Russian Aircraft and Aviation Technology

Let me start by saying I know I will be in the middle of a flame storm
over this posting. I am old enough to have been aware of public
information about aviation since the end of WW2. Also I was within the
sphere of aviation development and advanced testing for a substantial
period during the Viet Nam era.

Most Americans think the Russians were just barely able to create
inferior copies of American planes and other technologies. The laws of
physics and chemistry are the same every where on the planet, however.
Therefore the solutions to problems are going to have similar results
no matter who does the solving. And of course there is a lot of copying
or theft of ideas going both ways and in circles.

It is true that the Russians did create inferior copies of American
products and planes, and learned from them. There was a war in the Far
East from about 1950 to about 1953. The Americans entered that war
with leftover WW2 aviation equipment and to their chagrin and amazement
met some extremely advanced Russian technology. Ever heard of the
MIG-15? Our guys barely were able to push development of something to
counter it.

Then there was the flare-up in Viet Nam. The AK-47 was a suburb battle
rifle. As a practical weapon for awful conditions it was great. Much
better than the sensitive hi-tech darling the Americans had to contend
with. Maybe we should have copied them. Better metal and a composite
stock and we might have had something. And those Russian rockets? At
Bien Hoa I experienced an average of an attack a week. Three or four to
a couple of dozen incoming rounds of --was it 122MM?-- two yards long,
double wrap of 5MM thick each wrap, scored diamond for good effect,
low grade iron fragmentation warheads with some high explosive to make
it all interesting and propelled by a piece of pipe I do not remember
how long full of solid propellant and those rockets at Bien Hoa were
launched from bamboo stands locally made and positioned 5 to 7 miles
away. They always hit very precisely on the airfield in the small area
which was the intended target. Except sometimes the target was
obviously a short distance away, like the night the rockets tore up the
dirt between the runways instead of the Ranch Hand parking area a few
hundred yards away.
But the grouping would still make any NRA rifleman proud.

Later, when the Viet Nam thing was ended, the Americans were still
trying to develop answers to some of the problems of stopping an all-out
air attack. A time when they were still considering the possibility of
sending clouds of B-52s into Russia. In that time and ten years before
the Americans even heard that there was an airplane called the Sukhoy
model 27 there were SU-27's flying operationally and they had look-down
shoot-down radar and FLIR that was also connected to the fire control
system. Nearly 20 years before the Americans did. It is just as well
that the Russians went bankrupt. The SU-27 is still maybe the best
air-superiority fighter in the world, or its immediate family. The
American effort is playing catch-up and at a price that might bankrupt
the Americans too.

And finally, lest anyone misunderstand, I am totally grateful to
Almighty GOD and whatever other Gods there may be that I am an American
and that by whatever Grace of whatever Gods the Nation of America has,
so far, prevailed and maintained human dignity and justice.