SU-57 deployed to Syria

Military aircraft - Post cold war aircraft, including for example B-2, Gripen, F-18E/F Super Hornet, Rafale, and Typhoon.
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by mixelflick » 29 Oct 2018, 14:39

sprstdlyscottsmn wrote:
mixelflick wrote:
1.) They carried over the "tunnel" from the Flanker, which gives a nice weapons storage/area for more fuel

Yeah, about that. Imagine how much more volume for fuel/weapons you would have if you filled in the tunnel? Better RCS by reducing the number of corner reflectors. Less form drag from interference of those interior corners. Arguably some increase in wave drag as it changes the area ruling.


Very true, I wasn't looking at it like that. But for a stealth aircraft, makes a lot of sense.

There's still time to redesign, right? :)


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by marsavian » 29 Oct 2018, 14:54

There's still time to redesign, right?


Sure, they are still building prototypes to test the avionics still with the old Su-35 engine but now masquerading 'in service'. As a next generation fighter it has failed purely on the inability for the design to solidify enough and be potent enough to be mass produced. Meanwhile 320 F-35s have been built in the same development time ready to enhance allied power around the world. It's pretty good Russia doesn't have any real enemies only fake ones produced by their politicians to rile the natives up ;). Oh maybe Ukraine but they were always going to win that one without any NATO support on their side.


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by mixelflick » 30 Oct 2018, 15:29

That's a really good point... failed purely on the inability for the design to solidify enough and be potent enough to be mass produced.

The counter argument is that the design is plenty solid, it just needs a new engine. These same folks claim there's no issue with its stealth (they achieved their goals, whatever those were), it's radar/avionics are all set and the airframe is "final". If that were the case though, why not build a few hundred and just re-engine when the "stage 2" engines get here?

Now some of that may be rubles, not many around and sanctions have taken their toll. On the other hand, they seem to have plenty of rubles to keep pumping out various SU-30, SU-34 and SU-35 derivatives?


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by fidgetspinner » 20 Nov 2018, 03:49

It will be no match for F-22's or 35's, but present great difficulty for Rafale, Typhoon and every other (lesser) 4th gen. US F-15's will in all likelihood finally meet their match with this bird. The SU-57 will hold it all over it in virtually every category, save perhaps for avionics and weapons. Those matter and matter a lot, but it should be able to get close to the F-15, and in everything from BVR to WVR the SU-57 will likely (but not definitively) prevail.

We shall see...[/quote]

I got a very odd feeling that if this guy joined this forum there are going to be like 20 pissed off comments with the guy getting banned the moment he starts his account here. Thankfully the newbie privilege here will prevent him from posting too much. https://qr.ae/TUhm5x Let everyone's blood pressure rise at their own discretion.


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by knowan » 20 Nov 2018, 03:53

fidgetspinner wrote:I got a very odd feeling that if this guy joined this forum there are going to be like 20 pissed off comments with the guy getting banned the moment he starts his account here. Thankfully the newbie privilege here will prevent him from posting too much. https://qr.ae/TUhm5x Let everyone's blood pressure rise at their own discretion.


Idiot fanboys like that are the reason Quora is so sh*t.


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by Corsair1963 » 20 Nov 2018, 03:55

fidgetspinner wrote:It will be no match for F-22's or 35's, but present great difficulty for Rafale, Typhoon and every other (lesser) 4th gen. US F-15's will in all likelihood finally meet their match with this bird. The SU-57 will hold it all over it in virtually every category, save perhaps for avionics and weapons. Those matter and matter a lot, but it should be able to get close to the F-15, and in everything from BVR to WVR the SU-57 will likely (but not definitively) prevail.

We shall see...

I got a very odd feeling that if this guy joined this forum there are going to be like 20 pissed off comments with the guy getting banned the moment he starts his account here. Thankfully the newbie privilege here will prevent him from posting too much. https://qr.ae/TUhm5x Let everyone's blood pressure rise at their own discretion.


Who says the Su-57 will ever reach mass production???


