The West as in its nature takes credit and ownership of the inventions & discoveries of others. Contrary to the nauseating propaganda and lies that are repeated incessantly, the United States was not the first nation to develop Stealth technology that honour goes to the USSR. A Soviet mathematician named Peter Ufimtsev calculated the correct shape for a stealth aircraft in the late 50s, the Americans hadn’t a clue how to make stealth aircraft until they go their grubby hands on Ufimtsev’s book 20 years later.
Russian stealth (part 1)
The PAK-FA Russian stealth jet has made its maiden flight last week, with the Chinese set to follow in a few years time. The F-22 status as the best aircraft in the world will be challenged, maybe that’s why Obama & Bobby Gates have stopped producing more F-22?
Russian 5th Gen PAK FA T-50 fighter makes first ever flight
24 comments:
Lockheed Martin downplays Gates' criticism of F-35 program (3.2.10)
One day after being publicly scolded by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Lockheed Martin officials overseeing the F-35 joint strike fighter program insisted it is in better shape than recent events suggest.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday in a conference call just hours before the fifth F-35 test airplane made its inaugural flight, two Lockheed executives said they were aware that Gates and top Pentagon officials expect better results.
It's not just the F22 which fail to live up to standards. The F-35's doing no better.
Congratulations on the successful maiden voyage of the PAK FA T-50 fighter. Will come in handy in case of that Third World War we were all getting so excited about only a day or so ago. On the other hand, what we need at the moment is simpler technology, drone-killers, IEDs and the like, so hope Russians are doing something about that as well.
The Pentagon Runs Amok
It is not possible to believe that it is coincidence that just as the Pentagon is being called upon to justify its immunity from the across-the-board budget freeze that President Barack Obama is declaring for the federal government, at least three provocative U.S. arms sales have been announced -- to Taiwan, Poland and four Persian Gulf states.
The announcements were clearly scheduled to provoke, respectively, China, Russia and Iran. Each will now bark loudly, and perhaps take retaliatory action. Their responses will, in turn, serve as justification by the Pentagon for the 7.1 percent increase in proposed defense spending, even as painful cuts are being administered in other fields.
The timing is extraordinary, if one had any inclination to consider it to be coincidental. The other "coincidental" development was the failure -- again -- of the missile-defense system in a $150 million trial that took place Sunday. That system, a dog that has been around for years, cleverly conceived and presented as an umbrella over the United States and some of its allies against Iranian or North Korean missiles, has two basic problems. First, it is expensive. Second, it doesn't work, although those two flaws do not necessarily deter Pentagon planners or defense contractors.
So compare, compare: defective, but murderously expensive US weapons on the one hand, Russia's regal, deadly efficient aircraft
on the other.
HAITI UPDATE - Thursday, 04 February 2010
US Military Nowhere To Be Found In Port-au-Prince
'I have been driving all week around Port-au-Prince taking photos of the destroyed homes and buildings and as I've gone from one end of this city to the other, the US is military is only found at the airport - nice and secured behind those gates.
Meanwhile, the UN and its white Jeeps are driving all around this city, but I haven't seen them stop at any particular location to give food or water. Where is all the aid going, if any?
Michel David Stephan is a 22-year-old Haitian university student who has not been able to continue his studies because the campus has been badly damaged. I asked him what he thought of the UN. "We call them 'tourists' because they don't do nothing," Stephan told me.'
Ah, yes. Got it. Troops hunkered down in bankers and bases. We know all about it from the AfPak operation and the Iraq occupation.
Trade Wars - China hits back at Obama over currency criticism
4 February 2010 BEIJING - China dismissed on Thursday U.S. threats it would get tough with Beijing on trade and currency to ensure American goods did not face a competitive disadvantage, saying its yuan currency was at a reasonable level.
U.S. President Barak Obama earlier said his administration was pushing China to enforce trade rules and further open their markets, adding to a range of issues weighing on relations between the world’s biggest and third-biggest economies.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman responded by saying the yuan was at a reasonable level, and that China did not deliberately pursue a trade surplus with the United States.
“At the moment, looking at international balance of payments and forex market supply and demand, the level of the yuan is close to reasonable and balanced,” Ma Zhaoxu told a regular news briefing, repeating China’s standard line when criticised about its currency.
“Accusations and pressure do not help to solve the problem,” he added.
U.S. manufacturers have complained for years China’s currency policies give local companies an unfair price advantage. China says exchange rate policy is an internal matter.
Analysts cautioned against reading too much into Obama’s comments, saying his words were as much aimed at appealing to a domestic audience as trying to put pressure on Beijing.
“Even if China wants to adjust its exchange rate, it is nearly impossible for Beijing to meet the demands of the U.S. — this is China’s own business,” declared Li Jian, a researcher with a think-tank under China’s Ministry of Commerce.
More Miltary Talk
The United States plans to unveil later this decade a new conventional "Prompt Global Strike" (C-PGS) system. It will enable the US to instantly carry out a massive conventional attack anywhere in the world in an hour or less.
