Lt. Belenko’s was 37 years ago. Today, those same Russians have been studying and paying attention. Some of the best engineers I have seen have been Russian. A few years ago not so much, but as of late, they rock. The new generation of Russians that never have lived under Communism have a new view of the world and they want it all. We had better not compare today’s Russians to those of 1976.
Ten-four. I have always admired Russian artistry. Where our creations are great, fine and work well, the equivalent Russian creation, though it works no better than ours, usually has a certain artistic flair to it that makes it appealing to look at.
Case in point; They came up with a space shuttle after we developed ours. It was a shockingly shameless copy of ours. I only ever saw it once, when it was shown having returned from a mission, back around 1990, maybe. It looked amazingly like ours, but it had several beautiful but unnecessary aesthetic changes to the lines, the profile, the shape of the vertical stabilizer that made it pleasant to behold. I don’t think it performed as sell as ours; in fact I think it may have had some operational issues that resulted in their brooming it. I have never seen it since. Thank you for the update on Russian technical advances.