they are saying this is how the naked turret looks like with out the slats

Yes, you get it. I ‘ve seen some impressive pics showing the spent round ejector +APS tubes part, outer skin is so distant it completely cover them.

They have done it a generation before with the Tu-28.

At a loaded weight of 40 tons it was something out of any possible scale at its time.
Now Su-34 is just a ton away from it but they are really apples and oranges.

Make fit Soviet planes into a dimensional categories is difficult also for another reason.
Soviet Union got two air forces you know and the fighters of VVS and the ones of PVO were designed according to almost opposite requirements.
Frontal aviation gave almost no importance to range while for the other was an essential part of their own mission.

I understand your point but weight class actually has to refer to weight.

The F35A weighs 13,3 tonnes. The F15C weighs 12,7 tonnes. If we look at other versions like F35B and C we get to 14,7 and 15,8 tonnes.

In classification of objects consistency is preferred and i think the one below is decent.

Light < 9’000 kg
Medium < 12’000 or 13’000 kg (not sure which is the better, if F15C is a heavy class fighter jet then the limit is 12’000 kg)
Heavy <16’000 or 17’000 kg (F15, F35, Super Hornet,
Heavy heavyclass

And to be frank, weight is the best classification for weight.

That would sort of make this list (that I think most agree with, somewhat sorted in order):

Light: Tejas, Gripen A-C, F16A, Kfir, Gripen E, F16C (F16C is the bridge between light and Medium fighters, most others stay just below 8’000 kg and then its a jump to ~9’000)

Medium/Light mediums(?): Rafale, FA18C, EF2000, MiG 29 (after MiG 29 it is a jump of a few tonnes with almost no fighters)

Heavy/Heavy mediums(?): F15C, F35A, Super Hornet, F15E, F35B, F35C (If a jet is over 2000kg heavier than a EF2000 or MiG 29 then it is a heavy fighter…)

Heavy heavyclass/Heavy(?): Flankers, F22, F14, F111, MiG 31

Maybe that makes more sense?

One could go by size, but then it would make any sense calling them heavy light and medium anymore.

Better reply is your own motto: Lockheed Martin, because drop tanks stay during dogfights™

Weight difference between F-35 (and F-22) and F-15 depends by the way larger fuel tank size (+provisions for stealth): put F-15E conformal tanks on a C and its empty weight would rise up and surpass the Lighting again.

For the same reason navy fighters has a greater weight of a land based ones due to the provisions for carrier take off and landing.

To made a sum of the discussion at this point:

One single parameters is not enough to determine class and role of a given fighter.
Using range alone would made MiG29A, MiG29C and MiG29M fit into three different categories.
Same with weight: F-16A, F-16C block 50 bare and F-16E with conformal tanks will end up the same way.
Size also is heavily dependent on aircraft configuration: pure Delta as seen above look way shorter than others.

Probably we would better define them using comparative data like trust ratio and empty/loaded weight.

About the classification of fighters I would look at the type of engine they carry, obviously compared to their same age counterparts.

So let’s say for modern turbofans aircraft with one 8000ks to 10000ks thrust for about a ton weight turbofan are to be listed as light (Gripen, Golden Eagle, Mirage 2000), fighters with two of such engines or with one of the heavier 12000ks to 18000 for 1500/1800 kg weight are to be listed as mediums while heavy and superheavy ones are the ones with two of the said heavyweight engines.
Aircraft weight can be deceiving:F-15C weight less than F-35.
Doctrine changes are the main : latest fighter tends to carry much more fuel inside and stealth tend to add a lot of weight also (with one notable exception there).

In every case Rafale is a real step up for French as is still a medium weight two engine fighter while Mirages were all lightweight fighters.