Research and development work by the US Department of Defense (DoD) on C-PGS began almost two decades ago, and this shifted into high gear in 2003. Instead of delivering a nuclear warhead, a new US-based missile and/or some other unmanned delivery vehicle may carry a conventional warhead that is able to destroy a distant target in less than an hour.
The DoD issued the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) on February 1 - which is mandated by the US Congress. It specifically mentions C-PGS prototypes as well as other "long-range strike" capabilities.
"The US cannot take its current dominance for granted and needs to invest in the programs, platforms, and personnel that will ensure that dominance's persistence," wrote US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a commentary accompanying the 2010 QDR entitled, "A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon For a New Age".
"In the case of China, Beijing's investments in cyberwarfare, anti-satellite warfare, anti-aircraft and anti-ship weaponry, submarines, and ballistic missiles could threaten the United States' primary means to project its power and help its allies in the Pacific: bases, air and sea assets, and the networks that support them. This will put a premium on the United States' ability to strike from over the horizon and employ missile defenses and will require shifts from short-range to longer-range systems, such as the next-generation bomber."
Gates struck a balance, however, later in his commentary.
"We should be modest about what military force can accomplish and what technology can accomplish. The advances in precision, sensor, information, and satellite technologies have led to extraordinary gains in what the US military can do," Gates wrote. "The Taliban were dispatched within three months; Saddam Hussein's regime was toppled in three weeks. A button can be pushed in Nevada, and seconds later a pickup truck will explode in Mosul. A bomb dropped from the sky can destroy a targeted house while leaving the one next to it intact."
How best to address the C-PGS program is proving to be a tricky subject for China because there is considerable uncertainty surrounding it.
And what does Russia think about all this?
Army of Unemployed Russians Grows Steadily
The number of unemployed Russians has grown by 35,000 people and made up 2.166 million as of January 27. The number of those who can be fired from their jobs is about 480,000 people. About 940,000 have already been fired. President Medvedev said at the end of 2009 that temporary unemployment in Russia was the most dangerous consequence of the global crisis. (Pravda - 4.2.10)
At the real Afghanistan conference -- the war council in Brussels, Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin, with tongue bitterly in cheek, offered to rebuild the infrastructure and factories the Soviet Union built during its own ill-fated attempt to bring Afghanistan into the 20th century, undermined by US arms supplied to US-backed mujaheddin in the 1980-90s. He understandably wants this to be funded by the West, since it was responsible for the destruction in the first place.
Rogozin told Der Speigel that Russia is far more concerned about the flow of heroin that became a flood after the US invasion, rather than any possible military threat from the Taliban. “Each year, 30,000 human lives are lost in Russia because of Afghan heroin.” He did not spell this out in detail, but is no doubt aware that US forces are actually abetting the smuggling, as documented by many sources, including former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray, who himself witnessed the pretend-border controls on the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan border in 2004. Scanners and sniffing dogs were simply bypassed by the chief smuggler -- current Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Afghan Army Abdel Rashid Dostum, a native Uzbek who has close working relations with Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov. Rogozin accused NATO forces of ignoring the problem: “They think it’s not their problem, because Afghan heroin mostly goes to Central Asia and Russia.”
And the profits land in west pockets.
Never put off till tomorrow what may be done today..........................
Excellent advice, 12:49, but not quite clear what you're referring to. If you mean west troops should leave Afghanistan without any further procrastination, then spot on.
Experts claim a Yellowstone eruption could take place anytime soon. Days being counted.
War on Iran a hopeless venture. Air Strikes won't be enough
The US can make air strikes for 10+ years against Iran like it did against Iraq. That won't cause regime change though.
While the US is bombing, Iran will increase its support to Hizbollah, Hamas, and specific resistance groups in Iraq and Afghanistan while possibly also targetting US bases in Central Asia and the Middle East with assymetric commando type attacks..
Iran will get the worst of it, as some pro-US pundits are sure to point out, but if the US wants regime change, at some point it will have to invade with ground forces like the US did with Iraq.
Now, Iran has three times the population of Iraq. Iran doesn't have a huge ethnic / religious split like Iraq has.
Iran has much tougher terrain than Iraq (very mountainous in many regions). Most importantly, Iraq prepared for a US land invasion for 10+ years. What am I saying? Iran has been preparing for a US land invasion for 20+ years.
The US won't be able to stop with just air-strikes. If the US does initiate air strikes, it will inevitably be sucked into a ground war eventually. There is no way to swim out of that maelstrom.
Forget the common weal, not even enlightened self-interest is at play in west thinking today. The war buzz and a false sense of invincibility have drowned everything else out.
Russia successfully tests Sukhoi T-50 Stealth fighter jet (29/01/2010)
MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti military commentator Ilya Kramnik) - On December 29, 2010, a prototype Sukhoi T-50 fifth-generation fighter took off on its maiden flight at 11.19 a.m. in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia's Far East.
This is the first warplane completely designed and built in Russia since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Only the United States currently operates Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor Stealth air-superiority fighters.
In 1981, the Mikoyan Design Bureau started developing the I-90 aircraft, better known as the Multifunctional Fighter (MFI). The project was launched soon after the MiG-29 Fulcrum, MiG-31 Foxhound and Su-27 Flanker fourth-generation fighters performed their first flights.
