Aircraft Vs Thread 5

[Bri]

The 187 number includes strategic reserves for just that situation, and the Russians will have to deal with the same issues (newer aircraft generally have to deal with teething issues that lower MC rates). But again this whole argument is moot since any direct conflict between the US and Russia would go Nuclear very quickly, turning both fleets into so much air pollution.

I guess thats part of the problem with fifth generation aircraft. No enemy on the horizon any time soon to justify their existence. I would think the Navy made the right bet to invest in a single type of craft with relative young airframes, they can just wait and see if and when they are going to need a replacement.

Edited March 1, 2010 by Bri

[Nied]

Doesn't discount the fact that the US and India have opposing interests over the Pakistan. US and India just have some common interests now that China is rising. You will note that despite buying lots of US equipment they are also maintaining their close ties with Russia-- the PAK FA is a good example of that, if you want to talk about economic linkages between tech and aerospace companies.

India is maintaining ties with Russia more out of inertia than anything else, and even so maintaining ties with a mildly antagonistic country is a far stretch from armed conflict. India simply isn't going to risk the loss of a large chunk of it's air force over a conflict with the US (remember that airplanes need spare parts and support from the manufacturer to keep flying), not to mention the absolute devastation it would do to their economy. Yes we maintain ties with their antagonistic neighbor, but we have maintained long and fruitful relationships with with two conflicting countries before. No one thinks we are going to war with Greece or Turkey over their longstanding conflict, ditto with South Korea or Japan, if anything our relationships with those countries makes conflicts between them (and us) less likely.

[Nied]

I should add that it's only because of the confluence of post-colonialism and Cold War gamesmanship that India has any ties with Russia at all. They're a multi-ethnic secular democracy with a common law legal tradition, I have a hard time coming up with a better archetype for "natural ally of the US" than that. Only the fluke of the timing of their independence kept them from becoming an ally sooner.

Edited March 1, 2010 by Nied

[Noyhauser]

Doesn't discount the fact that the US and India have opposing interests over the Pakistan. US and India just have some common interests now that China is rising. You will note that despite buying lots of US equipment they are also maintaining their close ties with Russia-- the PAK FA is a good example of that, if you want to talk about economic linkages between tech and aerospace companies.

What are those opposing interests? What you said was true maybe a prior to 1990 and 2000, but certainly not since September 11th. Pakistan was the stumbling block between the relationship, but no longer. Both India and the United States want a Pakistan that respects its neighbors, doesn't support terrorism or territorial aggression. Both India and the United States want resolution over Kashmir and a stable, peaceful Afghanistan. There has been a deterioration of relations between Pakistan and United States which has facilitated cooperation with India.

Moreover, buying from Russia doesn't mean the country has any sort of close political relationship. Its just a source of weapons, thats all. If France offered a new carrier to them at a reasonable cost, the Indians would jump on it. Russia also is problematic as a source of weapons. Russian equipment are often delivered late, of inferior quality, and do not come with great industrial benefits. The whole Admiral Gorshkov episode is a very good example of that; four years overdue (and counting), overcost, with inferior aircraft, and with absolutely no industrial benefits. Boeing already opened a research and development facility in Bangalore and uses Indian subcontractors extensively for a number of different areas. A few military programs here and there with Russia pales in comparison to the fundamental scale of economic cooperation between the United States and India. Finally don't discount the power of the Indian diaspora, which has facilitated expanding cooperation between the two nations. Russia doesn't enjoy anything close to that relationship.

Moving on-- how far along the developmental path is the X-47 anyway? Has it done actual carrier landings yet?

First flight has been pushed back for the X-47B (after the prototype of the X-47A), but F/A-18Es already have some automation in their landing sequence (which may be expanded up to full automation soon,) and there are integration efforts with the X-47 using a surrogate aircraft.

Edited March 1, 2010 by Noyhauser

[joseph]

Pak-fa pic:

[D.D. Ivanov]

We've already established the fact that the last pic is a fake.

[Nied]

We've already established the fact that the last pic is a fake.

No we haven't. From the Exif data it actually appears to be quite real.

[anime52k8]

No we haven't. From the Exif data it actually appears to be quite real.

all I'm saying is the 51 on the nose looks crooked and more pixilated than the rest of the picture. maybe it's just a crappy picture.

[the white drew carey]

No we haven't. From the Exif data it actually appears to be quite real.

My vote is fake.

Along with the questionable 'details' that everyone has been mentioning (the 51 and red star) if you watch the takeoff video, you can see the exact moment with the photo was taken, as the plane lifts off moments before it passes a group of observers and a photographer on the ground.

At 0:16 in you can see the observers, the photographer is the only one not wearing black, and he is in the middle of the crowd. Then at 0:36-0:38 is the takeoff, with the plane passing the observers at 0:38.

Between the angle of the photo, the position of the plane, the shadows (indicating time of day), and the level of snow on the ground; deductive reasoning shows a high probability that the debut flight is when the photo was taken, with the paint scheme and markings photoshopped in later.

Edited March 2, 2010 by the white drew carey

[joseph]

We've already established the fact that the last pic is a fake.

Is real but some pak-fa pic were modifier by Sukhoi.

[miles316]

I wonder if The T-50 has a Rear Facing SRAAM bay integrated near the Vertical Fins were the Fins Meet the Rear Fuselage.

[anime52k8]

I wonder if The T-50 has a Rear Facing SRAAM bay integrated near the Vertical Fins were the Fins Meet the Rear Fuselage.

what?

[Knight26]

what?

It's a firefox reference, since some are hoping it will be callsigned that by NATO.

[F-ZeroOne]

Presumably pilots of the T-50 are already thinking in Russian.

[Bri]

I'm sure Clint Eastwood is too old to nick it now.

Edited March 2, 2010 by Bri

[Vostok 7]

Pak-fa pic:

Mmmm lineart. *russian plane fanatic nerdgasm*

[David Hingtgen]

Hmmn. PAK-FA wing outboard trailing edge. Does that align with *anything* else? if it doesn't, there's no point to angling it. Outer edge of LERX seems unique too--though if they spread out just a bit wider, they'd align with the inner edge of the tailbooms/outer edge of h.stabs.

[Vostok 7]

Supposedly the LERX are maneuvering surfaces, in lieu of canards.

[David Hingtgen]

Oh, they definitely move, it's quite clear in some of the pics. Though I suspect they act more like either the F-15's intakes or an F-14's glove vanes, rather than a primary means of pitch control---more of an "unloading of the tail planes" effect than anything. (or like the F-15 again, for both high-speed pitch authority and engine airflow) (it's not well known that the F-15's intake ramps are not solely for engine airflow--at high speeds they start acting like canards a bit, and will move with pitch commands--but they are just a small supplement)

[altermodes]

all I'm saying is the 51 on the nose looks crooked and more pixilated than the rest of the picture. maybe it's just a crappy picture.

about the numbers on the nose looks crooked , if this pic is correct

buy the looks of the frontal profile, maybe the front nose gear being higher than the rear landing gear (not sure what it is exactly called ) nose might explain it...

that or a it could have a drooping nose

Edited March 3, 2010 by altermodes

[Nied]

I can see why people could think the painted picture was shopped, it's very similar to this one from the PAK-Fa's first flight, but like I said the EXIF data for each picture is different (you can look at it yourself by saving the picture and right clicking it and looking at it's properties). The unpainted picture was taken on January 29th by a Canon EOS-1D with a 100mm focal length and a exposure time of 1/1250sec. It looks like whoever took it did some tweaking after the fact in Adobe Photoshop CS3. The painted picture on the other hand was taken on February 12th by a Canon EOS 450D with a 55mm focal length and a 1/800sec shutter time, whoever it was that took this picture used Photoshop Elements 2 to tweak it. You can edit some of the EXIF data right in windows (things like the camera used and the date) while other parts (F-stop, shutter speed, focal length) need special software. Photoshop doesn't even allow you to edit any of the EXIF data. You'll also note the that the shadows in the two pictures are different, the big one that stands out to me is that the right main gear is completely cast in shadow in the painted pic, while it's getting hit with quite a bit of sun in the picture from the first flight. It becomes really obvious when you super-impose the two images on top of each other. As you can see the T-50 is flying at slightly different angles in each picture so that most of the parts don't line up exactly. If you move things around a little so that the runway lines up it looks like the first flight (unpainted) photo was taken at a slightly different point in the takeoff run, also the different focal lengths of each shot cause the background elements to become mis-matched.

[David Hingtgen]

IMHO the argument isn't that the painted pic is a photoshop of the first----it's that it's a photoshop of another, similar pic of which the un-shopped version hasn't ever been seen.

Or, they over-enhanced/tweaked certain aspects of a legitimate pic to the point that it looks very 'shopped. (I still don't like the intake warning stripe about all else--that's the first thing that caught my eye, more so than the bort number)

[Nied]

In that case I gotta pull out my old buddy Occam and his razor. Which is more likely: That someone took a picture of the first flight of one of the most hotly anticipated aircraft in the last decade, and then sat on it for nearly a month while they meticulously painted a complex camo pattern, and did such a good job of it that no trace of the original colors show, and then finally went in and edited the EXIF data so that even photo geeks like me would be fooled? Or it's actually a picture of the painted T-50 taken on the date listed in the EXIF data that's been run through a few too many crappy filters in Photoshop Elements?

