Should Russia decide to move forward with this project, all the power to them but, maybe they should take care of the armed forces current state before moving to a new weapon system. I am sure that many in the Russian armed forces haven’t been paid in quite some time. Another factor one should take into consideration is how it cost the US government to design the Raptor. How much money was sank into this system? Twenty and some odd billion dollars? Can the Russian government really afford this aircraft in the short term? Or shold they wait until a time when the situation is a little more controlled?
Sukhoi has encountered some success when it sold it Su-27 and Su-3x series aircraft, But did they sell enough of them to actually be able to afford funding such a project! I personally don’t think so. Therefore, the design bureau may have to rely on government funding and I don’t think Vladimir Putin and his government can find the funds necessary to support the design process. They can barely afford the first five Su-34 coming of the assembly lines over the next two years. Never mind a new 5th generation fighter!
However, if they were able to fund such a program, in that case, I wish them the best of luck because, they will need all the help they can get as the Americans have been dealing with stealth technology for some twenty-five years. If that’s the case, they have a lot of catching up to do!
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