[Davros]

Planes of that generation cant go supersonic without afterburner
there is no way you could have an afterburner with the harriers nozzle system

[Hobbie]

Why my country (Australia) is wasting time and money on F-35s and F/A-18Es and not going for later model Flankers from the Russians is entirely beyond me.

We should never have mothballed the F-111s.

EDIT: Figured out why. The government won't bother paying to have everything in each plane translated from Russian. Sure, there's probably heaps more reasons but that seems like the excuse they'd use.

[Black Wolf]

Why my country (Australia) is wasting time and money on F-35s and F/A-18Es and not going for later model Flankers from the Russians is entirely beyond me.

We should never have mothballed the F-111s.

EDIT: Figured out why. The government won't bother paying to have everything in each plane translated from Russian. Sure, there's probably heaps more reasons but that seems like the excuse they'd use.

We were never, ever going to go Russian or European even. The ANZUS alliance means that in the event of any serious conflict, we'd be operating hand in glove with the US. Using the same equipment as them means we can utilize each others supplies of spare parts, armaments etc. not to mention expertise of the people working on the machines.

Seamless integration of our air fleet with the USAF/USN is worth more than slight performance/value increases we may (or may not) get from going Russian.

That said, I do kind of agree about the F-111s. They had their very best flight time to maintenance time ratio at the end of their service life (including vs. American records) - I would have liked to have seen at least one more upgrade cycle when it became apparent that the F-35s would have been delayed - or, as I mentioned before - at least replacing them with something of comparable capabilities ala the F-15E/K.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

Looks like the competing recquirements produced a catastrophic compromise.

Out of curiosity, how many Magic Do Everything ambitious multirole military assets have succesfully been developped in, say the past 50 years, and deemed worth the cost over existing stuff? (This is a genuine question)

[Flaser]

Uh, my understanding of it is that the faceted designs were because working out radar scattering on curved surfaces was beyond the abilities of early computers. Certainly I don't think the B-2 or the SR-71 were less stealthy than a faceted design.

To be accurate, despite its appearance, the SR-71 isn't operationally stealthy, because the massive exhaust plumes behind the engines actually give off a greater radar return than the airframe, nullifying any potential stealth advantages.  Besides, going that high and that fast they were never in any real danger.

Actually that's wrong and a belief I also shared for quite a time. Turns out the Mig-25 and Mig-31, along with the more mature SAM systems *did* pose a threat to the plane, hence why the SR-71 never overflew the Soviet Union and instead relied on its impressive arsenal of side-looking radars and cameras.

Also, russian plane designs look unbelievably cool.

you say this and yet this pak-fa thing looks pretty much identical to that f-22 thing

Actually, the PAK-FA is more like an interesting hybrid between the F-22 and the YF-23 then a mere copy-cat... reminds me of what the Russians did with the Buran shuttle.





What's kinda bothersome is that the YF-23 "looks" the most modern after all these years. Granted, given all the headache even the F-22 has been giving the air-force I can totally understand their decision to go with a less complex design... however their rationale of awarding the ATF project to Lockheed instead Northrop because the other company didn't lock financially stable is pure bullcrap. Northrop was already reeling from having the no. of B-2 ordered drastically reduced... now this.

[lostllama]

We should never have mothballed the F-111s.

I'm somewhat surprised that 23 of them ended up in a landfill. They were probably stripped of their engines and avionics beforehand but it's a shame that the airframes weren't at least recycled in some way. Or placed in an above-ground aircraft graveyard of some kind.

On a side note, apparently a couple of Japanese anime studios found a use for the TSR-2 as a "Meteor Sweeper" in Stratos 4. Better than using it to toss nukes at people I guess.

[TwentyPercentCooler]

Call me a heretic but I always preferred the Soviet/Russian doctrines of aircraft design, and not only in looks. U.S. fighter jets have (had?) the best performance money can buy, but the sacrifice was in practicality. Take out our runways and we have very few aircraft with short-field capability, much less aircraft capable of operating from grass or natural-material strips, or imperfect surface streets. In general, the landing gear of U.S. aircraft isn't sturdy enough and the tires fitted are relatively small and highly pressurized. We also don't make a habit of having intake filters or screens. Though these problems could be ameliorated fairly easily, it would take a crisis to catalyze. Would it be too late then?

The Russians still operated aircraft with vacuum-tube electronics well after silicon chips became common, because they're easier to work on in the field. Rugged landing gear, large, low-pressure tires, intake screens...and much lower costs per airframe. I can't help but think their doctrines would work out better in a slugfest between world powers. I doubt the PAK-FA will be as rugged as their usual fare, of course, but the SU-27 line has been fantastically versatile and doesn't really need replacing so much as supplementing.