[David Hingtgen]

Wouldn't it have been quicker and easier just to design a new bomber than reverse-engineer a B-29 down to the tiniest detail? This is the Russian aviation industry we're talking about...

[Uxi]

Not like editing the EXIF data takes extraordinary effort compared to the chopping.

[Vostok 7]

If it's real then the number is crooked. And why would they number a prototype "Blue 51"? Even the S-37/Su-47 was numbered 01. Unless it's a play on being the first T-50, but I doubt it. And why camo for a prototype? Just doesn't add up very well.

[Phyrox]

In that case I gotta pull out my old buddy Occam and his razor. Which is more likely: That someone took a picture of the first flight of one of the most hotly anticipated aircraft in the last decade, and then sat on it for nearly a month while they meticulously painted a complex camo pattern, and did such a good job of it that no trace of the original colors show, and then finally went in and edited the EXIF data so that even photo geeks like me would be fooled? Or it's actually a picture of the painted T-50 taken on the date listed in the EXIF data that's been run through a few too many crappy filters in Photoshop Elements?

If my lifetime in history has taught me anything it's that Occam's Razor does not apply to the real world. Theoretical physics; yeah...real life; not so much.

[joseph]

about the numbers on the nose looks crooked , if this pic is correct

buy the looks of the frontal profile, maybe the front nose gear being higher than the rear landing gear (not sure what it is exactly called ) nose might explain it...

that or a it could have a drooping nose

Yes. Pak-fa down noise when landing.

[electric indigo]

In that case I gotta pull out my old buddy Occam and his razor. Which is more likely: That someone took a picture of the first flight of one of the most hotly anticipated aircraft in the last decade, and then sat on it for nearly a month while they meticulously painted a complex camo pattern, and did such a good job of it that no trace of the original colors show, and then finally went in and edited the EXIF data so that even photo geeks like me would be fooled? Or it's actually a picture of the painted T-50 taken on the date listed in the EXIF data that's been run through a few too many crappy filters in Photoshop Elements?

What's the chance of having almost the same weather and light condition and cloud formation on Jan. 29th and Feb. 12th and catch the bird at almost the same position over the runway?

I vote for two pictures taken at the firsth flight, from slightly different positions and with different cameras. And then somebody took his time with photoshop and delivered a really convincing shop job. There's a high res version where you can even see different warning labels on the hull.

[Ghost Train]

I guess thats part of the problem with fifth generation aircraft. No enemy on the horizon any time soon to justify their existence. I would think the Navy made the right bet to invest in a single type of craft with relative young airframes, they can just wait and see if and when they are going to need a replacement.

Don't be so sure. What about an alien invasion? Though F-18's (pre Super Bug) with some clever "electronic warfare" will do just fine even for that purpose.

[electric indigo]

PAK FA's cockpit & HDTV HUD

[the white drew carey]

PAK FA's cockpit & HDTV HUD

That guy in the cockpit = photoshopped purple shirt.

[Nied]

What's the chance of having almost the same weather and light condition and cloud formation on Jan. 29th and Feb. 12th and catch the bird at almost the same position over the runway?

I vote for two pictures taken at the firsth flight, from slightly different positions and with different cameras. And then somebody took his time with photoshop and delivered a really convincing shop job. There's a high res version where you can even see different warning labels on the hull.

The light conditions are different (the previously mentioned shadows on the landing gear), and if it were taken on the same day the plane hasn't traveled far enough down the runway for the light to have changed that dramatically. The only cloud formations I see are the smoke from the smokestack that's obscured by the treeline in the background, and those are different (it looks like it was more windy for the second flight) once I get home I can try to line up the two in photoshop. As for the odds of the weather being the same, according to weather underground, conditions in Khabarovsk (home of the airfield in question) were nearly identical on both days (clear and f$&@ing cold). If anything the existence of a high-er res photo with meticulous details makes it less likely that it's a shop not more, those little details are extremely tough to make look right, and getting the highlights and shadows to appear right on things like panel lines, vents and test equipment is a project that would take years, not a month. You'd be at the point where it would be easier and quicker to photoshop out the original unpainted PAK-FA and then superimpose a render of a high fidelity 3-D model of a painted T-50.

[Nied]

That guy in the cockpit = photoshopped purple shirt.

No no, they edited out the original guy sitting in the cockpit (who wasn't wearing a shirt at all), and superimposed a very accurate 3-D render of the guy in the purple shirt.

[edwin3060]

Ok, so does all this mean that they actually have 2 prototypes flying now? Or just 1, and they flew it, painted it, then flew it again?