you must also realise that Russia has completely changed its political and economic system, and that this has probably had a greater effect on their next generation fighter than any other factor. The USSR was torn asunder. Now Russia has finally established relatively steady economic conditions, which is no mean feat in itself.

With the benefit of hindsight, I think that in the midst of the economic turmoil of this transitional period, the Russian aviation industry, as well as Russia as a whole, were trying their best to stay as relevant to the world stage and market as they could, using whatever resources they had. Obviously, they had the Flanker and Fulcrum, but they needed to display some visible innovation, at least in the form of unusual research aircraft. Whatever the original intentions and scopes of these projects were under the USSR, the limited amount of money spent on getting these aircraft–just one instance each of the MiG 1.44 and S-37–flying obviously brought Russia a huge amount of notoriety and some genuine prestige in the eyes of many.

I don’t know how much useful aerodynamic research was done with these aircraft (probably more was gained in terms of structural materials), but they were great for marketing, especially the S-37. Change the designation to Su-47 when the novelty begins to wear off, and BOOM–people think it’s going to become an operational fighter! Take that, X-29! 😉 Before the PAK-FA program and the Su-35BM began to take away people’s attention, there were still some people asking what the American “answer” to the Su-47 would be. :rolleyes: Now that’s some potent brand marketing right there.

By the way, this also helps the USAF incidentally, as they could say (before the PAK-FA program began) that Russia is still working on even cooler, more futuristic kinds of aircraft with which only the F-22 will be able to contend. Everybody wins except for fans of American/Western military aviation who get frustrated with all of the inevitable wild claims made about the combat capabilities of concept demonstrators. 🙂

To say the Mig demonstrator was a waste of time shows no understanding of that programme. There was a second Mig vehicle , also part of that programme, which has never been shown. It apparentely is different from the publically unveiled first vehicle, which was to be used for various testing. The Berkut was also a test vehicle. That programme was designed for the USSR 20 or more years ago, which is different to Russia’s needs today.

If the original programs involved a large expenditure of resources (for things we haven’t even seen), then I presume that most of the waste occurred during the days of the USSR, with a gap in time when no work was funded under the Russian government. The main problem is that while some officials, either from the design bureaus or the government, came right out and told the truth about these programs, others were touting them as fifth-generation fighters, probably in a desperate bid to get some funding for their moribund programs. Obviously, this caused a lot of confusion in the online communities.

Perhaps we should await developments …..

Yes, the PAK-FA program began under different circumstances, so we have to wait and see before we can judge. The main question in the minds of many is whether Sukhoi can develop something comparable or even superior to the F-22 within the declared timeframe, and whether it would be economically viable. Those who dispute the F-22’s dominance in the air superiority role have to be wondering what the real purpose of building the PAK-FA is, given the superlative aerodynamics and other capabilities of the latest Flankers. When Sukhoi finally reveals something tangible and gives us solid data, then we can argue over not only how well they answered the question but what question was being asked in the first place. Until then, I would say that we really have nothing of substance to go on (or at least we don’t know what information to believe).

You can do a certain amount on trials aircraft, but one something like the F-22 the systems are so integrated and inter-related with each other that the prototype programme had to progress directly from early aircraft with minimal avionics to aircraft with almost the full suite.

That’s largely true for the F-22, specifically, but using a different avionics architecture or running into different problems during development could have changed how they approached system testing. In any case, the main benefit of using another aircraft as a test bed (in this case a modified Boeing 757) was so that the avionics engineers could test and work on the major subsystems, such as the APG-77 and ALR-94, in the air against other fighters (in this case mostly F-15s I believe) long before actual F-22 development aircraft were built and flown. They could also have several engineers present, watching the simulated cockpit in real time, which is a big plus. Ultimately, you’ll always want to fully test the subsystems on the real aircraft, although you can still use other aircraft to get certain things done. It’s not all about final tests, of course–you find something wrong, you fix and test it over and over again on the test bed until the problem is resolved, and then you test it on the real thing.

That said, just about everything besides the avionics will need to have much of the iterative testing (depending on the problems that are uncovered) done on the actual PAK-FA test aircraft, which could lead to performance compromises in the future or a longer development phase if the number of available aircraft is too limited.

Perhaps someone more familiar with the test programme can give more details.

