willedoo

Northrup Grumman has edged out Lockheed and Boeing to win the strategic stealth bomber contract. A big saving grace for the company; there'd be a few smiles there. http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2015/10/27/northrop-grumman-wins-usaf-bomber-contract/74661394/ http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/fedbiz_daily/2015/10/stealth-bomber-win-secures-once-uncertain-future.html

How corporations sell missiles, MAKS airshow, 2015: http://i-korotchenko.livejournal.com/1149348.html

I wonder what's the full story behind it.

More photos from Syria. One thing I hadn't noticed until pointed out - all the Russian aircraft operating out of Latakia have the Air Force markings painted over, eg. the red star and RF serial numbers on the tail.

Canada seems to be undergoing quite a policy shift in defence. Talk of dropping the F-35 as well. https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/analysis-canadian-f-35-exit-could-signal-wider-air-418043/

The new Canadian Government is withdrawing their jets from Iraq and Syria: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-21/canada-to-withdraw-fighter-jets-from-iraq-and-syria/6871992

Same here, Kiwi303, I have several friends and acquaintances on both sides of the fence in regular email contact. A friend in Kharkov once sent me an illustrated map showing Ukraine eventually split into three. I didn't press him on the meaning of the third region, on the western border of the country. I'm under no delusion that all elections in the region are fair and honest. In the case of Crimea, an unrigged ballot would most likely have delivered a 60% majority based on demographics. They vary from time to time, but roughly 60% Russian, 25% Ukranian, 15% Tartar. 60% would have carried the day on it's own, but tweaking to 95% has more political and propaganda value even if they don't need to rig it to win. But at the end of the day, 60% majority rules. Here in Australia, TPP results mean 45% of the voters want nothing to do with the government. So the mandate in Crimea on ethnic lines is 5% larger then what we have here. Elections in those countries seem to rely on intimidation more than outright box stuffing from what I've seen. They don't seem to have voter privacy and have a lot of goons hanging around intimidating the voters into a certain vote. The sad thing about the whole affair is that resentment and hatred will linger for many years after any peace settlement.

A good assessment, Nev. The friction between some ethnic Ukrainians and the ethnic Russians goes back to WW2 when the Soviet Union was fighting Nazi Germany and large sections of Ukraine society collaborated with the Germans, hence the present day Banderists. It probably goes back even further to resentment at the communists taking power in the early 20's, and the harsh way the USSR treated it's citizens. The current friction between the US and Russia over Ukraine seemed to start a couple of years before the coup in Kiev, with the planned NATO missile defence shield. After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a non binding agreement that NATO wouldn't expand their Eastern boundaries. Russia saw them break this promise and move right up to their borders, with Belarus and Ukraine remaining as the last buffer zones. With the missile defence shield, the reason given was European protection from Iranian and North Korean missiles. Russia was part of a formal dialogue agreement, and kept pushing for NATO to put in writing their words that the defence shield would not be targeted at Russia. NATO repeatedly refused to do this, so Russia pulled out of the co-operation agreement. So NATO started rattling their sabre and Putin decided to show that he had one as well. When Putin saw them trying to take Ukraine, his red line was crossed.The rest is history.

Some more photos from Latakia: It would be interesting to see how the canards react with the intake air flow on the Su-34.

Kiwi, do you have documented proof, or have you read that somewhere. A verified source would be nice. Otherwise, worldwide, any election in a country where we don't like their politics, we can just claim it's rigged. I don't know of any reliable independant third party reports from election observers in the Crimean election, but I might be missing something.

Same system as Australia and NZ - majority rules.

I'd agree that was Putin's motivation. If the Crimean people wanted to remain part of Ukraine, he still would have taken it. He was lucky that the people wanted that as well - it saved him a few internal political problems. His motivation for doing so doesn't change the Crimean people's reason for wanting it. It was a rare win/win situation for Crimea and Russia.

Back to the investigation - where does it go from here? It would be good to see a fair and balanced investigation into who were the perpertrators, but under what authority or umbrella would it be done, via the UN or unilaterally. We may never know who did it. Almaz Antey, the manufacturers, have done computer modelling based on photographs of the shrapnel damage to the plane and offered this to the investigators. Their data shows the trajectory coming from Government held territory, while the Dutch investigation concluded it originated from rebel held ground. If there's nothing to hide, why not allow Almaz Antey to present their findings so they can be examined. The US last year claimed they had satellite imagery showing where it was fired from and who fired it. They refuse to release it saying it's secret squirrel and would compromise their national security if they did so. Best case scenario would be to have a truly fair and independant inquiry which would look at all evidence and not cherry pick evidence to back up a pre-conceived conclusion, like a lynch gang. The Almaz Antey findings would unlikely be faked if they are prepared to present them to the world. That's not to say they're correct though, and they should be allowed to be up for scritiny.

bexrbetter, I wouldn't call Poroshenko pro Russian, he's in in the presidency now, the one the US referred to as "a useful idiot"; Viktor Yanukovych is the ousted pro Russsian president. Cheers, Willie.

Reading the Australian paper today about the report, they say it was a BUK-1 with the old 9M38 missile. The Ukranian military has around seventy BUK-1's left over from the Soviet days. Russia has the BUK-1-2 and BUK-2, and claim they haven't had BUK-1's for a few years now. I was always under the impression that the BUK-1-2 could retro fire the BUK-1 missile, but not the other way around. The terminology has changed from 'Russian missile system' to 'Russian made missile system'. Ukraine doesn't have any missile launchers not made in Russia. The German Intelligence some time back said all their intel pointed to a Ukranian BUK being captured by Donbass rebels and used. I'm not sure on this point, but I always thought the old and new warheads had different pre-formed shrapnel and a different burst pattern. You would think ballistic testing could narrow things down a bit. Problem is, the world experts on these missiles, the corporation that makes them, Almaz Antey, has been offering their expertise for a long time now, and the investigators keep giving them the brush off. They blew up a 747 a few days ago to check their computer modelling, and are still claiming a different fragmentation than the one the Dutch investigators are claiming.

