New Russian Jet Fighter

[PeterT]

It's threads like this that have kept me coming back to this site every day for the past 8 years and why it's still my homepage.

[fvbounty]

Originally Posted by PeterT

Nice story. Always been my favorite airplane. Thanks FV.

Your welcome it was always my favorite too!!!!!

[spookyload]

Originally Posted by XJ.

Imagine what can be done with an airframe once you lose the weight, volume and systems needed to support a pilot (or two). The number of Gs that bird could pull would be pretty nuts. No manned craft would be able to match it.

The F-16 could likely have been designed to do more G's, but why bother if the human is the limiting factor?

[k0NG0]

Originally Posted by XJ.

Imagine what can be done with an airframe once you lose the weight, volume and systems needed to support a pilot (or two). The number of Gs that bird could pull would be pretty nuts. No manned craft would be able to match it.

It would be the perfect platform for thrust vectoring. Have you seen the AIM-9X Sidewinder? Dunno if it's still a prototype, but it's got thrust vectoring and can be used to attack targets behind you by essentially doing an instantaneous 180 shortly after launch. I've seen a couple of videos and it's completely insane. And that's rocket-powered, albeit in a tiny format (being an air-to-air missile and all).

You could probably build large UAV:s that pull 20G easily. I'm fairly sure most airframes today do at least 12-15 G without breaking up if needed. Pilots suck, heh.

[XJ.]

Originally Posted by spookyload

The F-16 could likely have been designed to do more G's, but why bother if the human is the limiting factor?

Exactly!