Do we have any idea when the T-50 will achieve “Western” IOC? For comparison, the F-22 reached IOC in December 2005, and by that time there was already a training squadron at Tyndall, and a combat squadron (27th FS) at Langley, which makes for about 60 aircraft. When can we expect the T-50 to reach a similar status? I understand that the original plan was 55 T-50’s by 2020, but recent articles seem to indicate that this has been pushed back.

Just never.
IOC concept never existed in russian/soviet procurement process.
Same with LIRP.
They have instead a design bureau that get fund to made initial prototypes, when project is mature enough there happen acceptance trials by the VVS, when it is passed all following prototypes are taken in charge directly by the armed force that conduces the so called state trials to finalize the project, test it in operative mode elaborate tactics and write user’s manual and train the first pilots.
It is a a quite lengthly phases (about three years ) but the number of aircraft produced in it is minimal, often no superior to the ones built by the bureau before the formal acceptance.
In the meantime, design bureau and the factory designed for serial production built the “first serial production plane” in order to set up assembly line and check the production process.
When this is done… they just wait until state trials are over.
After it, full scale serial production of a fully capable aircraft.
No IOC, no LRIP. It is ready when is ready and when the work begin, it is the real one.
Some person of the design bureau would keep working on further upgrades and modifications in order to keep it updated, but they are not considered as reaching some FOC but making a more advanced version of the same design.

Does it specifically say internal bay? Because it also says 8xRVV-AE too. KAB-500Kr has some 3m length, and IMHO its 4xKAB-500 internal and 4 additonal on pylons.

Though I believe they can fit 4xFAB-500 M54s per bay if they really want it, its length is around 2.2m.

Well, if it is 3 instead of 2,2 meters it not such a big difference (or maybe they have finallymade a KAB with M54 body), R-77 is longer and have about the same overall width, so where you can fit one you could probably have place for the other also.
More than lenght it would be the width to make the difference in such a case, I think .

Well, in every case it seems that the drawing has a lot of interesting things inside, worth of a closer investigation?

They gave a weapon load between 1620 Kg (A2A) and 10000 kg (A2G) ?

Wait a minute…

:confused:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]235669[/ATTACH]

I’ve read well or they are saying that the PAK-FA can carry eight KAB-500 in its inner bay? 😮
It’s more than half of its max weapon load:love-struck:

I wonder what would they be positioned: 4 in a single row ,2 columns of two in each bay or a diamond shape?

Hard to say.
The Su-34 did enter the VVS ranks, and yet it was still in various weapons trials due to several factors..
The Su-35S entered VVS ranks, and still had some weapons trials going.

Very hard to compair how VVS makes their units IOC.. its not done the exact same way as in US.

It would seem, once the factory trials are done, the different units can enter VVS service with older weapons systems, while at the same time doing weapons trials for newer weapons systems.

On top of this the Su-27 made its debute on older engines. We see the T-50 doing pretty much the same approach.
We’d also seen RuAF make use of different older units or flying labs for various testbeds, imo, engines, FCS, weapons trials etc etc.

Call this Russian concurrency, and in the end, who is the claim US F-35 concurrency is any better off vs Russian Pak-Fa concurrency..?
When all the $ and Rubles are accounted for we might say the Russian concurrency is infact way more efficient in terms of expences.

You are mixing up two different things there: aircraft development and weapons integration.
While the initial development phase of a military aircraft obviously implies also to integrate an initial set of weapons, it is absolutely normal, both in the East than in the West to integrate some others in a second time.
It is neither a thing only about newly introduced items
Eurofighters, for an example, being A2A oriented only recently has been cleared to use all the different types of LGBs their users have and the integration of Taurus and Storm Shadow in still ongoing, while the same weapons are used by the aging Tornado by about a decade.
F-22 itself would be cleared for the use of AIM-9X from 2016-2017 onward, five years after the last of them has left the assembly line.

And yes, development and acquisition process between SU/Russia and Nato countries belong to two different planets even without taking into account the F-35 concurrency mess.
Distances are so big that we woud need a new thread for describe it completely.