That would be nice. 🙂

wow mach 2.2 in and out of the battlespace would be incredible but wouldn’t it have to slow right up to release JDAMs?

While we’re on the subject, does anyone know which aircraft are currently cleared for releasing bombs at supersonic speeds, besides the F-22?

Why did you waste time typing all that, the point was that the 117 was not “unparreleled” as one poster posted it was brought down by 60’s era SAM,
which is in itself a testamony to just how advanced Russia is.

I’m not trying to denigrate Russia’s world-leading air defense capabilities here, but the truth is that any type of SAM could potentially shoot down the F-117 (or any other stealth aircraft) if the conditions are favorable, whether its stealth is unparalleled or not. It is the responsibility of planners and operators to devise and use tactics to maximize the capabilities of their equipment and minimize its vulnerabilities, and in this case, the tactics used by the Serbs worked (can’t do this all the time, though) while the lame tactics used by the USAF in this instance failed.

The F-117 is unparalleled in terms of it’s stealth capabilities,

Is it really, though? If it were, then perhaps the USAF would not have decided to retire the type so quickly. While the F-117 does have outstanding stealth characteristics by some measures and is unique, it appears that its radar signature would have many moderately strong spikes that increase the odds of momentary detection, and at short range, intermittent tracking. For comparison, the F-22’s signature has a few large spikes that allow it to be detected at fairly long ranges (much longer than the F-117), but far less frequently; even at very short range, one would be rather fortunate to track it, and even luckier to successfully target the thing (regarding radar). It’s arguable which plane is theoretically stealthier, but it seems that the F-22’s radar signature is better optimized for survivability in actual combat (more extreme in how it distributes its signature). This should not be surprising, as its designers were able to utilize more sophisticated tools running on much more powerful computers. That said, admittedly I’m not an expert in stealth technology, so I could be mistaken.

Wonder what the final designation for the aircraft will be. . .

If the design is deemed successful, then they’ll give it the next available number or designate it Su-50 after its internal designation T-50. On the other hand, if the design turns out to be a dud (i.e. never got past the prototype/demonstrator stage), then maybe they could switch to a scheme based on letters and call it the Su-X. Ah-ha-ha-ha! Kidding. 😉

The Su-41 Super Duper Flanker. :diablo:

Of the fighter Generation 5+, of course.

The designation is T-50. Or PAK-FA.

Technically, PAK-FA is the program name, and T-50 is the internal designation of the current design.

Rumors from an insider of the project from about 3 and half years ago (at the end of 2004 – the time when the preliminary version was approved) gives some not very detailed information that the fighter itself was quite heavy and has a poor aerodynamics/maneuverability. It even refers to it as a $hit! He connects this indirectly with a moronic technical task given by the military, which he describes as “You cannot push in that is not able to be driven in”. This suggests that the task was a lot of different types of weaponry be possible to be carried inside the bay. Another statement was that PAK-FA as a fighter defers to Raptor a lot.

Ouch! 😮 Whether or not this is still valid, it’s one of the potential “surprises” I had in mind: a fighter of a different class than expected, along the lines of the proposed FB-22 series. The problem for this type of PAK-FA would be, speaking purely in speculative terms here, that two VLO fighters trying to kill each other would ironically, it would seem, place greater emphasis on fighter performance. After all, what good is bringing bigger missiles to a gunfight? :dev2:

But:
But – since then there was another approval procedure in late 2006 or early 2007. And a recent delays may suggest a redesign of the plane.
Also but – several other people who have seen the drawings claim that they liked actually what they have seen.

Well, I hope they at least roll the prototype out this year–speculation can be entertaining, but only for so long.

Im just wondering, since it looks like the Su-35 in combination with
Anti-Awacs missles could be a potent adversary for any nation highy dependent on intel/command and control…. ie: USA.

Should the R-172 prove too grave of a threat to the AWACS, then perhaps F-22s would operate by themselves during the opening stages of combat, destroying enemy air defenses, bombing hangars, and shooting down any fighters sent up to intercept them. Once air dominance has been established, then other assets can enter the airspace. Of course, it’s always possible that they didn’t get every single fighter that is capable of employing the R-172, but combat is always risky anyway.

What are the countermeasures…if any?

Not the old chaff and maneuvering. I know back in the old days they figured the AWACS would have enough warning time to shut down the radar and boogey out of dodge, which was at that moment as good as a mission kill.