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by juretrn » 20 Nov 2018, 07:27

fidgetspinner wrote:I got a very odd feeling that if this guy joined this forum there are going to be like 20 pissed off comments with the guy getting banned the moment he starts his account here. Thankfully the newbie privilege here will prevent him from posting too much. https://qr.ae/TUhm5x Let everyone's blood pressure rise at their own discretion.

I am almost willing to bet certain body parts that he did - his username was wewuzkangz. Same bad English, same fanboyism, same weasel words, and same functional illiteracy.
Russia stronk


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by knowan » 20 Nov 2018, 10:45

juretrn wrote:I am almost willing to bet certain body parts that he did - his username was wewuzkangz. Same bad English, same fanboyism, same weasel words, and same functional illiteracy.


Pretty sure I saw that Quora poster having a sook about F-16.net at some point. He's a total shithead that spams qoura with misinformation then has a tantrum because he got kicked off these forums for trying to do it here.


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by swiss » 20 Nov 2018, 22:40

New Russian Video about the development of the Su-57.



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by vilters » 20 Nov 2018, 23:45

Jut looked at the video.

With all those "naked" rivets and bolts in the outer skin? Let us not even talk about RCS.
They don't know what the word means.

And with those engines and exhaust?
The IR signature must look something like a football field high up.

And if you look at the smoke plume?
It is back to F-4 Phantom days. To fid the fighter? Follow the smoke plume.

Next try please… LOL.


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by SpudmanWP » 20 Nov 2018, 23:52

Image
"The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese."


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by collimatrix » 21 Nov 2018, 00:24

vilters wrote:Jut looked at the video.

With all those "naked" rivets and bolts in the outer skin? Let us not even talk about RCS.
They don't know what the word means.

And with those engines and exhaust?
The IR signature must look something like a football field high up.

And if you look at the smoke plume?
It is back to F-4 Phantom days. To fid the fighter? Follow the smoke plume.

Next try please… LOL.


I could buy that smoke plumes tend to scatter IR, and thus would show up against a clear sky.

That said, if you watch the video of the testbed SU-57 with the new engine ("Type 30," the one with the serrated nozzle), it does not appear to smoke. But then, most jet engines only smoke at certain throttle settings, and there's hardly video of the new type 30 engine being tested in the air through its entire throttle range. So far, the testbed aircraft only has one of the new engines installed (but there was a picture from the documentary of it with the starboard engine position empty, presumably in preparation for the installation of the new engine). The engines on the SU-57 are pretty wide-set, so if the AL-41F is going full military power, who knows what the Type 30 is doing. Probably not full power, I would imagine there would be yaw issues.

In any case, there's a good chance that the new engine doesn't smoke.

As for the rivets... well, maybe yes and no. Having rivets that stick out like that is probably not great for RCS, or even for subsonic drag coefficient for that matter. Certainly not ideal.

But the issue, such as I understand it, is that radar waves tend to bounce off of portions of the aircraft where there are discontinuities in conductivity. So, from that perspective, is a rivet really the worst way to connect two pieces of material on an aircraft? A rivet gets forcibly deformed into place, and it actually squeezes the two pieces of metal together. If you were to, say, put a bit of conductive paste on the edges of the two pieces of metal to be riveted together, would the return from the joint be all that much worse than a butt weld? You would have the round shape of the rivet heads, but those are only a problem from certain angles. Welding is expensive and tricky; there are all sorts of ways you can accidentally screw up the metallurgy of the work pieces. If the first few planes are just technical demonstrators and testbeds, then Sukhoi probably doesn't want to pull their hair out with expensive and technically risky manufacturing processes.

I think it's broadly consistent with the overall design goal of the current PAK-FA demonstrators. It doesn't look perfect and pretty because it doesn't have to. The US ATF prototypes were in a competitive fly-off, so they had to look the part. That meant smooth, composite skins that looked very futuristic. Remember how much Northrop groaned about Lockeed shooting an AMRAAM out of the YF-22? An ATF prototype that looked as rough as the PAK-FA prototypes would be a lot harder to take seriously in a competitive fly-off.

