Fascinating/bizarre that the military would’ve passed on this so hot on the heels of the Powers shoot down in ‘60. Also makes me wonder if this is evidence of some still secretive branches of the stealth family tree. Seems like Boeing was right on the money with this pitch.

Don’t think so. This is a sales pitch for other potential client states. It’s an ad campaign to show that Russia won’t leave their client regimes unsupported in times of civil strife. It'll sell well, too.

The Levant is kind of an archaic term for a much wider swath of the eastern Mediterranean incorporating what are now Syria, eastern Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, south eastern Turkey, and the Sinai (Egypt). As a label, ISIL does a better job of reflecting the scope of the intended caliphate than ISIS, which suggests…

Holy cow. Turns out the Twinstar was not the craziest thing they did..,

Autorotation touchdowns were my big concern looking at the design. Seems like the feet would just dig in. Other than that, though, this design seems to have a lot of potential for facilitating rough field and sloped landings.

Little known fact: aggressive deployment of the ADS System was integral to Reagan’s foreign policy. Once after acquiring an Oscar II submarine in 1989, the S-3 pilot flew so low the plane actually dragged the ADS-88 system (Delayed Extraction/Exfiltration Zone; Next Utilization Tactical System variant) across the…

Dear god... I've got to be honest, man, this might be worse than the plane crash.

You may be on to something. Maybe counter propaganda to protest government cutbacks on defense spending. Great observation, JamesSteed.

I was just thinking how ironic that they celebrate Japan’s utter annihilation in WWII by virtual reenactment of Pearl Harbor. You’d think that the endgame the first time would dissuade the sneak attack hypothesis.

You’re right. Senior level Bush officials did it so it should be fine.

When were the Ancient Aliens times? That would've been pretty rad.

Boy. The campaign volunteers are here in force...

At what point are these just boring Trapper-Keepers?

Double points closers are pretty common in motor sports. It keeps anyone from running away with the easy championship win, keeps the end-of-season drama high, and ideally keeps fans engaged with the series.

Makes sense. You’d definitely want to sandbag on your full abilities during a scrimmage. No sense in giving them a full sneak preview, especially if they'll be encountering Russian radars directly.

My guess would be the tape (interesting observation, btw, I did not realize they did that!) is onboard the C-17. Certainly no need on a ferry flight that would just wear the tape out anyways. They might go whole-hog once they’re on base.

Mounting the engines high is a nice trick, but low-wing designs have never been a good choice for rough field operations, and their always in the way if you’re trying to operate heavy equipment in the immediate vicinity of the aircraft. Both might be noteworthy limitations in day-to-day military use. Seems like it may…

Do the Houthis have armor I don’t know about? The Saudis are sure rolling a lot of ass against a loose collection of soft targets. Seems like they’d be better off with more mobility and lighter weaps and fewer 120 smoothbores.

I think they’re doing it to justify their margins so we don’t end up with a ragged paragraph.

I remember them talking about this on Top Gear a few years ago. Pirelli wants to make tires for F1 as its the world’s premier Motorsport. The relationship should be fantastic advertising.