It's been a great experience writing articles for American Innovation, but I will be discontinuing the blog. I will leave the blog up and check the comments on a semi-regular basis.
I greatly appreciate all the feedback and constructive criticism provided over the years which has helped me greatly improve as an author. Thank you for your support.
Congratulations, Matt! Loved your work and will be sorry to see you go, but good on you for heading off to greener pastures!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteWell a hearty congratulations Matt! I am sad to see you go but I am sure that your analysis will be warmly received out on greener pastures.
ReplyDeleteI just stumbled upon this blog while googling info on PAK FA. That was a truly excellent article. As a Russian/Soviet aircraft fanboy I really enjoyed your objective analysis. I have spent the last two days since then reading articles on this blog; truly wonderful and informative stuff; especially the ones regarding the F-35. Really helped put things into perspective.
I was surprised by your levelheaded, solidly researched and sound analysis on everything you have talked about. Things are clear and reasonably comprehensible for an idiot like myself but laden with information that I just love reading and learning about. What really surprised was that you referenced Air Power Australia and Project On Government Oversight, both which I enjoy reading very much for their useful information but sometimes disagree with and object to at times. Rather than dismiss them as I am sure many have done, you looked at their arguments and info and agreed or disagree with their analysis and said why. And you have conducted yourself well in the comments which are surprisingly civilized too.
I am sad to see you go when I just go here. But I am very much interested in seeing more of your work; some info regarding where to look for it would be appreciated very much.
As always congrats and good luck to your future endeavours. :D
Thanks! I tried to be more rigorous with citing sources and limiting bias over time, I'm glad to see that has been noticed. I am still bit of an F-22 fanboy though :D
Deletehttps://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YROS2MwX3i0/UcYIftHWx1I/AAAAAAAABSY/AOpV5SBeWVA/s1600/Raptor+kill.jpg
If you really love Russian military aircraft, the best source I've seen over the years is "Russia's Warplanes" by Piotr Butowski. It’s a bit pricey at $40 on Amazon (VOL 1) but its well worth it as he meticulously examines each aircraft down to the type of cockpit displays, radios, etc. as well as providing performance data for avionics and sensors seldom found anywhere else. His articles on the PAK FA and Flanker family are particularly detailed.
I'll post my new articles on Twitter when they are published, but I'm on the data team rather than editorial team which will influence what I'll be writing about.
Best,
Matt
Well I certainly try and get that book when I can. It looks interesting. As always best of luck and I hope your work does well.
DeleteNicholas
Congrats and all the best manglermuldoon. Really enjoyed your writing and topics over the years.
ReplyDeleteIt's great to know that I had retained a viewership over the years, thank you!
DeleteHi Matt,
ReplyDeleteSorry to bother you but I have a question regarding the comparisons between the J-20 and PAK-FA and I am sure this question will get to you quickly on this post. I am curious as to which one is more stealthy and has the potential to be more stealthy. You have already mentioned the Canards on the J-20 being a problem and that from my observations the PAK-FA is not a strong as the F-22 and YF-23 as APA put it,
"Where the PAK-FA falls well short of the F-22A and YF-23 is the shaping design of the lower fuselage and side fuselage, where the general configuration, wing/fuselage join angles, and inlet/engine nacelle join angles" - Air Power Australia, 2010
Granted things change even gradually as seen in the T-50-6 prototype with its changes but between the two, which one is more stealthy?
Nicholas
Hi Nicholas,
DeleteNo problem, there is actually pretty good information in the public domain about the PAK FA's RCS because Sukhoi released patent documents detailing its design features. The figures associated with those documents indicate a range of 1m^2 to 0.1m^2 and Piotr Bukowski (Russia'Warplane's Vol. 1) reports 0.3m^2 for the frontal RCS. In contrast the F-22 and F-35 have a frontal RCS of 0.0002m^2 and 0.001m^2 respectively (figures based on USAF official remarking RCS similar to steel marble for F-22 and golf ball for F-35). So the PAK FA has a much larger RCS by orders of magnitude over US fifth generation aircraft.
The J-20 is much more of an unknown quantity as the Chinese are much less transparent about their aircraft and they don't have as much export success as Russia (export promotions are a good source of info). Since I wrote the J-20 article I've seen more information which suggests canards are not necessarily a detriment to RCS. Apparently Lockheed Martin designed a canard concept for the JSF back in the 1990s and didn't identify any RCS issues. I think a larger problem with the J-20 rather than its design which does utilize DSI unlike the PAK FA, is their quality control and material science base. The U.S. still catches a lot of Chinese agents trying to sneak carbon fiber and other aircraft related materials back to China.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-national-arrested-illegally-attempting-export-high-grade-carbon-fiber-china
No idea on its RCS, you'd probably need to make a scale model, apply RAM treatments, and subject it to radar testing to find out. If they can get their material science and quality control issues sorted, I'd say the J-20 has more potential in terms of RCS reductions.
Best,
Matt
Well thank you for the information, great stuff as always. On closer inspection I suspected that the J-20 would have better stealth characteristics than PAK-FA.
DeleteGood on the Chinese for going down that route instead of the partial solution that the Russians seem to be going for.
Also what happened to your twitter account? I have been waiting to see what you have been helping create but now it is gone.
Sincerely,
Nicholas
a pity, i really liked your posts!
ReplyDeletegood job and good luck, see ya
Much appreciated, thank you!
DeleteThanks Matt for the Great Work over the many years I have been following you.
ReplyDeleteAll the Best.
Stone30 (George ;-) )
nice article
ReplyDeletegreat work
ReplyDelete