[A regular reader in Moscow sent me this. Look at this amazing aircraft from the Russians. I am always fascinated by the Russian thinking and engineering of their military equipment. According to him a Russian aircraft costs 1/10th the price of what Americans spend on theirs.

I must tell you, I tend to see the logic of both the Americans and the Russians, but I tend to think the Russians are closer to the mark – go for lower, tech, cheaper weapons – it gives you a harder strategic strike.

The Russians want to wage MASS WAR. America is great at fighting small wars. Both have their place, but in the final analysis, I think the MASS WAR is the way to go.

I am constantly amazed at the incredible costs of American weapons. I feel they are too expensive. Look at how a small war in backward Iraq is BANKRUPTING AMERICA! Is that not proof enough of this?

And wasn’t it despicable that American soldiers had to fight in lightly armoured Humvees and were welding steel on to protect themselves?

The next generation Russian aircraft AND their coming ICBMS (which can change direction in flight) will be AMAZING STUFF.

When it comes to Architecture and Military weapons design, I really am fascinated by the Achievements of the Russians. Those are two areas where they rock. Jan]

New aircraft make possible new fantastic maneuvers in close air combat.

One of the most exciting aerobatic maneuvers is “Cobra”: the fighter suddenly changes its horizontal trajectory to the vertical one (making a almost right angle with it) and having been frozen in the air for several seconds (like cobra before attack) spins in order to get back to its original way.

The œCobra is used to avoid missile or to pass your opponent forward and attack him from the back. I ve seen it 10 years ago in Moscow Aerospace Salon and it was something incredible.

œCobra was invented by Russian pilot Victor Pugachev in 1989. Before 2005 this maneuver could be done only by one aircraft in the world – Sukhoy-27. Now it s possible on new F-22.

Here one can find a movie of Pugachev s flight in Paris Air Show in 2005 (œCobra is at the end of this 2 min movie).

http://www.zacharz.com/lebourget/cobra.htm

P.S.
It s amazing: I ve read that production of F-22 is stopped in US for being too expensive.

Yes, $200 mn for one F-22 is not 30-35 mn for Su-27 or MiG-29. But this is first fighter of 5th generation in the world, guys!

Sukhoy has no more than prototypes:

http://www.sukhoi.org/eng/news/company/arch/index.php?id=387