The politics in Ukraine are quite complicated, to say the least. The simplest part of it was Crimea's reunification. Almost all of the population is Russian, and it was part of Russia until 1954 when Nikita Krushev (a Ukranian) gave it to Ukraine. That wasn't much of a problem when it was all the USSR. When the Union was disolved in 1991, people weren't all that happy to be under Ukraine's sole rule, but got on fairly peacefully. The problem started there with the coup in Kiev. All of a sudden, the government of the country was in chaos with the Banderists calling most of the shots. Knowing the historical hatred Right Sector has for ethnic Russians, the Crimean's were understandably worried. One of the first acts of the new government was to introduce a bill banning the use of Russian language in the entire country. That's when the Crimeans decided to give them the flick. A lot of Crimeans are alive today who wouldn't be if they'd stayed part of Ukraine. After the massacre by Right Sector thugs in Odessa, the ethnic Russians there are keeping their heads way down. The Crimeans were lucky that Russia had about 16,000 troops stationed there under the base lease agreement with Ukraine. In the Donbass, they weren't so lucky. They thought they'd jump on the bandwagon and Putin would back them for a Crimea type deal. That was in the too hard basket for Russia, so it didn't happen. The people of the Donbass were split into three camps. About a third wanted total independance, a third wanted to become part of Russia, and the other third wanted to remain part of Ukraine, but under a federal state system like ours, with some constitutional rights and semi autonomy. This last option has always been Putin's preferred option, but the Ukranian government wants no part of federation. Most of the coverage of the Ukraine conflict by our press has been BS, and that's still an understatment. With our press, it's not so much presenting lies that's the problem, more so omitting the truth. They never screen footage of the Azov Battalion and other Right Sector militias wearing swastikas on their helmets and uniforms, because the narrative is that they're the guys with the white hats. It's disgusting. The whole show's a mess. State prosecutors are talking about prosecuting the PM for corruption, the President's billions have doubled since the coup last year, and the privately owned Right Sector militias have been threatening to turn around and march on Kiev if the Government doesn't do what it's told. Australia's looking good, I recon.

A press report from the front concerning ground operations: https://www.rt.com/news/318338-syria-troops-hama-offensive-exclusive/

I guess the ape could only take selfies until the battery went flat. Going by some of the selfies I've seen, logic tells me the ape would be very capable of doing it.

An-2 over Toowoomba.

Looks a bit like Khe Sanh.

Some news video of the Syrian operations: https://www.rt.com/news/318331-rt-most-watched-syria/

At the moment, Russia seems to be getting better intel via the Syrian Army and the four way intelligence agreement they have with Iraq, Iran and Syria in their Baghdad headquarters. The leadership of the intel grouping will be rotating between the four countries. Interesting to note sources saying that Iraq no longer trusts US intelligence. The Russians say the rate of strikes is dependant on intelligence. On the weekend, they carried out more than sixty sorties in one day. It's starting to look like Russia in, US out, in that part of the middle east. If Russia gets on top of things, we may even be asked to leave sometime in the future. Either way, it's been good combat experience for the RAAF. Meanwhile, the information war is cranking up. The US claims four Russian Navy launched missiles fell short in Iran. Russia denies it, saying all reached the target area. So the US has removed their carrier from the Gulf, saying the new Russian missiles are unreliable and not battle tested. First time in eight years there's no carrier in the Gulf. Nothing like a war to test new equipment - this is the first combat for the Su-34 as well. It hasn't been a good week for the US. The power vacuum is being rapidly filled, by the look of it. Here's a bit on the safety agreement: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151012/1028370993/US-Aircraft-Make-Way-Russian-Jets-Syria.html

Thanks for the explanation, Marty. I've often wondered why the Russian ZSh-7 helmet has a 150 kts. ejection speed advantage over the equivalent US model. It makes sense now.

Maybe the thread title should be edited to 'can't turn, can't climb, can't run, can't bail out if you're too skinny'. Here's an article on the ejection seat problem for lighter pilots: http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/air-force/2015/10/01/exclusive-f-35-ejection-seat-fears-ground-lightweight-pilots/73102528/ It looks like the've banned pilots weighing less than 136 pounds, about 62 kg. from flying the F-35. The lighter pilot allows the seat to rotate too far forward, breaking the necks on lighter test dummies upon chute deployment. After all the work they did on the comparitive testing programme, there must be some thinking that they should have gone for the K-36. The best seat in the world was offered as a license build and rejected. The figures speak for themselves - in more than 90% of K-36 variant ejections, the pilots have survived injury enough to be able to resume their careers as fighter pilots. With MB's the figures are almost opposite. Biggest problem in helmet design these days is how to incorporate all the 5th. gen. attachments without creating dangerous neck loadings.

It is an interesting concept. A bit similar to Chinese troops in the Korean war using numbers to overwhelm, or the blitzkrieg senario. I can see the parallel with what some members here have been saying about F-35's with all their technology being overwhelmed by sheer numbers of 4th generation fighters within visual range. As with any aircraft, when they expend their weapons, the only alternative is to bug out with either maneuverability or speed. A lot of people are saying the F-35 doesn't have either. I'd like to think we'd never see a major confrontation like that again, but it's always good to sit in the old armchair and theorise. It's looking more like we'll just get involved in proxy wars into the future, but who knows.