Yeah, by the fears US is showing with Turkey, you would say the Turks plan to sell the F-35 to Russia xD

@Scooter: you mean not real numbers like US and the F-22? I can understand western media dismissing the Su-57 for PR reasons, but that we believe all the BS told about the plane is too much. Russia has no alternative and cannot keep flying Flankers until the end of time. They have already said they plan to include 6G systems into the plane, so I would think they would like to know more about real features and schedule of PCA/NGAD and the other 6G efforts before starting production in numbers of Su-57, rather than thinking of cancelling it. Add to it the huge investment in the plane + excellent capabilities + time needed to finish 2nd stage engine and you will see it will take some years but will be fielded. The bit about the J-31 is funny trolling but that’s it, honestly no possible comparison between both planes and no reason for Russia to go that way.

@FBW:

Not trying to make sensationalism about this, mine is a honest question. I don’t understand what is so serious to risk the relation with a critical ally and NATO member and also the supply chain of the F-35 program.

This isn’t about whether Turkey’s purchase would “prove” or “disprove” the stealthiness of the F-35 or the S-400’s ability to detect it.

Maybe, but honestly, do you think results from this experience would not be used for PR purposes by any of the two sides?

It has everything to do with Turkey ignoring CAASTA (as a NATO member).

Since when US has jurisdiction over all NATO members? US should not need foul play to defend their interests and much less force other countries to engage in such deeds to please them and against their national interests. This just shows an elementary lack of respect for other countries’ sovereignty, maybe you want to elaborate what you mean?

A secondary issue may be sensitive information about sharing the F-35’s threat library and how it detects, identifies, and counters such systems.

Ok, don’t understand what has S-400 to do with this. Maybe I don’t fully understand what you mean but this sounds to me rather as a leak of internal F-35 information than something related to S-400 capabilities. BTW, wouldn’t US have the opportunity to gain similarly relevant knowledge about the S-400?

But mostly it’s due to an alleged ally buying a weapon system from a nation being sanctioned by the majority of NATO.

No need to hide behind NATO, CAATSA is an US issue. In any case there are many other ways US can pressure Turkey, but they are focusing on F-35 more than it looks reasonable.

Addition- I’ve read some of the Russian sites speculation on this issues, they do tend to focus on the same non-issue “the US is worried the F-35 won’t be stealthy against the S-400”, or that it will prove or disprove this or that.

We can pretend it is not an issue but it is. National prestige associated to capabilities of US’ stealth planes is huge. The same goes for Russia’s SAM systems. Both sides use the propaganda in defence of their interests, as all nations have been doing for millennia.

I think it’s safe to assume that both the US and Russia have a rough model of what distances/vectors the F-35 can be detected by the S-400 in ideal conditions.

The issue would be if values not corresponding to claimed capacities of any of the systems would emerge. US side claims their stand-off ranges are more than enough given the detection capabilities of modern Russian SAMs. Russians laugh about the RCS values published for US VLO designs and seem quite confident they can handle them. Someone is exaggerating and could end up discredited in a worst case.

(in adverse EW environments is a whole other story).

Agree, but jamming a SAM system with 400 km range interceptors is not that easy, as far as I know. Hence MALDS and its further developments, US needs expendable jamming assets to operate in such environments.

This isn’t the 1980’s where LO aircraft rely on signature reduction alone ala F-117.

True, and this progress also applies to IADS illuminating LO targets from different aspects at different frequencies, relying on VHF radars, OTH, PCL and other resources against which RCS reduction technology is not that effective. BTW this goes against the claims of LO planes being capable of operating unsupported, which to me looks clearly marketing destined to make justifiable the increased costs of operating the newer, more complex planes.

Would not think the interceptor role is the one at which F-35 would excel, even when its avionics are very advanced other characteristics, mainly of the airframe, are limiting it and putting it below the F-22 IMHO. Load / range / speed of the carried missiles is relatively low. Speed of the platform is low and transonic acceleration not brilliant. Flight altitude average at best. Range is pretty decent but not great and will suffer especially in supersonic speed due to the plane’s aero design.

As interceptor you want to reach the point of interception before an enemy carrier has released its missile payload and in case needed to shot them down, hence acceleration and speed, missile type, missile load, flight altitude and range are vital. How a 1.6 M F-35 would intercept a 2 M Tu-160 carrying 12 x Kh-101/102 is not that clear to me.

Probably they want to know a bit more about PCA before going for mass production, they keep talking about the prospects of creating a 6G plane out of Su-57. Personally I think the relative lack of concrete news about 6G probably means US is going full steam forward after perceiving the level of the threat both from China and Russia. But what you said is true, until 2021-22 the second stage engine will not be ready so they can continue perfecting other issues. This is way cheaper and more robust than producing and then having to retrofit, especially considering that Su-35s are entering service right now. For instance the system mentioned above which shows that deploying “hangar queens” is not in the intent of VVS. A 5G plane which is cheap to operate and easy to maintain is still a challenge for anybody, even when big advance has already been done from the B-2 and F-22 to the F-35, so it makes full sense that Russia makes experience with prototypes and develops now ways to save big in the serial operation of the Su-57.

[USER=”4698″]bring_it_on[/USER]:
Agree that there is a certain loss of significance in those PAUC/APUC metrics, at least for a potential customer, due to mixing different versions, which are bought in arbitrary amounts by the services. On the other hand I can also understand the aim of the congress to understand the program as a whole, including less than optimal procurement at early phases, expenses in R&D, retrofit efforts and impact of more expensive variants of the plane (currently B version is $26 million more expensive than A version, for instance). This is logically not captured by the LRIP flyaway costs.

Sorry if I misunderstood you but flyaway cost does include the engine. Latest F-35A order put the cost downto 89M$:

Sure, this is what I said too. Engine included in flyaway costs since LRIP 9. But PAUC / APUC without, at least until last Congressional Report.

If you want to determine the price of a given set of aircraft, say Lot-10 or Lot-11, you have to look at the URF for that when the final deal is negotiated. The released cost data on the last many lots have quoted fly-away unit cost with the engine and fees

The reason there are multiple cost metrics is because they each measure cost in a different way and it is a congressional mandate that cost be estimated out to the end of program, and compared with the initial benchmark to determine program performance.

This was not clear in the beginning but after I checked the documents I realized the different ways of reporting costs. Issue is, before you understand cost reporting you need to learn a few considerations, so it is tricky in the beginning. But it is clear for me now, thanks!

Thanks SpudmanWP and TomcatViP!