I may be wrong,but that hexagone in the nose is probably the IRST room??
Since i don’t see it, neither seems to be dissambled, i mean, the IRST room that flew in the first flight did have other location, i don’t see any kind of instalation on that place
Those hexagonal shapes are visible in the T-50 prototype that flew as well, so I would guess no. Plus it leaves very little room for the radar if thats the case.
Or.. The Russians know something we dont. For example they may know/assume that a new line of airborne sensors soon will render the current stealth technology (Raptor, JSF, T-50 etc) not obsolete, but significantely less of the seemingly invincible game changer it is today.
Ah yes…the typical answer. If the Russians didn’t do it, it must be because they know something else nobody knows yet. If they think stealth will be irrelevant, why take the effort to build the T-50 in the first place.
compare that to the careful LO shaping observed on forward fuselage wing ,engine intake S Duct,wings and upper fuselage.
Ah here we go with the “s-ducts” thing again…even though every piece of evidence suggests there are no such things in the T-50. Now someone mentioned something about Russians not being able to change physics…well thats the same case here…there’s just no room in there for something of the sort. The frontal LO shaping isn’t all that extensive for some very important reasons…first of all the lack of total hiding for the engine face and the fact that from even most frontal angles you will get a good view of that conventional underside.
So lets just slap a B-1B intake into it 🙂
Fact of the matter still remains that no one can yet produce a possible means they achieved total concealment of the engine face with those engine nacelles.
The Russian’s thinking with this is to take the Eurocanard concept a step further…ie focus on signature reduction under certain parameters and rely on EW. Its not the same approach as the F-22, or even F-35. Not that this is necessarily a bad approach.
Bingo 🙂 Which is what I have been saying all along and which is the only possible arrangement in this plane. The main wheel retracts into the WING ROOT…and the air intake has to go UNDERNEATH the main undercarriage to the engine. Its pretty obvious…from every picture…
And of course as I’v been pointing out all along…there is no way to fully shield that engine face with that intake.
So yes, there’s probably a radar blocker on that engine face. The issue remains, that none of the aircraft that have such a thing achieve the same level of stealth as the arrangement on the F-22.
This is a completely wrong arrangement for some very fundamental reasons.
First of all in order to achieve that geometry inside the air intake, the air intake has to protrude INTO the area of the weapons bay…which the external shape of the engine nacelles doesn’t suggest at all. Second, to do so it will need to narrow extremely at that point…hardly something achievable. You’ve tried very hard to fit it into an area and into a configuration it can’t possibly fit.
You can use movable LERX to improve aerodynamics and stealth.
This isn’t completely mutually exclusive and you might need to sacrifice some stealth in that process, indeed.
Which is what I was trying to get at.
I don’t think any poor ******* has ever won a war by having more economical aircraft than the enemy
Then you better recheck your history, namely WW2.
In my next sentence I said precisely that 😉 Other than WW2…but thats a whole other animal.
PAKFA doesn’t need to fly as fast, doesn’t need to be as stealthy and doesn’t need to have sensors as good as F22, if there’s 2.5 times more of them.
It would be even better if there were 4 times more of them…and less capabilities too 🙂 But thats not a very convincing argument. (besides as was pointed out, this aircraft will not cost 2.5 times less than F-22…and its unlikely there will be anywhere near more of them in 20 years time). But I realize these are all hypothetical scenarios.
The real issue is…this isn’t an aircraft that can directly be compared to the F-22…
More notions…F22’s superior stealth, sensors, cruising…
You don’t know PAKFA’s stealth, sensors, cruising, so how can you draw a conclusion of which is superior and to a what degree?
As I recall you said the T-50 will be “just as good” as the F-22 but at a lower price 🙂 (due to hypothetically being able to be build in larger numbers (how Russia will do this…remains a puzzle)). I made no such claims.
But we can infer of its stealth capabilities from the pictures we’re seeing. We can infer of its sensors capabilities by observing the capabilities of the Russian industry at this level…Now I know there will be a multitude of fanboys jumping up and down at this…
Well, I took Mig25’s example to prove a point of the necessity to superimpose one’s way of fighting.
Which the Coalition did quite well. Taking one exception to the overarching rule…
Now what we see here is a very conventional intake with variable geometry…which indeed poses a very serious concern. (which is what I’ve been trying to say the whole time).
(and nobody has yet to answer my question as to what implication on stealth does a variable geometry intake have?)
The problem is, the radar energy does not behave like air. It is not of intrest how much did enter the inlet, but how much of that will leave it to give a signal from that. As long there is a direct line of “sight” some problems are still alive.
It may not matter too much, when some higher peaks are created in other areas of the Su-50. The first impression does show, the Su-50 is a semi-stealth design for cost and flying performance reasons.
Exactly.
The problem is that we don’t know enough about this intake, there are at least 2 pictures showing interesting structures on it, something is going on, but we don’t know yet what is exactly.
The “interesting structures” you see are the variable geometry intake. Looking at the external shape of those engine nacelles…the only conclusion that can be reached are the above drawings showing the internals of the intake…and these show a relatively conventional intake because there’s little other shape you can fit in there.
(I’ll apologize before hand because I’ll probably quote a lot of things in this post…I haven’t seen this thread in some days)
omething to do with the “Blind Swordsman” tactics.
If two stealth fighters meet in combat at BVR range, most likely both of them will stop radar emission to avoid detection from each other. The fighter with the IRST can still “see” though, giving him a distinct advantage over the one lacking it. Besides 2nd generation IRST(based on QWIP technology) would probably extend detection range out to 70 nm. If anything, next update of F-22 may include IRST.
I’m not arguing the usefulness of the IRST (although your argument works only if both stealth aircraft have similar levels of stealth and detection capability…;) ) The question was concerning the design Sukhoi chose to put on this prototype (whether they change it or not latter is another issue). Clearly the way it is now…it is a liability for stealth.
That is the B-1s intake arrangement. First of all such an arrangement wouldn’t work on the T-50 (to see why not one only has to try and fit those shapes inside the T-50’s intake 😉 ) and secondly…the question still remains as to HOW effective it is in comparison to the F-22’s approach.
What is the probability of two fighter going against each other to be EXACTLY on a straight line facing each other ? The turbine blades are so deep inside intake cavity that a few degrees off the straight line into sideways and they are invisible. But by that distance you already have other detection mechanisms operating such as OLS etc. At long distances IR signals are weak because of lower energy.
Sure. There’s still a big problem because there’s a pretty wide frontal angle from where the engine blades can be seen.
So, if a poster has some doubts about a prototype, of a new design, in a a totally new field for the Russians (stealth), that just made 40 min first flight, try to answer him with facts; maybe he just doesn’t share your excitement, that’s all.
Blasphemy! Shame on you 😉
In a short while PAK-FA will be moved to LII, Zhukovskii, and when someone (like ‘Airwolf’) produces clear pictures of the MLG retracting into the intake cavity (including that sizeable wheel) his entire rabidly retarded argument will fall apart.
Yet another beautiful example of the level of discourse we’re limiting ourselves to. Good job Otaku.
Have you actually looked at the DAS installation on the F-35? You might want to before suggesting it’s the same as Sukhoi’s giant ball.
My point exactly
Hardly important unless we have series version of the T-50. X-35 didn’t have any IRST, right?
Agreed. So the question then becomes…why put a mock-up of an IRST ball on this thing when you have no intention of using that configuration to begin with?
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