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Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.
wraith808:
ast I heard the SU37 wasn't even in production. Either way, they're trying to play "catch-up" with the F22, F23 and the Joint Task Fighter, which not only have vectoring thrust, but are also stealthy. The F35 JTF also comes in a V-STOL model that can take off and land like a helicopter.
-Tinman57 (July 26, 2013, 09:38 PM)
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No... that was a reply to ren's talk about the most maneuverable Russian fighter. But even going back, they're trying to catch up in terms of avionics more than anything else. Which is what decides those things in most engagements these days.
40hz:
@T0Man - Mea culpa - got careless with the dates. :-[
FWIW, Wikipedia is citing the maximum speed and cruise speed as both at .92 Mach, and citing the USAF as its source for the specs. Seemed odd to me that both speed specs were the same, but I'm no expert. You might want to go in and do an edit. :)
Had a fighter jock who first saw action around the end of Viet Nam tell me that by the end of that war it was pretty obvious dogfighting was over. He told me at the speeds the fighters were moving even back then it was already becoming impractical. And on a head to head pass, all other factors being equal, whoever fired first usually won. So the name of the game became more to sneak up and shoot first rather than go mano a mano with an enemy pilot. He said once the new "smart" weapons systems and support from E-6B Looking Glass aircraft and satellite recon all came online, it then got down to who had the best technology. He said his feeling was the fighter pilots were slowly becoming highly trained delivery boys whose main role was to cart the new weapons around until you were close enough to let them off the leash so the "chip-brain" inside them could decide what to do next.
Said he was glad he got out when he did, which was right after Desert Storm. (He's a bit crazy IMHO, but he's still a great guy.) ;D
Shades:
The F35 JSF?!?!
The term alone is already becoming more and more "dirty". That plane is a lot like Google actually...that plane is already so long in beta that alternative fighter planes are already taken out of commission because they themselves already become too old.
I think that plane was intended to replace the F16 in the Dutch air-force for more than 10 years now, each plane costing almost twice as much as initially specified by the manufacturer. Only last week the first one is delivered to see if it up to the task.
If you would ask me (and I know that no-one did) that plane is either too advanced for its own good or aeronautical engineers are not as good as they once were.
Day late, dollar short anyone?
40hz:
Back on main topic a moment, here's a minor strategic move in the game. This in from TechDirt (link to article here):
Obama Promise To 'Protect Whistleblowers' Just Disappeared From Change.gov
from the not-the-change-we-were-looking-for dept
The folks from the Sunlight Foundation have noticed that the Change.gov website, which was set up by the Obama transition team after the election in 2008 has suddenly been scrubbed of all of its original content. They noted that the front page had pointed to the White House website for a while, but you could still access a variety of old material and agendas. They were wondering why the administration would suddenly pull all that interesting archival information... and hit upon a clue. A little bit from the "ethics agenda":
Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government. Obama will ensure that federal agencies expedite the process for reviewing whistleblower claims and whistleblowers have full access to courts and due process.
Yeah. That statement seems a bit embarrassing at the very same time Obama's administration is threatening trade sanctions against anyone who grants asylum to Ed Snowden. Also... at the same time that we get to see how whistleblower Bradley Manning's "full access to courts and due process" will turn out. So far, it's been anything but reasonable, considering that the UN has already condemned Manning's treatment as "cruel and inhuman." And people wonder why Snowden left the country...
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cmpm:
That's freakin awesome!!
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