Two interested shots of an F-22 and an F-35B, both naked, for a rough comparison in synthetic parts coatings:
YF-22 vs F-22 changes were considerable but what we’re talking about here for the T-50 is something very deep. Look at this underside picture of the aircraft:
The engine nacelles are almost identical to Su-27 and I can bet there’s some very wide frontal angles where the engine face can be seen. To hide those, they’d have to get rid of the rear weapons bay and make it look more like the S-37. If they do that…thats a whole new aircraft. In fact I’m surprised why they didn’t build on top of the S-37 instead of the Flanker.
Its clearly focused on frontal RCS reduction, but right now given the alignments of the engines and the rest of the fuselage, that will be nowhere near F-22 ranges (or F-35). Side and rear seem to be getting little attention here.
I’m going to go out on a limb here but this seems like a dressed-up Flanker rushed into prototype stage in order to attract the Indian’s attention. Expect another 10 years of improvements on this.
Nice pic, thanks for sharing. The first shot I see from beneath, very interesting.
I could agree with most things you say, for they are far from irrational. The problem is, your way thinking is too “american”, so to speak. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean any offence.
It reminds me of a comment I read at F-16.net, where there was this guy who (typically) argued that that the PAK-FA was nothing but a copy of the F-22, and at the same time he argued that… well, it is not enough like the F-22, so it’s not stealth enough. It’s as if the world of stealth in aeronautics begins and ends with the F-22.
Hillarious.
Hej, look at that! This guy actually almost made it!!!
Since we are free to speculate for the time being, do you think a 2d IR-hiding nozzle will be incorported in the long run??
How realistic do you think this weapons load is? As far as I can tell from the pics, only 2 pairs adders in tandem would fit, but I don’t know. The drawing is otherwise accurate though.
Which brings me to the second question, obviously these guys had some sort of hints, they didn’t made these drawings by chance, did they. Nor did Sukhoi saw the drawings and tought they’re cool, so let’s make the PAK-FA like them. Obviously it was a well controlled leak…
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