Sukhoi isn't dealing with a fly-off. They're the only game in town, and the Russian government knows this. MiG is an absolute shambles right now. Right now, MiG has the MiG-35, which the Russian government has bought a small number of simply to keep MiG afloat. Nobody else is interested because the MiG-35 is, as a piece of military hardware, slightly less outdated than cavalry sabers. The rumored MiG fifth-generation fighter has not seen the light of day, meaning that it likely exists only on computer screens and blueprints right now. Furthermore, beyond India, there's no serious talk of exporting the SU-57.

So, since Sukhoi isn't trying to sell the plane to anyone, the prototypes don't have to look pretty. They have have all sorts of provisional equipment and production shortcuts. Think of the big, lance-like nose pitot tube on the YF-22. Stuff that's clearly just for the prototype. That but moreso. The production, combat-coded aircraft are clearly not going to have air intakes that expose the engine fan face without some sort of blocker. You wouldn't go to all the effort of putting the stabilators in line with the main wings and planform aligning the entire front of the aircraft and putting sawtoothing on all the access panels and then just forget about the compressor face.

I stand by my prediction that the air intakes will be re-designed. The definitive aircraft will have air intakes with more stealth features, and they will probably be resized to match the airflow requirements of the new engines. This is a major feature to re-design this late in the game, but there is precedent.


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by collimatrix » 21 Nov 2018, 00:31

sprstdlyscottsmn wrote:
mixelflick wrote:
1.) They carried over the "tunnel" from the Flanker, which gives a nice weapons storage/area for more fuel

Yeah, about that. Imagine how much more volume for fuel/weapons you would have if you filled in the tunnel? Better RCS by reducing the number of corner reflectors. Less form drag from interference of those interior corners. Arguably some increase in wave drag as it changes the area ruling.


My read is that low supersonic drag was a high design priority for the PAK-FA. Sucker is designed to go fast, at least in a dash. The intakes are supposed to have some sort of VG ramps hidden in them, the wings are extremely swept, the aircraft has no less than three ways of trimming out supersonic CG shift (thrust vectoring, stabilators, LEVCONs), and the entire design has a generally high aspect ratio at the expense of lots of wetted area.

The fuselage underside and air intake design gives a lot of opportunities for area-ruling, as you point out. On top of that, it gives two other important advantages. The first is that podded or semi-podded intakes can be more easily re-sized later on to accommodate new engines that have different airflow requirements. The second advantage is that the intakes are widely spaced and thus far away from the weapon bay doors, which means no worries about any interactions between the intake flow and the disturbance caused by the doors opening.


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by mixelflick » 24 Nov 2018, 15:22

Slick video. You almost get the impression they're aiming for it to be their next gen air superiority platform but of course, we know that's not the case.

Two words: Technology demonstrator. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. They're going to build a dozen. OK. That means roughly 50% may be airworthy at any one time. Barely enough to integrate the new engines, weapons and radar/electronic warfare suite. This also assumes no attrition/losses. How exactly are they going to take their new toy and integrate it with the rest of the fleet? Do they have anything similar to Red Flag, where they can determine how it works with their other aircraft? Combat deployments? To where? Syria?? What does it do for them the SU-35 doesn't???

That's the real question. They seem to have answered that question by NOT mass producing it. Sure, they leave the door open to after the 2nd stage engines are perfected etc, but by then the US PCA will be flying, along with thousand of F-35's and significantly upgraded F-22's. Not to mention ever increasing numbers of J-20's and quite possibly J-31's on their border..

They do have the prettiest camo schemes for their birds, I'll give them that...


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by charlielima223 » 25 Nov 2018, 05:37

Typically whenever I see something about the PAKFA its usually some kind of photo shoot from Russian propaganda. Whenever I read something about it, its usually overly exaggerated/hyped.

Looks like it can take time out of its busy modeling schedule to actually do something...

Time index 1:08 it looks like the PAKFA is doing an engine shut off test


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