I don’t try to stick my head into politics because it usually leads to a searing pain and me not understanding why people do what they do. At the same time, I saw some news recently that pricked the ears of this veteran fighter pilot and may be interesting to you guys as well.
China has put the finishing touches on a copy of the Sukhoi Su-33M carrier strike aircraft and it looks a lot like the Su-27 Flanker, except it’s been modified for use on board carriers. They got the design from Ukraine and modified it for use on their carriers. It’ll look a lot like this:
It’s a fighter aircraft that can do a lot of damage, and whether you believe China is on our side or not, this is a pretty big development that they have these Flanker-D’s close to operational capability
That’s not the only new jet they’re working on, of course. They’re trying to build a jet that will be in the same class as our F-22 Raptor, and the media is saying that development is about eight years away from completion. It would mean that China has its own fifth-generation fighter complement.
When I see stories like these, it makes me chuckle to hear people talk about the need to reduce fighter planes. We need to stay strong not because we have enemies right now that use them, but because there are literally hundreds of top-notch fighters around the world. They could be used against us if the tide of world opinion changed.
Now, I’m not saying that China is a threat right now, or that other countries with Soviet export-grade fighters and strike aircraft have designs on attacking us. I just know that there continues to be fighter jet development around the world even as Congress tries to hamstring the F-35 and F-22 programs.
I think I’ll take a minute to relax. While I do, it’s in your court:
Which jet do you want to end up flying and how would you fare against a Su-33M?
Neil Schettler says
The development of these new Su-33Ms isn’t that shocking. The United States will keep up the development of the F-22 strong and the F-35 will soon began to develop soon after. It still is the pilot behind the stick that counts the most! But still that only goes to a certain degree before technology takes over experience in the air. I would love to face one of these jets in the air. I’m confident in our fighter jet programs as well as all us pilots. But knowing your enemy is key to succeeding in any dogfight. We must take all precautions to prevent losing air superiority. I will read more on this I’m still new to the capabilities of this fighter aircraft.
Sam says
Heads up guys bottom of the ninth here they come my Raptor on one side the Su-33m on the other man to man no BVR. Head on pass it now a turning fight like no other. Hi g’s get ready he’s gotta to go.
Adam says
Not to stray away from the question, but my opinion on this is that we certainly need to keep up fighter development, but I don’t think we need to produce F-22s and F-35s in mass quantities just yet. Why not crank out a small number, like enough for 1 squadron, then continue coming up with new technologies that can be implemented into the design, as well as get feedback from pilots on oportunities and focus areas for design improvement. If things heat up with a country that does have top-notch fighters, then we can quickly put the current design into mass production. The government should just pay the contractors to keep their production on “stand-by” status while the designs are continuously improved. Just think, some of the planes that brought us victory in WWII weren’t even on the drawing board yet when Hitler started invading Europe.
shu says
i’lll take my old f-14 delta any day against these guys.
Dveto says
Adam is right, Th Russians are doing that right now, keeping every new upgraded fighters on low production because they are focused finding ways to outsmart any american or werstern current technology. When an eminent confrontation is on the horizon the russians are most effective in mass production. Sometimes, a smart technology can be defeated by a smart person with conventional ideas.
Joren Jackson says
I agree with Adam, it’ll be cheaper and so much more effective if we keep progressing while keeping existing models on standby production. Another, shorter term option is keeping/upgrading our current fighter-only fleet, the F-15s, or buy into a small fleet of the F-15se. This single role approach provides better training to teh pilots in their narrow field, instead of a pilot who knows a little about everything, we can have a pilot/aircraft that is a complete master at his one specialty. There is a role for multirole aircraft, one that is increasing in today’s combat. But we can’t take air superiority or any other niche for granted, because it’s not a given.
joe says
China is not and has never been a friend to this country… unless your name is Henry Kissinger or Richard Nixon… or Truman…
Anonymous says
But if it turns out that we need those planes that we didn’t produce I’m large quantities we can’t just make them overnight. Plus we would not be able to use them to intimidate our enimies and keep out of a war.
Anonymous says
One things for sure, China is damn aggressive and will not hesitate to attack it’s neighbors for it’s development. And they are waiting to be in war.
Aleksandar kelec says
wow that is shocking, i didnt even hear about this what so ever. I woulc want to face this SU-33M with a F-22 Raptor. of what i have read above i think that the F-22 would just knok these planes right out of the sky. this SU-33m is not even stealthy. So the f-22 would just gain such an offencive advantage that there is no competition what so ever. If i would class this new chinies/russian jet, i would classify it as an advanced 4rth generation fighter. To also say that this new fighter might not have thrust vectoring as the F-22 does, if it doesn’t then the F-22 will just dominate the Dog Fight anytime.
