The Aurora Aircraft is a good reason.
What Aurora? Until its seen its spculation. We try to deal with tangibles in here.
Rubbish. The reasons for pulling it from eastern europe and from doing ferret runs over the Soviet Union have been clearly stated. Fuel consumption was not the issue - period.
again, absolute rubbish. Do you have any idea how many missions they performed and how long their average missions were? They were up for shifts that were typically 3-4 times longer than other manned LR assets.
No, make the effort to read what has been said. They were pulled from eastern europe and soviet overflights in the late 70's. they were still running ferrets over china and "other" less robust ADS kitted countries up until the early 80's.
The F-117 was spoken about for decades and every commentator and publicist got it wrong. Wrong shape, wrong mission set, wrong size, wrong theory on how it managed its signature emissions. It was operational for 6 years before being publicly displayed.
When you say "The beast of Quandahar" if I am not wrong you are refereeing to the RQ-170 Sentinel UAV by the Skunk Works. However there is more proof of realism with the RQ-170 Sentinel UAV than the Aurora.
with the flanker, then it would have reduced frontal RCS???Chines as opposed to Chinese (no 'e' on the end). Chines are the flattened areas that blend the fuselage to the wings - in the case of the SR-71, right from the nose to the tail.When you say "The beast of Quandahar" if I am not wrong you are refereeing to the RQ-170 Sentinel UAV by the Skunk Works. However there is more proof of realism with the RQ-170 Sentinel UAV than the Aurora.
As for the Chines, I am not sure what you are asking, about the radar Cross section. I have no doubt that the chines in some way, "collaborated" or "Helped" with the Flanker.
I just don't understand how is it that if the Chines were involved
He meant chines, not "Chinese", but I understand your confusion. However, would you please stop making unsubstantiated assertions in your posts? First it was that the Mig-31 rendered the Blackbird obsolete, then you changed your tune and said it was retired due to fuel consumption, that idea was shot down too and now you're saying the Chinese aided the design of the SU-27?
Really? I was under the impression that the F-117 was first operational ~1982 but not publically revealed until 1990, and that it's mission set did not become known until Desert Storm.
Look at it in the context of the warfighting force as a whole. This means integrated air, land, sea and space assets. Personally speaking I'd think the best way to defeat an enemy's LO aircraft (or any air asset for that matter) would be while they're on the ground, not in the air. Why target an LO fighter in the air when you can hit its runways, supply lines, support structure and non-LO support assets (air to air refuellers etc)? The more damaged these targets become, the less utility the combat platform holds. So if that were the objective, then the capability to prosecute comprehensive strikes against a logistics and support network (in whatever form, be it cruise missiles from naval platforms, special forces insertion, air strikes with your own supported LO assets or more likely a combination of all three arranged so as to provide synergies with one another) becomes more relevant. As always, I'm happy to stand corrected on this if I'm making any big assumptions or errors.
Within the context of air superiority in the FSU, and third world, the PAK-FA's LO will be more then enough, granted that it's biggest opponents will be Soviet-era SAMs and fighter jets. Excellent post - I hadn't even considered the doctrinal aspects. Cheers for the heads-upYou're absolutely right. It's a matter of choosing the best center of gravity to attack. The problem is that in modern wars it's faster to destroy the planes, then their support structures. Granted destroying on the ground is preferrable to destroying them in the air.
Additionally I would like to note doctrinal issues. Russian military doctrine relegates the US, NATO, and China, to nuclear deterrence. In other words the PAK-FA does not expect to face the F-22 or F-35, other then in sales pitches to third parties.
Which raises the question of whether the propagation of LO tech even matters for the US, in a geo-strategic sense. To be honest, I think not. On the tactical level it will require introduction of new systems and tactics to deal with it, but geo-strategically the balance of power will shift for reasons that have nothing to do with the propagation of signature management technology.
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Sorry, "easier" was the wrong word. When I said support structures I wasn't referring solely to targets like oil depots but also to the airbases themselves. Runways, fuel and munitions dumps, things like that. You're right in that the targets you're talking about have impacts mostly in the long term, but rendering an airbase unusable puts immediate strain on the enemy's operations within that area and imposes an additional logistics burden on them, whether it be the necessity to operate from more distant airbases (thus requiring additional assets such as air-to-air refuellers, which can themselves be targeted, and limiting the enemy's response times and time on station) or the need to develop alternative airstrips and re-route resources accordingly. Hastily prepared airstrips would, I imagine, make tempting targets themselves, considering their probable lack of appropriate storage facilities for fuel and munitions.
they are currently trying that on ground troop soldiers.
americans can repair their runways or prepare temporary alternate runways in no time if it comes under attack(which in current scenarion is highly impossible)
Actually runways are harder to repair than you might think. Runway killers like the JP233 dispenser used by the RAF's Tornadoes in Desert Storm mix runway penetrators with small mines, making efforts to repair the craters very hazardous for ground crews. And modern bombs leave very large, deep craters which are very hrad to fill in.