The I-90 which was to have been mass-produced in the 1990s overtook the U.S. Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program which later gave rise to the F-22 Raptor.
Curtailed defense spending in the late 1980s and the subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union stopped the MFI program in its tracks. Flight tests planned for 1991 -1992 did not take place. Consequently, the MFI first took to the skies in 2000.
A prototype Sukhoi S-37/Su-47 Berkut fifth-generation fighter had been developed by then.
In 1998, the Russian Air Force issued a new request for proposal (RFP) for a fifth-generation fighter. As a concept it had remained unchanged since the MFI program got underway.
The new fighter's basic specifications included: greater agility, sustained supersonic-flight capability in non-afterburning mode, low radar visibility, low heat signature, as well as enhanced take-off and landing performance.
The old designs were scrapped, and it was decided to develop an entirely new warplane fully taking into account the F-22's capabilities, merits and drawbacks.
In 2002, the Sukhoi Design Bureau won the pilot-project contest, after proposing a full-size and twin-engined fighter with a take-off weight of up to 35 metric tons under its Prospective/Promising Frontline Aviation System program (PAK FA program).
Although the new aircraft was expected to take off in 2007, the maiden flight deadline was delayed until 2008, 2009 and January 2010.
Given this new program's complexity and the scale of the scientific, engineering, organizational and financial problems that had to be tackled during the new plane's creation, this delay is quite understandable.
Russians should get a reality check.
They DO NOT have a fifth generation fighter! All they have is a flying concept aircraft with no avionics! They can try and mock the Eurofighter but the fact is that the Eurofighter is miles better than anything the Russians have in service, and the US already have the F-22 operational.
The above opinion is only that of the author's, and contradicts statements by Russian officials associated with the program. This fighter actually depends upon Indian technology for completion, and certainly will compete with the Rafale, F-35, and Eurofighter, but -in my opinion- is not in the class of the F-22. The fact that the program depends on foreign cooperation and that Russia intends to sell these abroad are the clearest indications supporting my view: Good, OK, but not so good as the F-22.
All those who think Iran might be the latest west war target are being too optimistic, for if they were to attack Iran, it would be the end of them all.
Make no mistake. Iran will win, Iranian generals are literally ITCHING to get into this war. They've positioned their navy around the Suez Canal, very far from home. If America starts anything, they'll shut down the west. With the Suez Canal and the Gulf closed for business, no more oil shipments will be made to Europe and the world.
Meanwhile you can say goodbye to all the military bases of the west around the Middle- East. They will be struck by long range Shahab-1, Shahab-2 and Shahab-3 missiles. If the Americans decide to use WMDs as well, they might face an unexpected factor.
They're not going to strike Iran, lol. They're finished, almost $4,000,000,000,000.00 budget their economy is dying and fighting with Iran will seal the deal. Both economically and militarily.
Checkmate.
Furthermore, knowing them, its quite likely they're going to start a war on Lebanon NOT Iran. If anything, they're positioning themselves just in case Iran gets involved.
Jobless Claims Rise Unexpectedly to 480,000
4.1.10
The number of newly laid-off workers filing initial claims for jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last week, evidence that layoffs are continuing and jobs remain scarce.
The rise is the fourth in the past five weeks. Most economists hoped that claims would resume a downward trend that was evident in the fall and early winter.
The Labor Department says that new claims for unemployment insurance rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 480,000. Wall Street economists had expected a drop to 460,000.
Shell to axe 1,000 jobs as profits plunge 69% -4.2.10
Shell, Britain’s second-biggest oil company, will cut a further 1,000 jobs this year as it reported a bigger than expected 69 per cent fall in full-year profits and cautioned over an “uncertain” outlook for 2010.
The Anglo-Dutch company reported 2009 earnings of $9.8 billion on a current cost of supplies basis, against $31.4 billion for 2008.
DOW HEADED FOR ???????? (4.2.10)
The stock market has been propped up as the banner waved by the government that the economy is really all right no matter how bad things are in your own life. If the market does into a downspin, it's panic time!
We usually avoid day-to-day stockmarket shenanegans. But today all the borses seem to be in the red again. Something went wrong with their PPT?
Is the Great Reckoning finally here when massive debts come due and the debt bomb explodes? High time too.
19:48 -- Great Reckoning
Probably not related to debt, although in some way it is.
But the west end is related to west hunger. It's a matter of reaching a critical mass, something that sets of a reaction across the west cesspit, in unemployment and poverty.
That's the tipping point, not debt.
West will keep fighting and printing cash till it's blue in the face but it cannot keep feeding its cretinous populaces and as such it cannot keep producing what it requires, it can't keep buying import it requires for survival.
When this reaches pandemic levels, that'd be the moment.
And until then the west beast is check-mated with always superior Sukhois, among other equipment.
Yes, your description of the Great Reckoning is clarity itself. The point hasn't been reached yet but, if NBN hasn't miscalculated, we should be well advanced down the path in 2010.
You're also right about Russia's superiority in all matters to do with aviation and space flights. Only, some people still like to believe US propaganda and swear by the recently-demised F-22.
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