Matt says
A more scalable response could be provided by a larger number of gen5 fighters w/o cost prohibitive Radar sets. ‘Raptor Light’s that rely on their network capability for situational awareness could be far cheaper. During F-22 operational eval it participated in a war game in Alaska. BlueFor consisted of a mix of gen4 and gen5 aircraft. After the last Raptor expended its ordinance, battle managers kept it in the battlespace denying permission for its pilot to return to base and rearm. Its radar was being used to populate the network with data so the more numerous F-16’s and F-15’s could be more effective ‘shooters.’ The Raptor ‘spotter’ was more valuable as a sensing platform than as a weapons platform.
If a package of planes with similar performance to the current F-22 could rely on a single radar equiped ‘spotter’ F-22 (or a cheaper airframe built specifically to carry the expensive radar set) the ‘shooter’s would have better stealth characteristics, be cheaper and plentiful and thus more expendable. Numbers of aircraft could be more easily scaled to match threats in the area.
Current Raptor pilots fear a career ending scratch in the paint. That much risk aversion is not good for fighter pilots. Even more important, greater numbers would mean one plane lost to enemy fire or even a minor accident or maintenance error would not be the same kind of catastrophic game changer that loosing one of 4 mission capable $120million Raptors in a theater would be. As for the ‘Raptor Light’ being able to fire radar guided weapons, a smaller, cheaper radar set adequate for painting a target only during launch would be all it requires (assuming that returns from the ‘spotter’ are inadequate.) Fire and forget weapons would only need data they could download from the jet’s network connection and heaters don’t require a radar paint anyway.
Redundancy could be provided by multiple ‘spotters’ per package or by overlapping fields of observation in a line of ‘spotters’ assigned to sections of airspace instead of the packages in them. Adjacent spotters in the line could easily fill gaps made by losses.
Zach Flaxbeard says
Some thoughts to these statements as well: Low production is great, but what about other factors? 9/11 is an example. It is difficult to low-produce soemthing like that, and keep it in stand by. If sometihng hits the fan like it did to start our current conflicts, do we want to be caught with our pants down? Conflicts don’t always involve by a series of heating events that hit a climax, they can just happen off a single event, where we would not be able to produce instantly in time for a response. Furthermore to that, Look at the F-15 and many of the other aircraft. They started out with the basics, such as the APG-63 pulse-doppler radar, and Pratt and Whitney F100 PW220 engines. They have since been adapted in many ways. Most Eagles use PW229 engines now, and many aircraft, especially in higher risk areas like Kadena, utilize AESA radar systems if I remember my notes right. Not to mention the development of the F-15E Strike Eagle as well, to demonstrate that adaptation. So, is it so necessary to limit ourselves to just a single test squadron? Or maybe, produce as normal and use a single squadron to test new designs? Or maybe just a few aircraft at all? F-22’s, from the last thing I’ve heard (which has been a while) might as well just be a single unit if they’re cutting production at just 180 aircraft. How will that fare against the odds of many, many aircraft that are probably also goign to be protected by SAM’s and AAA… Which would compromise conventional aircraft. Just some thoughts (if any of this information is wrong, correct me!!!)
Adam says
That’s some great info Matt and Zach. You guys seem very knowledgeable on the topic. I just think the aircraft we already have large quantities of now, like the F-18s and F-15s, will still be relatively effective against threats like this SU-33. Especially when there is no doubt that the US generally has the best fighter pilots in the world. If something does go down over night, its not like we will only have a few F-22s to work with; we have a very large number of super-capable aircraft already in the air.
Matt says
Even if the argument could be made that F-15s A-10s and F-16s are adequate, the ones we have are wore out and in need of replacement, and we don’t have money in the budgets (and in many cases suppliers) to buy new F-15s F-16s A-10s… etc.
The new stuff we are looking at (F-22 and F-35) are too ambitious and far too specialized. They will probably never work as advertised and will always be maintenance pigs. And we will only have a few F-22s and a few F-35s to work with, because we cant afford to buy effective quantities. Read up on the ‘death spiral’ of defense costs first described by Franklin “Chuck” Spinney wherein the ever-increasing costs of weapon systems leads to an ever smaller number of planes:
CURTIS PEEBLES (Aviation Writer/Historian): “Where the death spiral could lead is the prediction that in the year 2054, the U.S. defense budget will only buy one airplane. So the Air Force uses the airplane in the morning, the Navy uses it in the evening, and the Marines, unfortunately, only get to use it every leap year on the extra day.”
