Possible COTD. I know you buy them...your original comment just came off as rather ungrateful to your American protectors. And my sympathies regarding you chosing to live in Texas. That would not be my first choice...unless you live in Austin. Then it is ok.

Too bad the Russians cannot afford to produce any of these impressive airframes in appreciable numbers or deploy any significant number of them operationally. They are essentially quasi-production prototypes. The Russians’ advanced air assets and the grandstanding they do with them are largely smoke and mirrors. As it…

...sob...wahhhhhhh!

In the real world, it should be the Super Hornet, as it’s the most seamless move. I just like the idea of a Rafale or UberViggen. Typhoon is getting really long in the tooth. While I’m dreaming, we should buy all those A-10’s the USAF doesn’t want and let them roam the Arctic. Polar Bears and Beavers would be a good…

Thats all well and good, but real air combat doesn’t occur at those barely moving speeds.... and at speed, the pilot would be unconscious and the air frame ripped in half trying a lot of that stuff. Still fun to watch a behemoth pull off those moves.

That’s like saying you’d rather have an F-111 than an F-117, because the F-111 goes faster.

Nobody crashed so I’d say this Russian air show was a huge let down.

Those particular maneuvers aren’t really practical in any real combat situation, they’re just good demonstrations of the aircraft’s extreme capabilities. In an actual dogfight, the pilot wouldn’t want to bleed off energy like that that unless he was left with no choice. That’s not to say that extreme maneuverability…

But why? How is ANY of this actually useful in a practical sense? Yeah, it’s tremendously impressive aerobatics in the hands of an extremely skilled pilot. And?

Most modern high-performance airframes are limited by the squishy bag of meat inside for tricks like this. If the human can survive/stay conscious, the airframe should be fine.

Hero. A real hero. Not that fucking idiocy that gets painted on some dipshit athlete or celebrity. Those guys had more honor, humility, and courage than 99.9% of the people that our society decides to strangely lift up. It’s disgusting. Glad people can hear about your grandpa through you, and get a taste of how a real…

That’s what you’ve been told but that’s not what happened. This was an era where the Iraqis had shot an Exocet at the USS Stark and Iran was shooting Chinese Silkworm missiles at oil tankers.

Why was it broadcasting a F-14 transponder code then? What you know has been sanitized. I was working at a facility where I was in the know. That Iranian Airbus was sporting the F-14 transponder code and simulated an attack run. No other airliners did such a thing and hence didn’t get shot down.

People need to keep in mind that this happened after the USS Stark had been hit with an Exocet by the Iraqis. I was working at a facility where we confirmed the F-14 transponder being used. This was a bald faced provocation. The Vincennes skipper did what he had to do with the information at hand. The F-14 transponder…

So what is actually going on in the photo? I would guess two dummy Harpoons and one active one, but the active one is not making any smoke. Presumably this is primarily an airframe test to prove that they can do it.

My dad was a Marine and absolutely 100% opposed me ever joining the forces in any way. “I served so you don’t have to” he told me once. He was Vietnam era, so I guess he had a good reason.

Other than the size and weight limitations of this smaller platform, it’ll be interesting to note what % of the capability it has in relation to the P8 (as Tyler says 80% functionality at 60% of the price is a damn good compromise).

Slight correction: It’s the MQ-4C Triton, not Trident.

The P-8A might be triumphant, but I don’t really see how dropping Harpoons is. The Harpoon is seriously long in the tooth and is easily outclassed these days by competitors’ offerings. The U.S. needs to seriously up its missile game even beyond LRASM.

I stand by the idea I had at about 10 years old that being a fighter pilot is the coolest job ever.