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On June 11th, the US Air Force announced that its F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jets, serving with the 64th Aggressor Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, were painted in the new “spooky” “ghost” paint scheme.
It is not specifically “spooky” because it’s called “ghost”, but rather because that’s the paint scheme of the Russian Su-57 fighter jets, and the painted F-16s are being used by an Aggressor Squadron.
An aggressor squadron or adversary squadron is a squadron that is trained to act as an opposing force in military wargames. Aggressor squadrons use enemy tactics, techniques, and procedures to give a realistic simulation of air combat
Russian Su-57 fighter jet, with its paint scheme. Any similarities with the one on the F-16s is not accidental.
In this case, Russian Su-57, their capability and tactics.
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The paint scheme is intended to replicate an adversary’s fighter jet. United States, allied, and partner-nation aircrews routinely train against accurate and realistic threats including aircraft painted to replicate those pilots might see in aerial combat.
“The paint shop at Nellis did one of these planes last year and asked us to paint this one,” said Jim Gill 576th AMXS production flight chief. “They sent us pictures and gave us the pattern, but there were no instructions. We had to put it together ourselves.”
Paint supervisor Dallas Porter said they laid the stencils on tables and on the shop floor trying to figure out where everything went and sometimes it didn’t match up the way they thought.
“Laying on the flat ground, it was great, but once you get up there with those angles, stuff starts twisting and moving,” Porter said. “It’s tougher to get the angles and 90-degree turns, but something like this gets everybody involved, working as a team.”
The photo shoot depicts the repainting in this painting scheme of the F-16C Block 32D fighter with military number 86-0299.
It is known that earlier in 2019, at least one more F-16C aircraft from the 64th aggressor squadron with military number 84-1220 received such a paint scheme by Nellis airbase, however, they now turned to a specialized unit at Hill Airbase for repainting the fighter aircraft.
For Americans, this paint scheme turned out to be very laborious, it is reported that if applying the standard US Air Force paint scheme to an F-16 fighter takes an average of 11 days, then 12 people from the 576th squadron worked to apply the “ghost” paint scheme three shifts over 18 days.
This paint pattern and its name were actually voted by users on social media.
Novotny let the social media vote on several color schemes, some of those based on existing patterns, others designed by the users, narrowing down the choices and helping them picking the new pattern. After a few rounds of polls, likes and comments, the winner was the pixelated camouflage that appeared in 2018 on the Russian Sukhoi Su-57.
“F-16C belonging to the 64th and 18th AGRS have been sporting different paint schemes for decades now. As reported last year, when the 64th AGRS unveiled a new ‘splinter’ F-16 the purpose of these liveries is to make the Aggressor jets as similar as possible to the real threats and put the pilots in training against the Red Air in a similar situation to what they would see during an engagement with the opposing combat air forces.”
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That paint only looks good on Su-57 they (US) think that if they add that paint of their F16s will look, What, GOOD or something/ its ugly as shit on the F-16. Its like a tetris shited.
Because the purpose of a weapon is participate in beauty contests.
Believe me, the 50 year old Americunt F-16 flying junk would last a few seconds against the SU-57, let’s hope Iran get a few and see the Americunts have a pissy fit :) Even a SU-35 can take out the best of the Americunt pisspots.
I’m sure if they were already fiable, India and China already ordered a few of those. It will take years to be tested, Iran better stick with what they are already good with, drones and missiles, that are cheaper and progress faster.
True to a certain extent, but as a major power Iran still needs a few dozen 4.5 or 5th generation fighter/interceptor to retain control of its air-space. The reason the Shah purchased the F-14A Persian Cats were two-fold, to dominate the region and also project power. The Shah was a pretty accomplished pilot and understood the value of airpower. He used to sleep reading air and space tech magazines. The F-14 even with late life up grades will have their airframes obsolete by 2030 at the latest. There is no question that Iran has invested wisely in drones, missiles and very good AD systems, but fighters are here for a while as both Russia and China are investing in 5th generation jets.
While the SU-57 has frontal stealth which is all it needs with BVR engagements, if the Engine production doesn’t start it’s stealth from the rear is compromised.
Shouldn’t be a compliment? If I was Russian and Americans would paint their trainig planes like Chinese instead, I’d be offended.
Don’t knock the Chinese, their cut and paste has produced a pretty good J-20. I have been to their Chengdu plant, I am not kidding, there were at least thousands of young design engineers working on just about everything. Their R&D costs are next to zero and production time almost real time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GBVojWDy0w
Thete is a chance at some point USA and Russia will realize they need to ally to compete with China.
Indeed, that is the Zionist Bilderberg delusional plan. Why do you think they pushed the orange fat dotard to invite Russia to the G-7, but the limey cunts who have historical hatred for Russians dating back to the Czarist era, vetoed that.
Bilderbergs, Trilateral, CFR have more interest doing business with China than with Russia, currently.
US had a dream to be friends with China and divide Russia up in areas of interests.
The problem is China since the Carter days always kept a polite distance, so US continued to think they were close servant and master.
Only today US slowly see they entered into a womans trap. Russia checkmated US dreams with new weapons and China continued to bow even up to this day.
But its complicated.
more like RF china and the people of the west who want a new direction all have reason to cooperate
Under the leadership o China then.
I don’t see the point of painting an 4th generation fighter which is probably being used for training purposes against a 5th generation SU-57, because the flight envelope and the
F-22 is a bit too expensive to be used as a training plane.
Yes, you are probably right, the cost of a flying hour and maintenance for that plane is of the charts, but then again if you want to train your crews for countering such an advanced platform as the Su-57 you have to be willing to pay the price. ?
Since that specific training is more related to dog fight, or at least that’s what i believe because of the visual feature, Su-57 and F-16 are a bit more maneuvrable than f-22. F-22 or 35 could be used for training long distance combat. I’m not an expert, don’t take me seriously.
