I dig those "X-Wing" tail antenna!

This is genius.

Call it the Remote Auto-Surrender function!

There were a number of absolutely massive Cold War era interceptors too, for the exact reason you mentioned - defending vast airspace with a limited number of aircraft.

Poo. They don't ever show such awesome TV programmes in this Socialist Sinkhole.

You place a transdimensional beacon on every object you place into your Torchinsky Mark II (r) Brown Diesel Bag of Jalop Holding +5 (tm) and there are little gnomes situated beside the portal (i.e., on your back seat) that manipulate the various high sorceries required to make such a system work.

They laughed as I pulled up in my tiny brown hatchback powered by a might 1.0 L three cylinder diesel piece of crap likely designed before the advent of semiconductors and bacon explosions.

Has someone thought to ask the Russians to name the Flankers by model year? It works on cars for sure. Haha!

Yeah that's my first thought with 'big motor'. Damn clickbait titles lol.

I have not seen a Flanker in person but one hint to its sheer size is the fuel capacity of the Su-27. Hint: Its enormous.

The Su35s confused me as well. I was surprised to note there are different 'generations' of Su35 over the past 20 years.

To be fair they probably solved the problem by now - and more durable stealth coatings would be developed over time I guess.

Yeah, they were special weapons and not as common as RS-82s. 3" and 5" rockets used on numerous fighter-bombers of the period. But that said the Luftwaffe may have a different tactical philosophy regarding ground attack - relying mostly on conventional bombing and heavy cannon armaments instead of area rocket strikes.

It would be definitely interesting to compare US rockets vs that of all other major Air Forces!

Russian Sturmoviks in the early war years carried absolutely massive numbers of rockets but later scaled the number of rockets back as the rail launchers caused severe drag. Russian rockets were not known for their accuracy…

Back in World War 2 there were a number of American light observation aircraft pilots who mounted as many as 6 bazooka tubes to the wings of their little planes, and used them successfully against German armored vehicles.

That impromptu tank-busting firepower had a caveat though - before the observation/liaison planes…

The Raptor is not all-weather capable? This is news to me. What are the reasons why?

Regardless of how they flopped, there's something about British prototype aircraft of the early Cold War period that impresses me - namely the sheer beauty of the aircraft with ridiculously unconventional proportions that make them perfectly at home in a dieselpunk sci fi scene.

The Tesla Coils and Mammoth Tanks made a big impact on my childhood :)

Ha! Came here to post this!

In the early years of the Cold War strategists kind of predicted the high speed of jet aircraft would make all gun systems obsolete and there was need for an autocannon with insane high velocity to reach out and hit fast moving aerial targets a few miles away in several seconds.

Remember this thinking was before the…

One of these days the bacon is going to use it for "crowd control" (in aimed direct fire) and that will be the end of civilization.