The MiG-21 is probably the oldest if we’re talking fighter sized jets. The initial prototype flew for the first time in 1956 and it entered service in 1959. The ones still flying in NATO are from the ‘70s though.

Personally I prefer looking at these random pictures than reading many of the comments.

It looks to me like the paint scheme was purposely designed to hide a lot of its curves and facets.

Must be a slow day if a sonic boom makes the news.

Similar “autobombing” computers have been around, at least on Western aircraft, for many years; there’s nothing inherently new or unique about the Russian system. It’s also highly unlikely - to say the least - that such a system can be as accurate as that source claims to be. Or as I’ve said earlier on a comment that…

Whenever I hear people talking about how Russian air force planes are old, I can’t help but remember that on the other hand the average aircraft in the US inventory is somewhere around 26-27 years old. The current fleet is the oldest in the US history. Some airframes are over half a century old. Some will fly to be…

Interesting tidbit about the Su-24: it was originally designed as a high speed aircraft, with a maximum high altitude speed of about 2.2 Mach or 2300+ KPH. However since the design focus was on low level penetration of air defenses, it was decided to delete the variable intake actuators in order to save weight and…

While I’m sure such a system works to a degree and it can increase the accuracy of dumb bombs, there’s no way it can come even close to the accuracy of something like a JDAM or any other GPS guided bomb. That’s simply because no matter how well you compute the launch parameters, once it’s away you have no control over…

I find it amazing that after all these years the US still doesn’t employ any form of COIN (Counter-Insurgency) aircraft in the Middle East. You’d probably be able to buy and operate a squadron of COIN aircraft for the price of a single F-35.

I think they copied the Su-33 for the simple reason it was the most easily accessible to them. As far as I know they were able to obtain a Su-33 prototype from Ukraine some time in the 90s, probably around the same time they were making the deal for the Varyag. Combine that with the fact China was already making it’s…

All jokes asides, I doubt one can look at what China has achieved in terms of military capability in the last 20 or so years and not be impressed. Or terrified. Depends on how you look at it.

It’s a small ship, under 3000 tons, and it’s just a landing craft at that. Ships of this type and size are normally not meant to defend themselves against anything more than slow, low flying targets. It’s not surprising they would use man-portable air defence systems aka MANPADS. Some Russian landing also have Phalanx…

Two bucks says that’s a zero-G toilet aka space toilet. Look how similar it is to the toilet on the Zvezda module of the International Space Station:

That must be the case. I’m pretty sure the fuselage of the Tu-95 is a bit thinner than that of the B-52, but beyond that the two aircraft are very similar in size and weight.

When news like this is about an accident involving an American asset, most reactions pretty much boil down to “accidents happen” and how sometimes you just can’t help it. If something similar happens and it involves the Russians/Chinese or whoever else we love to hate or make fun of these days, cue comments about…

Nah, the B-52 looks positively mundane compared to the Vulcan.

It should be noted that the Bulgarian MiG-21s have pretty ancient avionics that do them no favours when going up against more modern fighters. They don’t have the avionics suites that Indian or Romanian MiG-21s have, which do give them quite a bite.

Those are obviously an Me-163 and a Harrier :P

I really hope it doesn’t come to that, but the sentiment is appreciated. Didn’t know we didn’t give you any votes, then again I haven’t followed the Eurovision contest in recent years.