Re: Consequences of Flanker and PAK FA exports for the PACRIM from US-allied perspect
I don't even think it was offered to the PLA. Due to China's ability to reverse engineer a lot of the high tech weaponry, most countries are reluctant to export their technologies to China, fearing of loss of its own lead and creating potential competition.
Russia is still a formidable competitor in the fighter jet sector. Although their 4th/5th generation fighter didn't come into fruition due to the collapse of the USSR, they already did a lot of groundwork research and testing throughout the 80's and 90's. Even F22 itself had most of its research done in the 80s and finalized in the 90s. I'm sure the Russians probably still have a lot of tricks up their sleeves.
It is actually really surprising that the PAK-FA airframe isn't that stealthy, since it is the easiest part for the Russian engineers, considering their historical expertise in this area, especially when looking at their really mature wind tunnel know-how. If we look at the from the front then move towards rear part of the PAK-FA, it looks like they did a half-ass job. It's like Michael Jackson's face, which the plastic surgeon said, "screw it, I'm going for lunch", half way through the surgery. It literally has the front of F-22, then work just stopped past the mid-line.
But all in all, Russians are still leading (of course, not counting US) the rest of the world in terms of radars, engines, and half a century of engineering expertise. The red empire might no longer exists, but its might still somewhat pass-on. There are still a lot of old engineers and experts that are valuable treasures.
To this day, China still needs Russian assistance in a lot of the aeronautical programs. Hongdu L-15 was assisted by Yakolev, passenger jets like Arj-21 and M-60 received assistance from Antonov, Al-31 are still imported from Russia, the emergency rescue rocket pods on the CZ rockets are still imported from Russia, Russian SibNIA assisted in the finalization of J-10, and many other projects still receive substantial Russian contribution.
But of course, China improved drastically over the last two decades, surpassing Russia in many areas. Chinese semiconductor industry is far ahead of the Russian counterpart, resulting in a lot of better avionics produced at lower price. The AESA radars are great example. The ones equipped on Type 052C and 054A are much more advanced than Russian counterpart. We also spotted AESA radars on J-10 earlier than any Russian counterparts.
But the Chinese aeronautical industry has some natural birth defects since the early days. It was originally set up in the beginning to copy and reverse engineer Soviet weapons. The original plan was to first learn how to copy, then reverse engineer, and eventually transform to self innovation. But the Sino-Soviet split disrupted this growth. The assistance was cut off before they learnt how to properly innovate and design a jet from scratch. Therefore, for the larger part of the Cold War, China had to reverse engineer Soviet weapons. There were countless attempts, such as the Q-6, J-9, J-13, but the first truly successful attempt was not until the J-10 program. So China's true innovation, especially head-on type of R&D, like those in USSR and US was a very recent event, as recent as only 25 years ago with the development of J-10. So China still has a long way to go.
But the bottom line is, China is a rising sun, full of potential and possess a bottomless pocket for money. Its backbone aeronautical engineers are all very young, mostly in their mid 30s and early 40s (read this on an article by Xinhua English). On the contrary, Russia's R&D foundation was mostly dissolved. The old aeronautical engineers either retired or switched jobs, many went abroad. Most of the expertise and accomplishments date back to the pre-dissolution days of the USSR. They barely innovated anything since. However, even their renaming know-how are still beneficial for Chinese to acquire. Like the old Chinese proverb I have heard in the past, a dead camel is still bigger than a horse. Although Russia is no longer at the forefront in pinnacles of technologies, the rest of the world still have a lot they can learn from Russia.
Russia still is a technological power, just to mention jet engines, the reality is Russia as any nation needs colaboration these days no one absolutely no one makes everything by them selves.
[video=youtube;JVJny6UL6V8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVJny6UL6V8[/video]
Specially in the aeronautical sector there is no nation that does everything alone, not even the US.
PAKFA is pretty much very stealthy, specially from the frontal and lateral sector, the nacelles also only not very stealthy from a direct botton view, but so is F-22 and J-20.
The reason is from botton views the entire flat surface of J-20 or F-22 wings also reflects the electromagnetic waves back to the radar emmiter
PAKFA is not a Flanker niether a simple evolution of Su-35, it uses a basic flanker configuration but it has substantial aerodynamic differences and it uses extensive composite airframe skin.
Russia currently has finished the MS-21 engine which is a feat still far far away from other countries to do.
Russias first fifth-generation aircraft engine,PD-14,has been sent assembled and sent for a test program,the manufacturer said on Tuesday.The PD-14,developed by Aviadvigatel,a Perm-based manufacturer of civil and military aircraft engines,as well as a host of other design bureaus and production associations,is to be installed on the MS-21 passenger jet.The new engine may go into commercial production in 2016.The MS-21 airliner,a twin-engine jet with a 150-215 seating capacity,is being developed by Irkut aircraft manufacturing corporation and the Yakovlev design bureau,part of Russias United Aircraft Corporation.The aircraft is designed to replace the ageing Tupolev Tu-154 and Tu-204 on medium-haul routes.Earlier on Tuesday,Irkut signed a contract with U.S. jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney for turbofans for its MS-21 airliner.The deal may be worth over $1 billion.
So to say Russia has lost its design ability is pretty much unaccurate.
Russia only lost its financing ability from 1990-2008, but since 2008 Russia has been delivering new aircraft to the VVS, among one the Su-34, a jet far far ahead to any of its competitors in fact the Su-34 can do the antisubmarine mission in a way no other fighter can; not even other Su-27 variants
[video=youtube;8v2F72cF2v0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v2F72cF2v0&feature=BFa&list=HL1340014720[/video]
---------- Post added at 05:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:21 AM ----------
Because Chinese is disappointed by what they saw from the PAFKA when offer by Russian , not because Russian will gain more. As proven by their prototype, it Is hardly stealthy. Is cannot even meet Chinese standard of stealthy for a 5th gen fIghter.
PAKFA is very stealthy, specially from frontal and lateral sectors, in fact a small detail, rounded objects distribute the bouncing radar on a wider angular sector thus reducing the RCS detectability because as the radar is distributed its strength weakens, the reason why flat surfaces are used is simply because the flat surface concentrates the bouncing radar signal on a narrower angular sector so it is visible from fewer angles but the signal actually is stronger since it focuses the energy on a narrower angle, the rounded surfaces scatters the signal wider weakening it, the disadvantage is the signal can be detected from a wider angular sector.
F-35 and T-50 used a combination of round and flat surfaces to remain stealthy from some angles.
Adding RAM and composite can reduce even further the signal.
T-50 uses other aproach to stealth based on the angular sectors it will use to fight.