Shutting down the radar will still counter the passive homing mode, and if the defending F-22s can kill the launch platforms in time, then maneuvering can successfully counter the inertial guidance phase. While a missile like the R-172 certainly makes things more dangerous for the AWACS, it doesn’t necessarily change the game completely–you just have to kill the Flankers/Foxhounds more quickly. If you don’t, then the AWACS is in big trouble, to put it kindly.

But with these new missles,(I know Russia has been developing these type missles for some time, least thats what I have read) I dont think simply doing a 180 and hightailing it will work….

Once the missile is launched, the fighter that launched it must be shot down, and then the AWACS can possibly evade the missile. Multiple launches would be much harder to survive–perhaps impossible–and if the USAF loses an AWACS or two early on, then they’ll have to slow the air war down and let the F-22s perform their missions, as described above, to completion first, in conjunction with off-board intelligence-gathering assets such as satellites and UAVs; F-35s can also help when necessary.

Any new jamming techniques…..tactics etc?

Maybe, and F-22s could try to shoot down the R-172 itself, as others have suggested, but I wouldn’t depend on such tactics or jamming alone.

Midcourse updates and command correction are not really needed. AWACS ain’t going anywhere.

Much depends on whether the AWACS is aware that it is being attacked in this manner. If it is, then it and its defenders could possibly take effective measures; if it is not aware, then it will be destroyed, but I think it will probably be aware.

Upon positive lock with the PR seekerhead, AWACS is…basically dead. If those F-22’s are in front of it, let’s say 150 km, they are still 100 km short from engaging the Su-35 with AMRAAM. If they visually detected the incoming Novator (it’s a pretty bulky missile!) AWACS may try shutting down the radar system.

But again, it won’t do much. Upon signal loss, R-172 will just switch to AR guidance, and point to the last known location. The xxx sqm AWACS won’t be a hard target to lock from 100 km with AR.

It all depends on timing–if the AWACS switches off its radar and begins to evade before the R-172 can get a passive lock, and the F-22s down the Su-35 before the R-172 can get close enough to get an active lock, then the missile will be flying blind. If we had all of the pertinent range data for the R-172’s seekers, then we could determine whether a successful intercept is assured, and if not, how much chance an AWACS would stand to survive, but we don’t have the data. It certainly doesn’t look good for the AWACS, one way or another, though.

You all seem to forget the AIM-120C-7 range. F-22 will be long detected by Irbis, before he gets L.A. with the AMRAAM.

I highly doubt it.

Regarding plasma stealth, it’s not the cloud all over the plane, for god sakes. It’s layering the radome, from inside. It’s only purpose is to cover the radar antenna, and since the radome is radiotransparent, there’s no need to put the plasma layer outside to have direct contact with air. 🙂

If that’s all it is, then it’s hardly a complete stealth system, although it should help some.

A stealth fighter without mutual support is a quite useless asset. It needs AWACS or some kind of guidance to work as expected.

The F-22 is very much capable of operating without AWACS. A good tactic, for maximum safety, would be to limit attacking F-22s to passive sensors while a few other F-22s are distributed in the combat zone behind them to provide active radar coverage via datalink. When operating with AWACS, the F-22s provide the AWACS with NCTR information because they are actually better at this function than the AWACS.

The NTOW for a flanker is about 25500kg. In a pure A2A loadout, it could easily carry 6XR77 + 2XR73 + 8000kg fuel,which would give it insane range and endurance

From where did you get that 8000 kg number? The Su-35 brochure says that the maximum combat load (on the 12 hardpoints) is 8000 kg, but that’s not the internal fuel load that corresponds to the NTOW (25300 kg)–the “normal” fuel load would be less than 6000 kg. And I don’t think that even 8000 kg of fuel would give the Su-35 “insane” range and endurance, although 11500 kg (full internal) would be rather good indeed.

Su-35 has 12 points, the wintips may be occupied with ECM pods. It also can carry four R-77 missiles under the fuselage between the engines.

There are only two hardpoints (tandem) between the engine nacelles, so are the R-77s carried on double launchers or are you including the two hardpoints under the nacelles themselves (one each)?

Designs like F-22 omit external tanks for other reasons. You’ll see that even F-22s will go on combat missions with EFTs if the pylons can be dropped along the tanks.

