Originally posted by Darkpr0


On a different note I would like to point out some technologies that came from Russia with love. But Americans still ain't got the idea to take the ideas and run with them!

360 Dgree Thrust Vectoring- Russians still topping this one off. It's a beautiful system in use on the S-32 Berkut and the MiG 1.44 Project. What would happen if you had that on the F-22?

3-D thrust vectoring was reject by the raptor team as this would mean having a circular engine exhaust which is very bad for RCS purposes, instead they went for 2-D thrust vectoring as this would allow a stealthy shaped engine exhaust. It had nothing to do with not mastering the technolgy that the raptor only has 2-D thrust vectoring but th

Any aircraft can have it's excellent purpose. Except of course, designs that won't stay in the air. In combat, it's mostly the pilot's training and abilities, combined with learned tactics of air engagement. Objective is to take advantage of your aircraft's abilities, and use them against your opponent's disadvantages. So it's the pilot and the tactics that makes a great design a great combat aircraft.

Example: Joint training with the Indian Air Force Mig-29's. Their tactics were excellent, and they were able to adapt to tactical changes rapidly, with pre-planned responses. The US F-15s did not have the latest model search and targeting radars. (lesser engagement range). The result, a surprise for US pilots. A Mig-29 in the hands of a skilled pilot is excellent.

Note: the tactical environment in the air is extremely complex. What works one day might not work the next day. All success is due to the pilot.

Just a note about some earlier comments on the MiG-25

The Americans assumed it was a Mach 3.2 fighter because they tracked a recon version doing this speed over Israel, which of course fried its engines. There were also the special Ye266 prototypes designed, like the streak eagle, for breaking records. So it wasn't necessarily the Russians lying about the capabilities of their aircraft, they merely didn't correct the Americans

As to it using Vaccum tubes, I vaguely remember that the MiG 25 had to use them as they didn't have transistors available that could cope with the extreme temperatures reached by the Foxbat, so they just used huge vaccum tubes. It was a fairly crude aircraft really, the aeronautical equivalent to a sledgehammer, still it did a good job in scaring the crap out of the Americans for a while until Belenko defected and revealed its secrets.

Like most secretive aircraft myths tend to build up over time becoming more and more outlandish, until some time down the track they are revealed and they seem disappointing compared to the myth that has built up.

I heard a story about the vaccum tubes being used to avoid susceptibility to EM pulses. Anyone shed any light on this?

1. The Russians (Soviets) still research vaccuum tube technology. Their understanding is way beyond anyone else. Vaccuum tubes are very resistant to EMP. But with current technology, EMP is very aggressive.

2. Moon lander vs modern avionic computers... Heck, my PDA is about 64 times what a moon lander had, maybe more. Modern tactical aircraft, speed of processing is where it's at. Your's must be faster than the other guy's gear.
Auto-defense tactics will be computer vs computer.

3. Russia getting engines from Britain. Oddly enough, I once ran across an old 1950's document about the US and Britain sending design engineers to the Soviet Union to help them improve their "commercial" aircraft engines. And that was at the height of the Cold War. This was not an article, it was a document detailing the entire project. Found in aerospace company library, obscure and gone now, don't even ask.

4. Thrust vectoring. Do you need it? Depends on where you're going and how you want to get there. Short range airfield defense, yeah, sounds good. Long range penetrating fighter/bomber? no thanks. Stealth 2-D works.

The comment regarding the USSR's lack of semiconductor technology as a factor in the MiG-25 utilizing vacuum technology is true.

However, lets not pooh-pooh vacuum tubes too strongly. Yes, they are big and bulky. And yes, they generate alot of heat that must be dissapated. However, they are very efficient amplifiers, and they have the added benefit of a very low internal noise ratio, making them much more sensitive for receiver applications. Ask any recording industry technician what they think of vacuum tube amps and receivers......