On the whole you are on the right track, but in the era of BVR missiles the old “dog fight” era is over. The 3rd generation fighters were the last of the gunfighters. Even the Hughes Phoenix AIM-54 on the F-14A made even the Sidewinder AIM-9X look like a 22 caliber bullet.
Yeah, I know the era of the dog fight is over still the navies have sailing ships for basic training of military sailors.
Yes, that is why Americunts should go back to P-51 Mustangs :) and Cutty Sark.
The Debt, The Budget, The Riots – America’s Existential ‘Triple Threat’
Or at least buy back the Tomcats ;)
Making Sharp, abrupt and unexpected turn will always be useful for terminal evasion of Air-Air missile long after dog fight is forgotten. It saved a Russian SU-24 when it was targeted by the Turkish Man Pad over a Turkish OP earlier this year.
deluded yankee-twats – can’t do much right as it is so more money down the drain.
Well considering recent developments that neat paintjob does more to transform one of their robust and proven concepts of yesteryears than anything on any current f35 shtfight (period)
trying to beat a Ferrari while training against a re-painted Fiat
Russia first stole our paint design. We are just stealing our own design back and Russia is going to pay for stealing American intellectual property.
We can freeze Russian assets all over the world, and apply even tougher sanctions on Russia if they dont pay for sending Americans unemployed to the soup kitchens.
oh man that sure makes me want to let one go right now..
I don’t know how this paint was american and had intellectual property written all over it, but the Russians and the Americans “used” each others work and designs for decades it’s nothing new, we stole from them and they stole from us
also there’s almost nothing left on the sanctions list, maybe cutting Russia completely from the world Economic system which would ultimately fail thanks to china, blockade maybe? might as well declare war right.
There’s a good reason why the US isn’t going for these last resort sanctions, because it would probably start a war or will fail like all the other sanctions, Russia isn’t Turkey you can’t isolate her you can’t blockade her since the country’s huge, and we should probably stop dealing with Russia like an enemy, the country that helped the US in it’s civil war and protected it’s shores from France and Britain by sending it’s navy to patrol US shores, it’s not hard concept to grasp .
History is history and good for knowledge and to see patterns. But the US leadership today has been taken over by Royal Empire thinking. I dont see many claiming the American dream, probably because the young dont know the difference. Can Russia be friends with UK?……..not!
Who stole whoms inferior being: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9778dc448206e2c9747d77ac6dfa2804c6b306aaa5f5f157e77a880ed9270693.jpg
Well there you have it… The most agile aircraft the USAF possesses, (Light Weight Fighter…F-16) is attempting to mimic the characteristics of a Russian heavy-weight stealth fighter in agility modelling… The Su-57 is therefore pretty damn impressive in it’s air-air capabilities.
US has secret aircrafts no one knows about because we keep it professional classified, and we dont walk around and brag about it like the Russians are doing it.
If they are secret how do you know about them then Jensen?
I hear everything, I see everything. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbc1b64cdd72d964f0e2796084c2befb4172aab37d4c603c28006cea2bfde8e5.jpg https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a30298768/air-force-new-warplane-strange-objects-tonopah/
Yes, and I see plastic models.
that magazine is full of bullsht!
Really fake x,you got sht,stick to boeing,kweers have no solutions but only create sht!
US F-15 fighter jet crashes into North Sea near UK A United States Air Force’s F-15 fighter jet crashed into the North Sea of the coast of Yorkshire, United Kingdom on Monday. The coastguard of Bridlington has confirmed dispatching teams to the scene as a part of a major operation launched to find the aircraft’s pilot, according to a report published by Sky News. https://www.teletrader.com/us-f-15-fighter-jet-crashes-into-north-sea-near-uk/news/details/52418099?internal=1
Must be chasing Russian shadows.
Probably was in need of better maintenance.
They are pretty dated now and the $30 trillion debt and burning streets is not really helping.
Yes they have huge amount of air miles clocked up by now. Think I heard the F-22 is also another aircraft that could be retired early.
You know with all their hype, since the cunts have consolidated all their military air tech into Boeing, the fuckers can’t produce anything decent. Both the F-22 and F-35 are trillion dollar fuck ups. The F-14 and F-15 were pretty good in the USSR era, but now with hypersonic SAMS like S-500 Prometheus coming on line, Americunt planes are cooked. The Iranians have even chased F-22 with 60’s era F-4E as there is stealth.
Yes… The USN must be really shitting bricks having the F-35C too! Not as if the F/A-18 is anything to write home about as it is.
The only U.S. jet worth its money is the Super Hornet. But even that is way behind of the competition.
Ageing fleet… Hope the pilot survived.
Not sure, the limey cunts are still looking.
So many crashes with US aircrafts these days what the hell is going on?
Could be poor training, lack of maintenance or poor design/workmanship especially for F-35. These three aspects are caused or worsened by the the country being broke and military and MIC suffering from lethargy.
U.S. pilots have probably the same level of competency as U.S. cops… Unable to exercise either caution, restraint or common sense. Also there is some Baltops exercise going on, so probably super-duper hyped up too!
Thats like putting RGB lighting on an old Pentium processor, looks cool but still obsolete.
Painting the F-16 to resemble the SU-57S ……..is the closest the US comes in Russian military quality and knowhow.
Double the price and half the performance, made merikan tough,, underachiever DOH!!!!
“U.S. 64TH AGGRESSOR SQUADRON REPAINTS ITS F-16S TO RESEMBLE RUSSIAN SU-57S”
LOL!! I’ll copy the USAF and paint my broken down Ford Cortina to resemble a Lambourghini.
I mean guys … have you ever considered…. that maybe they just loved the paint job ?
just a coincidence im sure