BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

Over the last few years, the Republic of Turkey has presented a bit of conundrum to its NATO allies. Last year, a  controversial referendum  replaced Turkey's parliamentary government to a presidential system.  This greatly increased Turkish president Recap Erdogan's power within the country and paves the way for a full-on dictatorship.  Unlike other presidential systems, Turkey lacks the checks and balances to reign in  potential abuse . Preceding this was an attempted coup attempt that seems  quite suspicious in retrospect . Turkey has also been less-than-helpful when it comes to the conflict in Syria.  From inconveniences (like denying the US  use of an airbase ) too outright antagonism ( sending its own troops in to confront US-backed Kurds ).  To make matters worse, Turkish forces  downed a Russian Su-24  when it came uncomfortably close (but not into) Syrian air space.  Needless to say, a NATO shooting down a Rus...

Pugachev's Cobra First, of all...  Thanks for the overwhelming response to the first installment of "Fighter Jet Fight Club"!  I set out to inspire some discussion, and I'm pretty happy with the result.  Lots of intelligent, well argued debates.  I may have not been able to answer all of you, but I do read all the comments. One comment (it was actually responding to the post on the NFPS report) in particular got me thinking... Commenter "Paul" stated: "The F-18 is the only western fighter that can do the cobra".  This caught me by surprise, as I was unaware that the F-18 could perform the vaunted maneuver of dubious tactical benefit.  There is this video of a Super Hornet coming very close at the 0:50 and 2:25 mark... Even if you consider those as Pugachev's Cobra (the Super Hornet doesn't quite   go past a 90 degree angle), the Super Hornet is far from the only western fighter. The F-22 makes it look easy, in fact: ...

"Can't compete"?  Really? Business Insider has a Lockheed-Martin PR piece  article on how the Russian T-50 "Can't compete" with the F-35 .  It consists of little more than a few sentences accompanying a slide show. This piece is so full of mistakes and inaccuracies as to be nearly useless.  Nice pictures, though. First of all, the T-50 is the designation for the prototype.  The production aircraft is known as the PAK FA. Here, in its entirety is the article's argument: "Though the T-50 tops out at 1300 mph compared to the F-35's 1200 mph, the American fighter can launch internal missiles and smart-bombs while flying faster than the speed of sound" Um...  The PAK FA tops out at over 1,500mph, and it can still launch bombs and missiles at that speed. "Both jets can slip into thickly defended ground targets, but the F-35 will be better at taking them out. But the T-50 is better suited for air-to-air battles" Okay, ...

Scared yet? Okay... Given the recent  excitement   in what used to be part of the Ukraine, now is just as good a time as ever to start seriously discussing the great big bear  elephant in the room, the Russian Sukhoi T-50 PAK FA. When I started this blog, I never honestly thought that I would be writing it under the pretense that Russian expansionism would be a thing.  As a child of the Cold War, I remember watching those silly " duck and cover " films at school and referring to the Soviet Union as " The Evil Empire ".  I still remember watching the 7 o'clock news reporting that Soviet Su-15s had shot down a civilian passenger jet, KAL Flight 007 . The threat of nuclear annihilation was still very much a thing in the early 80s.  Movies like WarGames, Red Dawn, and The Day After   helped put fear of " The Russkies" into us.  But it turns out the Cold War was even harder on the Soviets .  Years of military buildup, as well as a failed...