The USSR was the epitome of the phrase "necessity is the mother of invention". They were masters of making the best possible use of what they had available to them, even if it was not leading edge technology. The MiG-25 was designed to intercept multi-mach bomber aircraft over friendly territory at very high altitudes. Its AI radar was designed to only have to cope with the limited ECM of bomber aircraft. The Foxfire radar was designed to "burn through" the ECM of hostile bombers - it did not need to be exotic and multi-mode. It was sufficient for its intended mission.

Nice link, the naming of the Me 163B in regard to FSW research is confusing to me too, as far as I know (though I am pretty certain) FSW was never part of the Me 163 design programme, even as a 'what if?' element.

Regarding 'taillessness' however I can help you out. The term 'tailless' has been around for many decades and simply refers to an aircraft with no tailplane, hence tailless. From the Westland Pterodactyl through the Me 163, F-102, various Mirages and Concorde and up to the Tejas today, all these aircraft are correctly called 'tailless' due to the fact that they have no horizontal tail. Calling the fin 'the tail' is a relatively recent occurrence and has probably helped to add to the current confusion over what is tailless and what isn't.

The term has further become confused in recent years by the appearance of designs such as the US X-44 and the Indian MCA, these designs are best described as 'completely tailless' even though it is a bit of a mouthfull.

As I'm sure you already know, the horizontal stabiliser is called the tailplane and the vertical stabiliser is the Fin (usually including a rudder except on planes like the A-5 and TSR 2), therefore if an aircraft has no tailplane but still has a fin it is quite correct to call it tailless, and has been done so for many decades.

You will also see various descriptions of the current European fighters like the Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen where they are termed tailless delta canards.

It generally seems to be younger plane buffs (maybe like yourself?) who are confused by this distinction, probably because in my younger days the very idea of a plane with no vertical stabilising surfaces was completely unthinkable anyway so in those terms 'tailless' only referring to the horizontal stabiliser made perfect sense. I think technology has overtaken the terminology.




[edit on 10-10-2005 by waynos]

thanks for the support of the russians (hey somebody agrees with me and im only a 16 year old australian school student completely addicted to planes)
as i said first not many planes can compete to the brute force (one of russias design focuses) of the flanker, the f-22 does it with a bunch of electronics that can be fried and the jsf isnt even worth mentioning

Waynos,ShatteredSkies, Can you two cool it already? This thread is about poeple comparing Russian and American Technology, Not Shattered Skies vs. Waynos on Arrogance at ATS! Let get to the topic shall we?

Now, as for the mistaken idea that Russian Aircraft are inferior, That's open to debate. I am American, however, if my memory serves me right, Didn't we have a big problem in air to air combat against Migs in Vietnam? Clealy, they can't be all that bad. I think pilot traing and experience still counts for a lot. The Russian aircraft are pretty good, don't rush to count them out yet.

Also with Intelligence on both sides, I suspect that fighter of the same generation are roughly equal on both side. Both have stringths and weaknesses.

Tim

We had a problem against MiGs in Vietnam in large part because our missiles sucked, and the military was terrified to allow disimilar air combat manuvering because there were a bunch of accidents. So they were flying F-4 v F-4 with severe restrictions put on the engagements.

Not to say that the MiGs we were up against were BAD, or to take anything away from the Russian planes, but we were so handicapped against them that it's not surprising we had trouble.

[edit on 10/13/2005 by Zaphod58]

Your a few days late tim, I hope my last post above was perfectly civil and addressed an issue raised by shattered, right, now time to let the thread run its course again, sorry for digressing.

Yea Tim, need to read the most recent posts man. There was no arrogant disputing going on there.

Shattered OUT...

Originally posted by Sugarlump
Oh how quickly we forget that our darling f-117 and it's first generation stealth were based on an obscure mathematical treatise we dug up by a russian scientist....

How quickly you forget that the original mathimatical work was done by a GERMAN, and was just SIMPLIFIED by a Russian.