Originally Posted by
Kasserine06
I have heard about this before, but I was secretly hoping that the plane appeared better than it truly was. Now I am second guessing that. The 400 meter takeoff roll is very impressive as are the claims that it is more economical than the F-22. This would not surprise me because the US’s greatest strength, and weakness, is its ability and desire to build things without compromise. The Russians always seemed willing to make sacrifices on capability to cut costs and out produce us. They fact that they are planning to export this is also alarming. We can’t afford to participate in this technology race right now, but depending on what countries get this plane, we might have to. It could be like the 1980s except now Russia might lead in the military spending and drive our economy to the brink (even more than it is now).
On a more positive note, it could be like most new Russian fighters where its bark is worse than its bite. Also, if both countries can play nice, it would be the greatest showdown ever to see how the F-22 and the T-50 do in some friendly mock dogfights. And, depending on how economical the T-50 is, maybe we could get some to supplement the F-22 fleet
.
We don't have to compete in a technology race...we are already solidly in the 5th generation world. The russians and everyone else are trying to match our level, which is a very difficult proposition without many tens of billions (with a B) of dollars to blow on R&D.
Do we have enough F-22's? Debatable, but if we need to counter a 4.5, or 4.8 generation foriegn fighter we can always buy more F-35's...that production line is going to be open for a very long time.
I find it almost implausible that anyone could get ahead of this in this arena any time in the next several decades. Motivation, innovation, dedication, and hordes of bright third-world engineers (trained in the US) will not be enough...it also requires a ludicrous amount of $$$. We probably spent more developing the F-22 than any other nation's entire annual defense budget...several times over.