Yes, the pylons can be dropped along with the tanks. It’s probably at the pilot’s option, and this is how it was tested.

So, thanks to Scorpion I am now proud owner of 2 advertisement brochures. Some thing that were written here are true and some things I claimed seem not to be so, first of all the fuel capacity is given with 11.5 tons maximum and 8t combat.

Are you sure that’s not 8 t of ordnance and/or external fuel on the hardpoints, as opposed to 8 t of internal fuel for combat?

In general I am a bit disappointed about the level of information provided and also a bit wondering how all these wild claims are reasoned. Stealth for example: Many design headaches were caused in the Typhoon and F-18E program to reduce RCS, now Suchoi comes along and states “low radar oberservability” by canopy coating and RAM. If it was so easy even an A380 would be low observable.

Well, it’s easy to say, isn’t it? 😉

In general I would say that the Su-35 is on eyesight with later F-15E derivatives, although the Su35 off course retains its very high maneuverability.

I’ve always compared the Su-30MK derivatives to the F-15E derivatives because they are all two-seaters.

Maybe they put radar blockers in the intakes like the SH.

Are these considered as effective as S-ducts with 100% line-of-sight blockage, if you have any idea? It seems to me that while S-ducts are harder to design and integrate properly, when done well they would be better for stealth. I get this impression from an article in AvWeek (presumably based on official statements, but who knows?) that said that the X-32’s radar blockers are variable in order to trade off between engine performance and stealth dynamically. With an S-duct, the tradeoffs are fixed, but at least the engine face is completely blocked.

As for cutting RCS it’s not that big. I don’t recall off the top of my head what it is but it’s something like going from 1m^2 to 0.1m^2 cuts the range in half, going from 0.1m^2 to 0.01m^2 cuts the new number in half and so forth.

Take the fourth root of the RCS factor in order to get the theoretical range factor.

Basically you need BIG cuts in RCS to get significant cuts in detectability and it takes a lot of work to do that on a standard aircraft not designed for stealth to begin with.

Yep. Cutting the RCS in half, for example, would cut detection range by only 16%. Cutting detection range by 25% would require cutting the RCS down by over two-thirds, which couldn’t be easy with external weapons. And finally, cutting the detection range in half would require reducing the RCS to 1/16th of its normal value–on a non-stealth fighter in combat configuration, forget about it.

The three-bearing nozzle idea goes back WAY further than the Yak-141.

Not to take credit away from any of these aerospace companies, but I’d seen this idea used on heating/cooling duct joints ages ago; if I wanted to, I could probably go down to my local hardware store and buy one right now. Using this idea to vector thrust for VTOL/STOVL is kind of obvious, in my opinion, but the clever part is how to gain more thrust for hovering while simultaneously creating a balancing force, and I like the F-35’s lift fan idea much more than the additional engines in the Yak-141.

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The best looking PAK-FA renderings but these are also an artist’s impressions.

Yeah, while they look nice, they still exhibit features that are questionable if the PAK-FA is intended to be a VLO fighter, such as right angles on the intakes and apparently exposed engine faces (well, I suppose they could use internal radar blockers).

Someone here brought up this issue before: Those vertical stabilizers look far too small, unless it’s supposed to use TV in that role…

That could be the case, although aerodynamic controls can be much more effective in the most common modes of flight, and it would be kind of hard to believe that much maneuvering capability would be willingly sacrificed (the horizontal stabilizers are also quite small).

This question is not completely pointless – will PAK-FA be Raptor-ski or Black Widow-ski ? :p

I hope it’s neither, but something novel and interesting all the same.

Pure Delta design is not very probable, but somewhere was mentioned that PAK-FA is more like YF-23 than F-22 (and we may call YF-23 to be ‘Delta’ type design).

The YF-23 is a V-tail design with I guess what could be called a “diamond” wing planform.

So excuse if you have understood me that PAK-FA will be ‘Delta’, this is only a speculation.

An example of a pure delta would be the F-106, and there are plenty of recent examples of canard-delta designs.

The former commander-in-chief of russian airforce said in an interview about 2 years ago that the speed of PAK-FA had been lowered to 2M instead of being 2,15M as in the preliminary technical task, but it is uknown what kind of speed it is.

For one thing, it would be nice to know whether this refers to “supercruise” or an absolute maximum speed.

