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Showing content with the highest reputation on 04/24/2017 in all areas

  1. These are valve-timing gears from the Bristol Hercules radial engine. This engine powered a number of mid-WWII British aircraft including the Beaufighter and Stirling. The Hercules used sleeve valves, which reciprocate independently of the pistons and thus require this giant mess of drive gears. In the late 1930s there were a number of fairly convincing papers that predicted that aircraft engines would plateau in power density unless they switched to sleeve valves. In actuality, conventional poppet valves were greatly improved and by the time aircraft sleeve valve engines were mature they had only modest power advantages over poppet-valve designs.
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  3. That "insider" series is some interesting reading. If true, it confirms a lot of what I've been guessing was going on behind the scenes.
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  4. TV report about Uran-9 UGV Assembly:
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  5. T-15 can have a "who is bigger?" competition with Namer Same goes with T-14
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  6. You'll need to buy the DLC to get anything better than several rifles
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  7. I see the JASDF has wisely heeded the warnings of Pierre Sprey and adopted a new true lightweight fighter.
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  8. Nord 1500 Griffon
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  9. An explanation of some of the PAK-FA's avionics, from the Key Publishing Forums. I can't vouch for accuracy, but it seems reasonable. This is the 101KS-O DIRCM (Directional Infra-Red Counter Measure) turret. There are two such turrets on the PAK-FA; one is underneath the nose, and the other is the astromech droid-looking thing behind the canopy: This is a defensive jammer that works by blinding heat-seeking missiles with an infra-red laser beam. Here is some test footage of a similar DIRCM system made by Northrop Grumman: This sort of defense is likely to be very effective against older heat-seeking missiles with reticle seekers. This includes the FIM-92 Stinger, the 9M38 Igla, all AIM-9 variants except the AIM-9X, all Soviet-designed heat-seeking air to air missiles, Israeli-designed heat-seeking missiles up to Python 4, et cetera. Newer heat-seeking missiles with imaging infrared seekers like IRIS-T, ASRAAM, AIM-9X and the as-yet unseen K-74M2 will be harder to fool. When hit with DIRCM they can enter a Home-on-Jam mode which steers the missile towards the jammer. This is the MAWS (Missile Approach Warning System). This is believed to be an ultra-violet based system that detects UV light from rocket motors. The pilot is then warned of the approaching missile, and the DIRCM can begin jamming it. These MAWS sensors are scattered all over the PAK-FA to give complete coverage, but you can see one of them behind the cockpit on the side of the aircraft: This is an infra-red targeting pod. This will be attached externally to the PAK-FA when it is performing ground attack missions. It looks very similar to Lockheed Martin's Sniper pod: This pod likely contains a high-resolution, high magnification, stabilized infra-red camera as well as a long-range laser designation beam (perhaps also a laser system for beam-riding air to surface ordnance. Russians love laser beam riding missiles.) Russian optoelectronics generally lag their Western counterparts by a decade or two, but it is probably at roughly as capable as the LANTIRN pod: This system will be very useful for finding and designating ground targets as well as reconnaissance and surveillance. This sort of thing would be extremely useful in the current Syrian conflict. The PAK-FA could overfly a suspicious sector of the conflict with its radar in Ground Moving Target Indication mode (GMTI). In this mode the radar detects the Doppler shift of returned radar waves to filter ground clutter noise from signals returning from moving vehicles. The PAK-FA's software could then point the targeting pod at the moving vehicles so that the pilot or an intelligence officer in a bunker somewhere, watching the feed from the aircraft's data link, could then scrutinize the images. If it turns out to be a large fleet of jihadotas then the strafing runs can begin. This is the IRST (Infra-Red Search and Track) system. This one is easy to identify, it's the big, metallic marble in front of the canopy: This system is a wide-angle infra-red sensor that supplements the radar in the air-to-air role. It serves to detect and track the heat signatures of enemy aircraft. Because it is a passive system, there is no possible way for enemy aircraft to know that they are being tracked by the IRST. The IRST also has a built-in laser rangefinder. Various Western defense analysts made a big deal about the MiG-29 carrying an IRST system. However, when Western pilots finally got their hands on former East German MiG-29s, they were not particularly impressed with the IRST. Compared to radar, IRST is shorter ranged, and its range drops even further when there are clouds in the sky (radar is basically unaffected by clouds). Radar can perform its scan of the sky faster, especially PESA and AESA radars because their electronically scanned antennae are not limited by mechanical movement speeds. Finally, the IRST on the MiG-29 was non-imgaging; it just detected anything that was hot in front of it, but it had no way to inform the pilot what the hot thing was. The system on the PAK-FA is supposed to be much better, although whether it is so much better that it is actually useful has yet to be seen.
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  10. LoooSeR

    Bash the Pak-Fa thread

    Rumors are saying that 6 PAK-FA made it first flight. 5th prototype of PAK-FA
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