For more on the in flight breakup of an Air National Guard F-15 and status of the aging fleet- http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/aging-aircraft-usaf-f-15-fleet-grounded-04149/
For more on the origins of the F-111, A-10, F-15, F-18 and F-16, I recommend reading ‘BOYD’ by Robert Coram and ‘The Mind Of War’ by Hammond
For some good stuff about the origins of TopGun I recomend ‘Scream of Eagles’ by Wilcox. Another Vietnam era goodie is ‘Over the Beach’ by zalin grant. Of course ‘Yeager’ by leo janos and chuck yeager and ‘the right stuff’ by tom wolfe are required reading.
If you really want to geek out you can look into how the Canadian and British aerospace industries killed themselves with death spirals of thier own during the cold war (it’ll make more sense if you read the other stuff first.) For the Canadians it was the Avro Arrow, for the Brits, it was the TSR-2. Our friends from across the pond and up North prefer conspiracy theories, but the short version of what really happened is acquisition death spiral. Costs got to where they could only afford to develop one plane. So they tried to make it a super-plane that could solve all of their problems. Features and requirements kept being added, systems were ‘goldplated’ to keep as many people as possible employed and the costs of the one airplane they could afford went up to where it was no longer a plane they could afford. The programs were canceled, the companies involved bankrupted. Cheaper, simpler, less ambitious US designs were purchased instead. Canada hasn’t pursued a homegrown design since and Britain has resorted to multinational and entirely foreign suppliers for its equipment needs ever since.
saeed zendegan says
i’ll kick their ass.because we are the best and we will be the best for ever
Jonathan Lane says
As long as we have the F-22’s and United States Air Force Pilots flying them then were fine. These Chinese aircraft don’t stand a chance. Id take on multiple SU-33’s in an F-22.
Jordan says
Come on guys!!! We all know that stuff that comes out of China always has a problem with it… or it breaks down! Like there plastic fire arms.
Ed Rush says
I am with Adam, Matt, and Zack. Keep the planes coming. F-22 is great…so is F-35, but there often is superiority in numbers. Then again, with so many congress-people (?) like Nancy Pelosi having no military (or for that matter no business / practical / life) experience, it’s not surprise that the National Endowment for the Arts gets a wad of cash when the military is getting cut back. Thomas Jefferson would crap himself if he knew what was going on right now.
joe says
Thomas Jefferson and many of the other founding fathers would most definitely “crap themselves” especially if they read Smidley D Bulter’s book:”War Is A Racket”… i m sure they all would be spinning in their graves knowing who is responsible for Americas number one export: WAR…
Adam says
Ed, if it was up to me, at least 3 years of active-duty military service would be mandatory to be eligible for any top-level federal government position.
I think Obama has some strong leadership qualities, but it really killed me seeing him get that many more votes than a genuine war hero.
Anonymous says
Ed I will agree that more planes are better but i must speak my mind that if that there are more planes that means more pilots so they would not fight for the position as much as if there were fewer spots.
Also, I have to say that some of you are being to cocky. The Raptor is a capable aircraft no debate, but you have to respect the Su series. Now that it has a new carrier aircraft all it needs is is an attacker with the same concept you have got a nearly unstopable fighting force that F-22 would have it’s hands full just keeping up with.
Back to my first point, you put a less than steller pilot in the worlds best plane and the worlds best pilot in a less than steller plane. Who do you think would win?
Yoyo says
You never know which combat aircraft is more reliable and competitive. Natter is one thing, but to avoid not being shoot down is another matter. F-117 nighthawk is one of the good example you guys should not have forgotten. I don’t think the F-22 or the less advanced type F-35 have absolute advantage compare to other fighter jets.
Townsend says
At current Standings I would pick our f-15 and f-22’s over any Russian based aircraft.However impressive the SU series planes may be, along with Mig Fighter, its all about technology. I would choose the developments of what we put in our planes over any Russian or Chinese developed technology. One, because I am American and two.. well, America. I think we need to always be pushing the boundaries of what we can develop technology wise, and do our best to keep it from any other nation– especially to ones we export our planes to.
Townsend says
… Also, if there is anything I learned in history, it is that a totalitarian government, such as the one in China, cannot and should not be trusted easily, even if they have an increasing free market sector it doesnt mean anything with how China stands with the U.S… It just means they get a lot more benifits of free enterprise– funding. I don’t like the idea of them building up their Carrier force either. Just saying.
prtfw says
china’s got some of the best pilots but they also got the crappy self made planes
also their carrier is long way from operational
they fundementally don’t really care about their ppl that’s why so many pilots die ejecting too late
if you put a chinese guy in a US plane that would be one mean combo…
Anthony says
Glad the SU-33 has somewhat of a future.