Selling stealth fighters to Cuba and North Korea?? Those comrades get some generous foreign aid checks and development assistance from Beijing but not toys costing more than 50 million $ a piece! (...or do you suggest Santa Claus has moved recently to Chengdu?)--- Violet Oboe
China won't sell its stealth to either the Cubans or the North Koreans so long as they have difficulty detecting those airplanes on their own ground defense sets. Remember that dictatorial regimes are more likely to attack one another. Any state that regards its own citizens as property of the state is more likely to sacrifice other citizens from other states to the same governmental bureaucracy.
Enemies after all make dangerous friends. The North Koreans relationship to the Chinese after all cannot be in any way likened to you United States relationship with the United Kingdom.(Even Franco-American relations are more trusting than relations between the PRC and NK.)
On your list only the F-22 and F-35 are true 5th gen fighters. The J-13, J12/14, and Su-50 have not even flown yet and will not be in service for a long time. (talk about counting your chickens before they hatch)
At that time, it will have to face the F-22's replacement.---- IDonT
Well said and I think it's useful to note that the Soviet Union only achieved partial military technological parity with the United States by so severely neglecting her internal economy that she imploded all on her own. Thus it's likely that the list the fifth generation fighters is much shorter than the original one provided in this thread.
Also remember that the once dreaded MIG 21 proved far less fearsome once we had a team of American experts take the thing apart after Belenko successfully to defected to Japan in the early 80s. I'm sure many of the fighters on the list will look the same, once we get a good look at them up close or a good test against them in actual combat.
Personally I'm much more worried about the US military's hostility in the upper ranks to teaching superb dogfighting tactics to its pilots, than any supposed technological edge or parity a hostile nation could get with the US.
You may argue than F-5 is a good fighter, on the contrary no. It has 5000 lb of thrust on each of its engine with a combine 10,000 lb. Mig-21 has one Tumansky 15,000 engine with a top speed of mach 2.1 .
Actually the top speed of the "flying cocktail lounge"---- :rofl:err.... MIG 21 could achieve a safe speed of Mach 2.5, but anything above that and the engines would accelerate out of control which is why NATO mistakenly believed that the aircraft had an operational top speed of Mach 3.5 when one such aircraft was seen doing that speed over Egypt. (The MIG in question suffered heavy damage from going that speed, but such information took quite some time to become generally known.) In any case the Mach 2.1 number that you cite had more to do with the often sloppy and inpure high octane alcohol that Soviet distilleries at the time were putting out to fuel the plane.
I've noticed that several "long time members" are less than apt at their analysis. Either way, it matters little what his track record when it's evident that he's put forth a highly flawed argument. He used the term "true" construing that the other fighters on the list lack the identifying characteristic of 5th generation fighters over 4.5th generation fighters. Each of those fighters will no doubt include significant stealth capabilities (again, excluding the J-13 potentially.)
Especially flawed is his assertion that they would be facing the F-22 replacement. I'd love to see a F-22 replacement in 2008. Or 2028 for that matter. Or you do really think all of the other projects will still be on the drawing board in two decades. The reality is that the other 5th generation aircraft will be deployed by the middle of the F-22's product lifetime, which has barely begun. It's also questionable whether the F-22 will even be deployed in significant numbers beyond the current deployment.---- Zhouj
Please note that the current US military figures for fighter and fighter replacements and for any hard military hardware for that matter are merely a sign of the times and not an upper speed limits so to speak. If cold war style tensions flare up between China and the United States for any significant length of time, the rate of generational improvement in US fighters could double or even triple. Please keep in mind that between major wars (not the terrorist police actions we see now) but rather wars against worthy opponents, the United States is capable of remarkable and nimble speed in technological development.
Before World War II the United States was far behind both axis primary powers in many types of military technology. The gap however did not take long to close in the most vital areas of warmaking technology. Quite simply the United States is keeping up with the rest of the world and maintaining a slight advantage
in its sleep. The US military is doing all this while living on a thin stipend of 6% of GDP. Just think what would happen if Congress was really motivated and afraid enough to truly open the purse strings and unleash the experts upon the problem of developing a next-generation fighter with far greater speed and intensity.
On the other hand a major depression would depress US military progress faster than it would her more dictatorial possible future opponents. Indeed it was a major reason why we're so far behind the axis Powers at the opening of World War II. The point is that the speed of US military technological development outstripping or falling behind other nations tend to more of a matter of the United States being motivated to compete rather than the competition's ability to compete with the United States. After all freedom and creativity in the American style of things tends to put a supercharger on technological developments that does not take place in most other nations to nearly the same extent and he is rather underdeveloped in countries lacking proper checks and balances to government power.
The US purchased 168 copies of the 100 million dollar F-22. It will purchase 1000 or more F-35A at 48 million, F-35b Stovl 63 million, F-35C 62 million.
If they replace all of these by 2029, than american tax payer will be up and arms.
X-45/47 UCAV are designed to be attack aircraft, that relies heavily on GPS SATNAV. They don't have air to air capability yet. All UCAV landing on carrier has ended in wave offs. Air force cancelled their UCAV program for a new heavy bomber. Air force aren't stupid, they don't want machine to take their jobs.
SATNAV is the most vulnerable arsenal of the US arm forces. China has done multiple satelite intercept to prove this in the last few years.
IDONT the J-10 demonstrator was fitted with lyuka thrust vectoring engine and showed super manuverability. Its 1 out of 4
I am happy this thread is taking off, but be cordial or the finnish inquisitor will close this thread and give everyone warnings.-----Dh19440113
This might be the best point you bring up Dh19440113. Information intensive warfare is still at this writing quite vulnerable to disruption. It is still far easier to shoot down satellites then to properly protect them. Most of the weapons systems that could shoot down possible Chinese satellite killers aimed at American orbital assets were originally designed to destroy ICBM style weapons in the boost phase. Unfortunately destroying satellite killers in the boost phase is an extremely provocative act and dealing with a weapon of that type once it has picked up speed is far more difficult to say the least. It's also unclear whether or not the United States has installed enough backup communications capacity into orbit to be able to withstand a partial loss of space assets without the necessity of reverting to an older less advantageous warfare paradigm.
:rofl: