Su57 is expensive. At least 2 times more than a su-35 and it is after they agreed to reduce prices for an unknown reason.
The numbers I have seen are 40 million for the Su-57 which is probably comparable to the price of the Su-35 and incredibly cheap for both aircraft.
Pak da will be very expensive to buy. It's a russian B2, flying wing with very good stealth and probably everything in tu-160 will be in pak da. That will make it more expensive than tu160.
Your logic that a Russian plane will be expensive because an American plane it looks like is expensive is not sound.
PAK DA wont be cheap, but wont be super expensive either... I doubt it will be stealthy to the level the B-2 is because it will still be using long range stand off weapons. The B-2 was supposed to deliver bombs from relatively close distances to protected targets... odds are the PAK DA wont get within 1,000km of the target it is attacking and will use either stealthy or hypersonic weapons to deliver the payload passed defences...
Also it will be a plane with TWO engines and probably two crewmen so not more costly to operate than a Tu-22M3M.
I agree... it think most of the functions will be fully automated and instead of a crew of 4 or more it will have a crew of 2 and may only have two engines... though they might retain their afterburning ability for takeoffs at heavy weights...
Tu-160 is also a subsonic aircraft with afterburners to reach supersonic speeds. They don't patrol at supersonic speed.
It burns more fuel than the Bear does and it is more expensive to maintain.
The only difference will be that pak da won't have afterburners but that doesn't change a lot compare to tu-160. Engines will be similar in terms of cost and they will very likely use tu160's as a basis for pakda's engines.
The engines used by the PAK DA will most likely be adapted to operate like high bypass turbofans if there is no requirement for super cruising.
This should reduce fuel consumption and increase thrust at subsonic flight speeds.
Russians don't have better stealth technology than US. If they apply RAM coating they better have hangars to keep them protected from rain and snow and humidity. If they don't apply any, the production of advanced stealth materials will be expensive.
The PAK DA gets its small RCS from its basic shape being stealthy... RAM would only be needed to touch up hot spots so to speak.
The stealth requirement for the PAK DA will be a lot lower than the B-2 because the PAK DA is not supposed to fly within 1,000km of the target anyway.
They seem to be quite successful in producing their own nano technology and materials... technology has certainly moved on... BTW they have stealth nets for their armour that does not require heated air conditioned tents for storage...
So it increases the price over a su-35 without it. So we can deduce that pak da, even if it doesn't use all the US expensive stuff for stealth, will still be more expensive than older russian bombers to produce.
During the 1990s when they had no money they continued making strategic bombers... I suspect they will be able to produce what they want when they want to.
IMO the best for stealth is stealthy materials and shaping.
The PAK DA was designed from the outset to be stealthy.
However paint can be applied only during war time or when tensions rise. I guess it can last for 1 month without the need to repaint the plane which is more than ebough.
Indeed the PAK DA might be stealthy enough without RAM to not need it during peace time and during exercises... they might treat it like war paint and only apply it for missions or important exercises.
What does very good stealth means ? Stealth of B-2, F-22 have often been criticized on this forum as being of not much use. So how is this upcoming bomber radically different in terms of stealth?
There are degrees of stealth and those degrees change over time as technology and materials improve... the F-22 is described as being more stealthy than the F-35, but as we have seen the F-35s level of stealth is negatively effected by flight speed and other factors.... when you design a plane you have to decide what level of stealth you are going for... the higher the stealth the more compromises in the design and of course the more expensive the plane will be to buy and to operate.
The F-16 was made cheaper to buy and operate by deciding to make it not capable of faster than Mach 2 flight. The air intake didn't need to be adjustable so it was made simpler and lighter but the cost was a hard limit of flight speed to mach 2. The F-18 was the same but its hard limit was mach 1.8.
To fly faster than those speeds the aircraft would need to climb at least to medium altitude and then fly level and straight in full AB for maybe 10 minutes to get to such speeds... it burns off a lot of fuel and apart from getting somewhere fast it is not really useful except for an interceptor chasing down a target.
Many planes can't reach top speed with external stores anyway... so they limited their top speed to make them lighter and simpler and cheaper to buy and maintain... it was a tradeoff.
Stealth is the same making it very stealthy makes it very expensive but also more capable... the PAK DA will likely have good stealth... it would likely be less than 0.5m square from the front for most fighter radars... which means an intercepting aircraft wont see them till they get very close, but because it might be carrying 5,000km range plus missiles it wont get the chance...
IT really depends on how they go about the PAK DA,what size, consruction etc. They may go with the SU-34 type payload but with a much longer range (10T) and keep the TU-160 and Bear as the heavy lifters. They are apparently extending the life of Bear by 35 years!!!
The PAK DA will replace both the Bear and Backfire in the strategic and theatre roles respectively... the 60 odd Tu-22M3Ms they upgrade will likely be transferred back to the Navy for anti ship duties.
The paint for most part will need to be re-applied after every flight. Making it expensive too.
RAM is similar to paint but would likely be thicker and more durable... hell for all we know they might have developed a double skin layer for the outer shell that contains a plasma that absorbs all radiowave frequencies when an electric current is passed through it like one of those plasma balls.
The part of the skin covering the radar antenna and sensors could be turned off while those sensors are in use and turned back on for complete invisibility to radar waves is needed...
Radar transparent materials on their own would not work because that means the radar would pass straight through and you'd detect the engines which has lots of corners and edges and would have a huge RCS unless covered in a radar reflective cover.
The whole point of using a flying wing shape is the combination of inherent low drag design and also the inherent low RCS reflective surface area...
From the design stage any hotspots can be found and reshaped to eliminate so a rather low RCS can be achieved even before applying RAM or other measures.
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