Definitely, according to information from some sources, about 4 years ago the project was not in good shape. That time ago PAK-FA had been quite worse than it’ rival – Raptor – this information is ‘from the kitchen’. They simply still don’t have appropriate engines to install! To mention – the project is in progress since 1999 and the engines were not developed, reasons are not clear! So the recent dealys in first fligh (2-3 years than promised) maybe suggests for redesigning.

Well, look at how long it took to fully develop the F-22, and I think in that case its engines were always further along than the AL-41 has been. If the AL-41 is still beset with problems at this point, then they’ll either have to start on a new design or update an existing design (at least temporarily) in order to move forward.

There is an interesting issue to discuss connected with A2A missiles – according to some sources, the RCS of an AMRAAM type missile is around 0,05 sqm and higher than 0,01sqm (or in any case the smallest anti-tank missiles have 0,01 and bigger small range S2A reaching 0,1 , also ‘Stinger’ SAM having 0,05sqm in L-band). So Raptor and other 5-th G fighters will need a low observable missiles, otherwise they will show themselves when firing :diablo: .

They could reveal themselves anyway just by opening their bay doors, but it’s only for a short time.

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This looks a lot like some of the earlier PAK-FA renderings, which look a lot, although not exactly, like the YF-22. It may just be part of an early design study, however, not necessarily the PAK-FA itself. We’ll see, I guess.

And as for Colonel Nikolay Baranov’s massive dis of the F-22, all I can say is that I hope that he truly believes what he said and passes his knowledge down to all of his subordinates and any foreign pilots they are responsible for training (just kidding). 😉

In reality, the Raptor was too early.

Or maybe your statement is too early. 😉 Let’s wait and see if and when the PAK-FA enters service, and what it will be able to do.

It’d be far easier to justify it with an exportable, refined PAK-FA getting ready to appear on the market!

This would very likely be true, but one could also suggest that the PAK-FA would not be appearing on the market anytime soon without the Raptor–a sort of chicken-and-egg scenario. In my opinion, the Flanker and its advanced derivatives are enough of a threat if the USAF (and military in general) needs to be ready to face any scenario.

The problem you have now is that by the time the PAK-FA appears and is exported, the Raptor’s line may have shut down. Which means even MORE money down the line to develop the NEXT fighter, marketed as the counter to the PAK-FA.

You’ve nailed the real danger here (assuming that the Raptor can be sufficiently developed to maintain a clear advantage over evolving threats) from the point of view of US military readiness and fiscal responsibility. If it were up to Dick Cheney, all of the factory tooling would be destroyed, as well. 😡

I keep hoping someone will pull their head out and not pull a Cheney or MacNamara and at least keep the line warm.

But if government officials pulled their heads out of their asses, which I believe you were implying, then how would they access their brains? 😀

that’s the first time I see a Raptor with drop tanks.

By the way, they use external tanks all the time on ferry missions, and the tanks could be used in combat when the need for additional range or endurance is greater than the need for stealth. In the case of the Bear intercept, as others have pointed out, there was no need and really no desire for stealth.

The argument that drop tanks would ruin any stealth feature of the eurocanards has been widely used here to belittle their capacities. What about the Raptor? Is it still a stealth plane in that configuration?

No, it is not a VLO fighter when carrying external tanks.

Why not designing stealthy droptanks?

I suppose the need was not deemed to be worth the effort. The Raptor has a decent internal fuel capacity, but if it really needed that extra 8000 lbs from drop tanks, then it would most likely be able to use them up before being forced to drop them, I think.

Besides the F-22 would be back to full stealth at literally the push of a button if it needed to.

Right, and it should be noted explicitly, in case anyone has questions, that the pylons drop off with the tanks, leaving the wings clean.

And if you look closely on the second picture along the bottom edge of the external tank you can see the aircraft was also carrying a RCS enhancement device to further screw it up. No sense in giving a Bear a free look at a fully stealth F-22. 😀

Truth be told, at such a close range, even a fully stealthy F-22 could easily be detected on radar, as well as have its radar reflectivity potentially mapped out by special equipment on the Bear. The RCS-enhancement device and external tanks will hopefully render any such attempts at peacetime intelligence-gathering meaningless. During actual hostilities, F-22s should generally be far enough away to keep their secrets safe.