Iran's new fighter

[MichaeltheGreat]

The landing gear looks like the least outrageous part to me. What's your observation on it?

That the first time you attempted to land, the pilot would basically have a unicycle up his ass.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Iran's new prototype reconnaissance plane:

That looks like a prop version of the flying egg, aka the XF-85 Goblin.

[Hauldren Collider]

That the first time you attempted to land, the pilot would basically have a unicycle up his ass.

That is a good point. Now that I look, there are no shock absorbers.

[regexcellent]

Why would there need to be?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Something is a shock absorber. Whether it's intended for that purpose or not. If you don't have a real shock absorber of appropriate design, it will be the strut (shear loss) or the airframe (catastrophic failure) if the strut is strong enough to fail last.

Either way, the total number of takeoffs will be very limited, and the number of successful landings will be takeoffs - 1.

[regexcellent]

What I meant was you don't need to have some kind of visible shock absorber; the frame might be capable of handling the landing forces transmitted directly from the gear.

[MichaeltheGreat]

That's totally unsound design and will cause premature failure, plus you need you make the airframe much larger and more complex in the gear area. Basically you get into a structural failure race, beefing up the strut so it doesn't shear, and adding more depth and compression/shear load distribution/dispersal to the airframe. Conventional landing strut shock absorbers are much less complex, less weight, and they don't compromise internal stowage the way excess airframe structure would.

Then you get the whole issue with a "stiff strut" landing and the effect on the tires, which are way too small for the aircraft to begin with.

[Alexander's Horse]

That NK MIG looks like its been painted with house paint, and it probably was.

If you're ever in Seoul, check out their national war memorial. They have park full of interesting military equipment including early helicopters and at least one of the MIGs that was landed in SK by a NK defector.

[Elok]

So instead of being a personality flaw it is a cultural flaw of blind hatred. Got it.

Well, you're hardly in a position to call Al out on that anyway, but really it's to be expected given Israel's long, violent history with the Arab world. And Israel's ongoing habit of flouting international law and getting away with it. And our country, AKA the world's sole remaining superpower, backing them up on everything like a codependent girlfriend. Now, of course it's more complicated than the way Al makes it out to be--and the Arabs have behaved AT LEAST as badly as Israel--but it's unreasonable to expect people to be fair and even-handed where injuries against their own group are concerned.

As for Iran, I get the impression that Israel is more of a political whipping boy than an actual enemy for them. Why would the Clerics wipe out Israel? They'd risk their own position/lives in the process, and lose a valuable distraction from the problems caused by their rule. It's not like Islam, or any religion or ideology, makes one incapable of looking out for one's own interests...

[Hauldren Collider]

If they were only interested in treating Israel as a whipping boy, they wouldn't fund Hamas and Hezbollah and send them military advisors. There are countries that do what you are describing--Saudi Arabia for instance. It's understood by foreign policy experts that they have a gentleman's agreement with Israel. Given the behavior of the Arabs in the past, you can be sure that they would attack Israel if they ever thought they could win. Which is why Israel does its utmost to maintain as many advantages as it can.

[dannubis]

If they would now just keep on killing civilians in the process they would be on the same level as the rest of the civilized world.

[Dinner]

That NK MIG looks like its been painted with house paint, and it probably was.

If you're ever in Seoul, check out their national war memorial. They have park full of interesting military equipment including early helicopters and at least one of the MIGs that was landed in SK by a NK defector.

I really liked the South Korean National War Museum as it was the type of giant lavish public works which are really only possible in a dictatorship (it was made by a previous dictator before South Korea became democratic). We're talking just massive with giant vaulted ceilings and display after display after display of real equipment, reproductions, and giant graphics showing step by step how battles went and personal effects and writings from people who were there. The museum covers pre-history all the way up to modern times and although it focuses on Korea it covers major wars and battles around the entire world throughout history.

It was impressive and completely free for military personnel plus the displays, videos, and audio tapes were in like a dozen different languages so everyone could understand it.

[Alexander's Horse]

the walls of remembrance are very moving too

[Elok]

If they were only interested in treating Israel as a whipping boy, they wouldn't fund Hamas and Hezbollah and send them military advisors. There are countries that do what you are describing--Saudi Arabia for instance. It's understood by foreign policy experts that they have a gentleman's agreement with Israel. Given the behavior of the Arabs in the past, you can be sure that they would attack Israel if they ever thought they could win. Which is why Israel does its utmost to maintain as many advantages as it can.

Possibly that's just a slip of the keyboard on your part, but Iranians are Persians, not Arabs. Which is another reason why they need Israel around--without the wicked blood-drinking Jews around, the big, powerful, Shiite Persian country in a region full of Arabs (many of them Sunnis) could easily become the new boogeyman. I shouldn't have implied that Israel wasn't an enemy at all--but the idea that Iran is willing to court its own destruction to wipe it out is farfetched to me. That would imply that the ruling clerics are hopeless zealots, so deluded by their own ideals that they have no concept of self-interest. This does not square with their behavior AFAIK. On the contrary, they seem to be a thoroughly Machiavellian batch of cynical SOBs. Hence the silly Beeblebroxian "president"--and their use of proxy warfare to harass and destabilize their strongest regional rival, or to win influence in Iraq after we were kind enough to oust Saddam for them. That's much the same thing we did to the Commies (and they to us) for all the years of the Cold War--and both sides had nukes then. A gang of zealots would have invaded someone years ago, or instituted a series of bloody internal purges to maintain purity. Certainly zealots couldn't keep a country in the Middle East, of all places, afloat and even reasonably prosperous for thirty-odd years. Let alone be a major player like Iran is.

EDIT: Wow, that's a lot of dashes. Could have written it better too. Oh, well.

[Alexander's Horse]

even I can tell that Iranian plane is ridiculous, the pilot is so far forward he is like a human missile...oh, wait...