I’m mulling about starting in the next future a dedicated thread for Tupolev, following both the mise en place of the new versions of the old birds than PaK-Da development.
Surely more bones to chew there a.t.m. than the almost absolute nothing we are actually getting about Su-57.

Seems a lot but it usually envisage anything they would get from Ka-226 and Yak-152 to Tu-160, new and refurbished…

People, maybe many of you will disagree with me but did we really need to keep a separate thread for Su-57?
That was surely justified when development programme was still unfolding and so there will be a whole lot of discussion about its final outcome.
Even the last thread suffered badly from a relative but noticed by many. lack of fresh and reliable information about the program in itself, now we are at the brink of the start of its own serial production, so why not to treat it as just another plane between the many that RuAF are actually putting into service?

Sure, it would be without any doubt the most important of all them, but the overall situation of russian planes acquisition is not the same of the west with the F-35 taking all the stage time with instead an ” USAF non F-35 thread” sadly made mostly of vaporware about new futuristic programmes to be finalized well ahead of the new decade and news about updates of planes made mostly during the two Reagan’s presidencies.

I would say awesomely self contradictory.

It doesn’t mean that you cannot use some of its component for engine and landing gear for an UCAV, just that the requisites are completely different.
Ucav need max autonomy, good payload and have to be stealth while in a trainer all those are redundant.

@J-20

looks like something the USAF would use.. in the 1990s.

Jep. Like the F-16 block 50, you mean i.e. the only thing (partially) new that the Usaf introduced in the ’90s.

The USN introduced the Superbug about the same time and, surprise, surprise they are still acquiring them also now.

J-10 is a delta with canard however i.e. the same tech level of Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen while both the j-20 and the j-31 are actually close to completion.

So all the actual difference between them and the whole West is in those 187, pardon 185 now White Elephants that have spent more time grounded than in actual operations, right?

@ Levsha

In which case you could consider the S-300,S-400 and S-500 as sitting ducks as well? An air-launched version of the MGM-140 ATACMS could do the trick – dirt cheap as well

And so let’s them do it.
No one are forbidding them to try, right the contrary…

P.S.
All of this was generated by the above post of Mad Rat that never like in this case demonstrate the truth of the saying Nomen, omen.
So trying to use it as a proof of anything is actually not a good move IMHO.

https://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?137587-RuAF-News-and-development-Thread-part-15&p=2434424#post2434424

So the main question would remain the necessity or not of a specific MiG-31 version to use such a weapon.
One thing is the possibility of use it on already existing or just minimally modified planes, as you get about 100 carrier vehicles in a short span of time.
Having instead to introduce an ad hoc version just for this role, without the possibility to install the usual A2A load as an alternative, would be just another matter, in terms of both cost and efficacy.

Given that the weapon in question was presented just five days ago I think that is too early to pretend to know how exactly it work and what tprocedure and tactics it will use.
For what we surely know:
it’s a derivate of Iskander but sport more than a difference from it, allegedly also in the overall dimensions.
Has both radar than IR terminal guidance
Trajectory is mainly ballistic but can maneuver.
It was tested on a specially modified Mig-31, so even if presented as in service and ready for production it actually lack a suitable carrier.
So, maybe it’s not the wunderwaffe that they advertise it to be but surely it’s a weapon of very high performances and lethality developed by an already existing item, so surely it was a smart move to get it, given that they have not renounced to any of their other project of advanced antiship missiles for it