F-22 replacement - Page 5

No offense, but despite the "poor reliability records, crap avionics, and ordinance of questionable quality"? Or does that not afflict the MiG-35? Also begs the question - why not just build more Su-30MKI's?

Doesn't make sense going for the MIG35..it would just increase dependance on Russia for military spares and such. Given the BS the Ruskies are giving to the Indians on the Gorshkov, Nerpa, frigate deals among others I think the Indians will have learnt their leasson about putting too many eggs in one basket.

As to the SU-30MKIs, they already have orders to up the strength to 230.

The MRCA contract is quite tricky with a lot up for grabs.

What is going to be interesting is if this turns out to be any good as the F-22 or not..
The PAK-FA..this is a speculative drawing..India is supposedly in for 250 of these, 50 in single seater and 200 in twin seater design for the IAF.

if russia wanted it could produce high end stuff but it just doesnt need to, all it needs to be able to beat the crap of tiny places like georgia and whateveristan (okay some are big put uber poor.) there just isnt a need atm for the next gen of fighters

India is already dependent of Russia for aerial superiority in their region of the world. The entire Indian Air Fleet is predominantly Russian made MiG and Sukhoi aircrafts and a few French Mirage and Jaguars. The four primary reasons India went with the MiG 35 to satisfy the MRCA Competition were:

1). Full Transfer of Technology (Something the US is less willing to do with the F16 and F/A 18 they proposed)
2). Compatibility with Air Force Infrastructure designed to support existing Indian MiG 29 fleets.
3). Cost-to-Performance ratio showing that the entire contract could be fulfilled with just purchases of the MiG 29 (Something that could not be achieved by the Rafale, Typhoon or Saab)
4). Delays in the indigenous Indian designed HAL Tejas which is to replace the MiG 21 which makes up the largest part of the Indian Air Force Fleet. (Since this plane is expected to replace the largest part of a severely dwindling fleet, the MRCA Contract plane needed to be ready immediately so that the Air Force could still maintain a fleet until the Tejas Project is back to full production)

I'm going out on a limb (I don't really have much info, nor can I find a a lot online), but Id' say that India is teamed up with Russia on development of the PAK-FA to meet their needs because Russia provides a much more ideal ToT agreement with Russia than the US ever will for the F-22 or F-35. Russia has basically promised 50-50 ownership of the derivative design and IP being generated for the IAF - Pretty sure the US would never provide a deal that sweet to India.

Most major fighter planes have their share of quirks and problems, including the US fleets. The problem India has had though with the MiG fleets they have bought from Russia is that Russia provides very poor support for their planes and training so the pilots have a hard time dealing with known quirks in design and control. The problems with Russian planes are existent and are likely to show up even if the MiG 35 or the Su-30MKI were India to purchase one.

It's all relative.

Compared to US equipment? Russian equipment is certainly inferior. The Su-30MKI is a fine aircraft, but it's not even decisively better than US fighters that were first deployed in the mid '70s. Compared to the latest and greatest US fighter? Heh.

Compared to their likely adversaries (Pakistan, China)? The MiG-35 is certainly capable enough.

While the technical capability might be there, the money certainly isn't. Outside of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the Russian military has been oscillating between slow decay and outright disintegration ever since the end of the Cold War. The primary reason they're able to do any sort of development at all is due to foreign military sales where some other country is footing the bill.

India wouldn't be dependent on Russia for spares. Given that the terms would likely include the entire technology package required for fully indigenous production from raw materials, India would be able to source spares and armaments themselves instead of having to rely on Russia. The Su-30MKI deal worked the same way, and India is on track to produce it's first fully indigenous Su-30MKIs later this year. This would not be the case with Western bids.

I'm no "armchair general" to judge which aircraft is best, but the Su-27 variants are so much maneuverable, agile and impressive. Haven't seen anything that can do anything close, not even F-xx, Migs, Eurofighters, etc.

As for F-22, I hope it will be the last manned fighter plane. Why spend years of intense training and then risk the life of pilots when so much new technology became available in the last decade or so?

Same thing can be said about any other superpower. Especially when some of them are already doing it.

The SU-27 variant manouverability is naught when the F22 can pick up its RCS 150kM away, lock on and fire a BVRAAM for a kill without the SU-27,30MKI ever knowing it.

As to unmanned aircraft, while we are already heading in that direction, I don't think front line aircrafts would be replaced with unmanned planes cause
the human element, the ability to make a moral judgment is taken out of the equation.
The idea of killing people while sitting in your living room watching it on your flat screen, spookily similar to video games is just wrong on so many levels. I think people are already apathetic about wars that their own countries are involved in, making more defense equipment automated and unmanned just exacerbates that.

Besides, having manned personnel means losing men on the battlefield which leads to personal loss back home, which is a source of grass roots campaigns that fight against illegal and unjust wars. Having disposable machinery only makes risk based political decisions and adventurous excursions more tempting and deadly.

This is just theory + marketing of Lockheed Martin + US of A pride.

Most of the success of US air force was due to it being superior overall (highly outnumbered its enemies and top trained personnel; communication technologies, logistics, etc). The enemy planes shot down were in chaos, barely maintained to fly, etc.

Regarding stealth, Both Russia and China hinted and partially shown that they have anti-stealth radars (mainly thanks to major progress in CPU power in the last decade), so the cat and mouse game of effectiveness of stealth is known only within classified military circles. Once again, I'm not interested in arguing on what fighter plane is the best, I'm no expert on the subject and don't pretend to be one. I just never seen any fighter plane to be so combat agile like Su-27 variants, regardless of how stealthy or not it is.

The human element has been a limiting factor in a fighter plane for a while, the biggest one being the ~9G limit. The judgment whether to fire or not can be done remotely, in a much more stable and ethic environment then whats going on through the head of one fighter pilot. I agree that people are more apathetic to wars now, but more automated military is unavoidable.