the russians

why do most people brush of all russian aircraft as been inferior to all american aircraft? (im australian and not russian)

true the yanks have the stealthy fa-22 and the dodgy jsf coming but the russians have the mighty flanker (Su-27 -30 -32 -33 -34 -35 -37) family.
i would take on all USAF fighters in a Su-30 MKI exept the raptor

a few other things i dont agree with
the mig-29 is usually considered the best russian fighter, the closest US equivelant is the FA-18, the flanker series is more comparable to the F-15 but is overlooked

bomber wise the Tu-160 is usually overlooked as the best bomber

I find most people dont brush off Russian fighters Infact I always see them ranked very high on any list on ATS of the best fighters.

Bomber are another story IMHO the Tu-160 just cant compare with bomber like the B-2.

I dont think anybody blows off Russian fighters nor thier designs. However from an objective standpoint Russian fighters etc. have had issues with:

R&D funding or lack there of
Range
Combat records ( I do realize that alot of that dwells with 3rd world countires) but is a valid point none the less when confronted in recent year

etc etc etc.

The Tu-160 is an impressive plane but the design coincidences with the B-1 makes me sceptical that its entirely origional

Originally posted by Forsazh
why do most people brush of all russian aircraft as been inferior to all american aircraft? (im australian and not russian)

I know what you're talking about, however most of the more knowledgeable ATSer's don't poopoo the Russian aircraft,they do however make the point that the Russians are economically unable to match the R&D that has gone into American military aircraft programs in the last 2 decades.

To their credit however, the Russians have shown that they can produce conventional combat aircraft with performance capabilities equal to or greater than American performance capabilities (the Raptor notwithstanding) and do so with far less money.

The difference is philosophical and reflects the tendency lately for the US to spend billions in order to build something as perfect as perfect can be, where the Russians are experts at knowing when "just good enough" is good enough.

[edit on 8-10-2005 by intelgurl]

The problem I see with Russian planes is that their announced specs differ from the real plane specs.
For example the MIG 25 theoretically could go all the way to Mach 3.2. The fact was that the plane plane couldn't go above Mach 2.8 without destroying its engines...

That happens a lot with Russian Planes. It is the same as with the grain barrels in Animal Farm. They were showed to be full, but they were not even close to be half full. This means that you don't really know if what you see in the exhibits are the real plane capabilities...

Other thing is that Russian planes have tons of problems with their computer and electrical systems. They are known for their erratic behaviour and constant problems greatly compromising the plane actual performance. For example a plane could be conceived to achieve certain speed or agility, however the computer systems onboard would not allow it. They could probably fix it temporarily for an exhibit but not for combat.

Originally posted by carcharodon
The problem I see with Russian planes is that their announced specs differ from the real plane specs.
For example the MIG 25 theoretically could go all the way to Mach 3.2. The fact was that the plane plane couldn't go above Mach 2.8 without destroying its engines...

That happens a lot with Russian Planes. It is the same as with the grain barrels in Animal Farm. They were showed to be full, but they were not even close to be half full. This means that you don't really know if what you see in the exhibits are the real plane capabilities...

Other thing is that Russian planes have tons of problems with their computer and electrical systems. They are known for their erratic behaviour and constant problems greatly compromising the plane actual performance. For example a plane could be conceived to achieve certain speed or agility, however the computer systems onboard would not allow it. They could probably fix it temporarily for an exhibit but not for combat.

is that statement based on facts or is it just your opinion?? cause if it is based on facts i wud like to see some sources on it

Originally posted by Forsazh

i would take on all USAF fighters in a Su-30 MKI exept the raptor

and you would probably win a majority of the times

The statement about the MiG-25 is true. I read the book about the pilot that defected to Japan in one. He said that the only times they got up to Mach 3.2 in them, the engines have massive amounts of damage to them after the flights and had to be replaced.

Russian engines have always been.....interesting. I met several pilots after they let Russian generals come through here. The Condor would sit at the end of the runway for two minutes at full power with the brakes locked, and if none of the engines failed, they released the brakes and took off. If they did, then turned around and taxied back.

