As Waltersons, the new owner of the Forces of Valor brand, continues to build out its web site, product images are beginning to appear for some of their upcoming products. By clicking on their Exhibition link, located within the footer of their web site, then clicking on some of the recent Asian Hobby Shows, you can make out some of the tanks and aircraft slated for a 2017 release.
While some of the images are rather small, they do go along way towards proving that the manufacturer is hard at work bringing product to market and what you can expect from some of the re-purposed items carried over from the original range. http://forcesofvalor.com/new_website/event_toyfair.php
Ebay is currently running a promotion where buyers can earn 6% on qualifying items less than $50, 8% on items $50 or more, for purchases made by August 24th at 11:59PST. Said discount can be applied across all categories. This discount may be deducted from any future purchases once the buyer has been notified, which generally happens one month later.
Thus far, Sukhoi has sold a paltry dozen Su-57s to the Russian Air Force and none for foreign export, despite entering into an agreement with India for a number of potential variants
Much has been made of Russia’s so-called fifth generation fighter, the Su-57 (formerly the Pak FA), although, according to recent reports, it may be a stealth aircraft in name only. Jane’s, the holy grail of weapons analysis and performance, has gone on record to indicate that the Su-57 is already a dismal failure, an aircraft that was supposed to turn the military aviation world on its ear and serve as a viable contender to go toe-to-toe with both the USAF F-22 and F-35 entrants.
According to Jane’s, there are a number of critical areas in which the Su-57 fails to live up to its billing. For one, the aircraft’s internal weapons compartment is incapable of storing some of the latest weapons in the Russian arsenal, forcing the designers to hang the ordnance as external stores, thus all but undermining the aircraft’s stealth profile. Meanwhile, the aircraft’s power plant borrows from older fourth generation weapons platforms, and from a cursory observation, doesn’t seem to be shrouded in any type of heat dampening mechanism, again defeating the aircraft’s radar cross section return. Interestingly, NATO has yet to assign a reporting name to the Su-57, something they typically do for all potential adversarial aircraft produced by Russian aircraft makers. Perhaps they will go with “Failure”.
