Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Stealth Saga #25

FCAS:

The Anglo-French UCAV is taking shape (paywall).  Its intended to be 'wingman' for manned fighters.

PAK-DA:

The Russians are trying to claim their PAK-DA bomber may take to the skies by 2021.   This is an acknowledgement their schedule is slipping and the reason for the Tu-160 production revival was exactly for this reason.  

PAK-FA:

The Russians are claiming the PAK-FA will enter initial production in 2017.

MiG-41 (MiG-31 replacement):

(MiG-41 artist concept)

A bit more information has been released on the proposed MiG-31 replacement. It has been deemed the MiG-41 and supposedly high supersonic.  A little more about the proposed aircraft and the source of the artist's concept.  There's a speculative post at this forum.  However, it has a imagery from the model MiG Ferret from the 1980s, too, so take with a grain of salt.  The artist concept looks like someone crossed a MiG-21 with the Sukhoi PAK-FA having a love child uglier than the X-32 death pigeon.

FGFA:

Has Russia and India finally struck a deal with respect to the PAK-FA derived FGFA fighter?  Russia was behind on the program, refused to share data and refused to allow the Indians to give input into the derivative's design.  Plus the Indians felt the engines were bad and the performance, including stealth, sucked.  AND it was overpriced.  The Indians were on the edge of pulling out.  However, the Russians came back to the table and offered the Indians a price of $4 billion for the development (to be matched by the Russians), the Russians would get 11 FGFA prototypes and the Indians would get 3.  The Indians would ultimately buy 250 FGFA.  The deal still seems to suck to me...

F-22:

Here's a bit more about the first F-22 to go into combat.

F-35:

The F-35 will be making appearances at the RIAT and Farnborough air shows. This will be the USMC F-35Bs flying.  Apparently, other sources are saying F-35As will also fly.

The Alabama Air National Guard is hoping to switch to the F-35 by the end of the decade.

Apparently, the chief tester is also stating the F-35's software might be vulnerable to cyber attack.

The former top weapons tester in Australia is expressing some very strong distress over the F-35.

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