[edit on 10/8/2005 by Zaphod58]

Talk of Russian engines reminds of an aspect that I have wondered about before, the Russians must have had some sort of lead over the west in jet engine technology in the 1950's, even if some of us do not like the fact. The thing that makes me think this is primarily the way in which the Russian equivalents to western bomber could be powered by only half the number of engines, for instance the four engined HP Victor was roughly equivalent to the twin jet Tu-16 whilst the four engined Myasischev Mya-4 was built in response to the 8 engined B-52. Likewise Russias answer to the four jet DH Coment was the twin jet, Tu-16 based, Tu-104. Whatever is said about workmanship and reliability that has to represent some degree of engine tech that was quite beyond us at the time.

Actually it was the Brits that are to blame for early Russian jet engines. They lost a bet or something like that, so had to crate one up and send to them, and the Russians were able to reverse engineer it and improve upon it.

Sorry I don't remember all the details. I remember it was either a poker game, or a bet, or something like that.

[edit on 10/8/2005 by Zaphod58]

Your referring to the Rolls-Royce Nene centrifugal turbojet.

The Soviets were well behind in jet engine technology, even though they had captured data from the Nazis (definitely airframe and rocketry data, I'm not sure about engines).

So, basically Stalin told the lads at the design bureau's to sort it, and they said we need a copy of plans or something, it was suggested they approach the British to buy a Nene. The British government, well, I think it was the trade & commerce side that forced it, sold them the Nene, despite strong protests from the military/RAF etc.

Thanks. I knew it was something like that, but it's been a long time since I heard the story. I know the Russians would also go through airplane plants in soft soled rubber shoes, and pick up metal shavings to determine what the planes and parts were being made of. They'd go back and pick the shavings out of their shoes and do a metalurgical analysis of it.

A bit of a myth has built up about this story. It is true that the British sold the Nene to the Russians( the 'bet' story is total fiction, I wonder where it even came from?), and the Russians then produced copies of it by the thousand, powering several first generation fighters and bombers for the SovAF. The most famous recipient of course, ironically, being the MiG 15 which fought against various British and US fighters in Korea with decent success.

However this was only a stopgap measure in the Soviet Jet engine programme as huge amounts of data, specimen engines and even designers and technicians were acquired from Germany in 1945, mainly relating to the Jumo 004 axial engine, and the main thrust of Soviet engine development was built on this, not the Nene.

Your all wrong. The biggest setback for the russians comes in the form of computer engineering. The US is easily 20 years ahead of the russians in terms of computers and thats why they are unable to match our development. They do not have the electrical and computer power in their planes, missiles, radars etc to match ours. Remember they were still using transistors and such in most of their planes when we were using full blown microprocessors.

This is the single largest fact that has contributed to their falling behind. The advances in computers has allowed the US r& D to model and design so extremely well, that theres no other country who can come close.

It doesnt matter if they have faster planes, or can do super cobra maneuvers, or lift more gross weight, etc etc, if we can scramble their radars, defeat them with electronic warfare, black out their radar scopes, be invisible to their radars, be untracable to their heat seeking missiles, they have no chance, and thats exactly what we have the capablity to do.

Train

Originally posted by intelgurl
I know what you're talking about, however most of the more knowledgeable ATSer's don't poopoo the Russian aircraft,they do however make the point that the Russians are economically unable to match the R&D that has gone into American military aircraft programs in the last 2 decades.

To their credit however, the Russians have shown that they can produce conventional combat aircraft with performance capabilities equal to or greater than American performance capabilities (the Raptor notwithstanding) and do so with far less money.

The difference is philosophical and reflects the tendency lately for the US to spend billions in order to build something as perfect as perfect can be, where the Russians are experts at knowing when "just good enough" is good enough.

[edit on 8-10-2005 by intelgurl]

Well the main problem with this R&D Comes from not having billions of peopl and trillions of dollars to spend on advanced projects. But you're right, and what the Russions have done is pretty remarkable with the budgets they got. Take the S-32 Berkut. Almost of not completely undone before, the forward-swept wings created an aircraft without super technology or any other scrap that put into the F-22.

Originally posted by BigTrain
It doesnt matter if they have faster planes, or can do super cobra maneuvers, or lift more gross weight, etc etc, if we can scramble their radars, defeat them with electronic warfare, black out their radar scopes, be invisible to their radars, be untracable to their heat seeking missiles, they have no chance, and thats exactly what we have the capablity to do.

Yes but why would you DO that? There is no current war with Russia, unless you guys go all out and declare world war or something. You are correct that the big problem is computer systems. But there are some planes that can match the American ones without all that advanced technological stuff.

Originally posted by BigTrain
Your all wrong.

That's just arrogance.

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?

