the weight safety restriction would prevent a lot of female pilots from flying the F-35 if no fix is found.

The cat isn't either.

Reading that report, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were reading about the never ending Microsoft operating system saga. One thing that seems to be in the back of the mind is ' what if stealth and some of this technology turn out to not be the be all and end all of things'. Maybe electronic advances will negate a lot of the new wizz bang features, and they just end up being eye candy attached to a fundamentally flawed airframe. Possibly in the future 4++ Gen. might be all we need. The Russians announced a couple of weeks ago they are starting on the 6th. Gen. design and preliminary work on 7th. Gen.. I wonder what that actually means, in an era when we haven't yet got the 5th. Gen. fighters to a stage of being reliable, and importantly, affordable. The Indian MiG-21 Bison is a good case. Upgraded early 60's technology that no U.S. legacy fighter can have a chance of defeating. After the Red Flag exercises with the Indians, some in the USAF are saying that only the F-22 has a chance against it. Just an old Vietnam War era banger with a flash jammer and new radar and avionics making fun of F-15's and F-16's. Do we really need a 150 million dollar Windows F3.5 flying laptop.

Correct there, Kasper; it's the An-12MLL testbed. That's not the link to the U.S.A. though. More related to the F-22 and F-35. The seat is the clue. Cheers, Willie.

VKK-4 high altitude partial pressure suit, circa late 50's.

This aircraft is not too hard to pick - the nationality is obvious, also that it's an ejection testbed. Question is, what aircraft is it, and what has it got to do with the U.S.A. ?

I guess something that works well for the price would be the go.

First time I've seen a duck do a ground loop.

With my interests and my line of work, I often hear the old Russian copy story. To a large degree, it's an urban myth. Many of the aircraft and engines referred to are actually license build arrangements, and in typical Russian fashion, the originals were improved on. I think it all started with the Russian use of the Rolls Royce Nene in the MiG-15 prototypes. Britain was hoping for a license deal, but the Russians reverse engineered the RR engines that they had bought, and operated them in different variants in production models. Russia was well on the way to being a leader in aerospace before the war broke out, but that put a lot of research and development on hold to concentrate on the war effort. After the war, Stalin was acutely aware that the West was making advances in jet technology, so a quick catch up plan was hatched. The main thing they realized was that it's a waste of time trying to re-invent the wheel, so 'borrowed ' technology was used to a degree. The copy myth grew from there. The Russians never copied anything because they were lazy or stupid- it was always for political and technical expediency. If one was to list their firsts in aerospace design and achievements, it would use up a lot of paper. One example is that the Russians in 1957, pioneered, developed and produced a pressure demand oxygen mask pressure compensating system. The Americans may not have copied it, but it took them an extra 35 years to produce what they call the Combat Edge System for the F-16 and F-15. The Russians had it when FE Holdens were rolling off the showroom floor. All in all, I'd estimate the copying to be about even on both sides.