Front Fins - Very sorry I forgot the proper name for these. But they are on aircraft like the Su-35 Flanker. They do some pretty cool stuff and let you do things that you can't do with just elevators. I know the Americans have played with the idea but I don't see it on any fighter aircraft today. I like the use in the Eurofighter, though!

Awesome Looks and Maneuvers- Absolutely pointless, but its still cool. Have you seen the new MiG and Sukhois? If they were women I suspect they'd be full-time models! How bout the F-35? NAW! Disgusting plane. American airshows consist of aircraft flying over your heads, doing a couple rolls, maybe flying at one another. Joy. I really do like the Russian aircraft that do the Kulbuit and Super Cobra maneuvers (Same thing?). I've tried it several times with all the russian aircraft on Flight Simulator 2004, and finally got it to work. Know what? I only got it to work with the Russian Aircraft. Not one American one could quite pull it off and these are models tweaked by professionals.

Yes, I like Russia.

Was it the Russians (Soviets) that introduced canards?

I know the Wright flyer used a canard arrangement and all that (XB-70 had them too etc etc).

But onto a fighter... the X-29 looked at them in the 80s, but the Saab Viggen had them in the 60s...

The SAAB Viggen was the first canard fighter to go into service. The Russians tested a canard version of the MiG 21 too in the '60's but this does not mean the introduced canards. As you say, the Wright flyer was a canard but the format has persisted throughout aviation history. Focke Wulf flew a canard prototype in the thirties and there were many prototypes in the forties, such as the Curtiss XP-55 and the Handley Page Manx to name but two.

The canards on the Viggen however were not designed for agility as they are today, but were instead included to give the Viggen STOL capability, the first deliberately unstable canards designed for agility, in the modern manner, were, simultaneously, the British Aerospace EAP and Dassault Rafale A which flew in the summer of 1986 and were technology demonstrators for the Typhoon and Rafale C and M fighters.

Why are we referring to the S-37 Berkut(Test bed version) as the S-32? It's the improper designation as there was another S-32 in the early 1950's, late 1940's that wasn't FSW. So Sukhoi Redesignated the S-32 the S-37 in the mid 1980's and in 2002 redesignated it Su-47 for production, after Sukhoi realized that not only was the S-37 good for production, but also they just didn't have the R&D to build a completely different aircraft based on the S-37 design.

I like Canards, they pretty, they were used on the F-15S/M ACTIVE at the Dryden Facility to test Thrust Vectoring and Canards on the F-15. The first Experimental American aircraft(or aircraft in general) to have Thrust vectoring control was the X-31(also had small canards).

As to where the Canards came from, I don't know. Now, what some people seem to be under the misimpression of, is that the Su-47 is better than the F/A-22, now be it, it is more manueverable at lower speeds and does have a much lower stall speed in clean configuration, but it is not good at high speeds, the FSW is horrible for manuevering at high speeds. So that's the one downside on the Su-47(Look in to the Switchblade to see the best of both worlds).

Now true, that the Russians are lagging behind in computer technology, but that's still not to say that they have turned out some pretty amazing stuff under their current conditions. I don't think any one can argue that.

And 2 Dimensional thrust vectoring is just perfect on the F/A-22, I think that its stealth capabilities more than make up for the loss of one dimension in thrust vectoring. And I believe that the F-15 is in fact capable of performing the Cobra Manuever.

However, the most capable of the Sukhois is the Su-30 MKI liscenced under India, and here is the reason. India, unlike Russia, has the resources and the R&D to put in high tech computer technologies and improve upon the engines of the Su-30 MK. So not only does the MKI have advanced Thrust Vectoring Control in all three dimensions, but also has pretty decent RADAR and computer hardware on board.

Shattered OUT...

I accept the compliment but I would like to state that as far as "engine" technologies go, the Russians are way better than the Indians or anybody else for that matter.
India does not have the capability to enhance the MKI engine..
India's engine tech is equivalent to the level of the GE404 as of now, not more..

Originally posted by BigTrain
Your all wrong. The biggest setback for the russians comes in the form of computer engineering. The US is easily 20 years ahead of the russians in terms of computers and thats why they are unable to match our development. They do not have the electrical and computer power in their planes, missiles, radars etc to match ours.

What are you talking about?

The F/A-22's CPU is 16Mhz and the plane is running on obsolete technology from the 80s, so I think it's more like 20 years behind rather than 20 years in front...