Su-57 Stealth Fighter: News #8

Backman wrote:Does anyone know where to find the original production schedules for aircraft like the F-15 or F-18 or 16? I heard that they didn't produce very many at the start. And I'd like to compare it to the su 57

There is a 50 years and two or three generation of technology between them and the su-57.

There is nothing valuable to learn. You can compare it with f-35 which was bought and produce in large quantities but wasn't finish and still has huge issues.

"Issues"    Understatement of the week.

A better description would be "issues that need tissues"...

It was repeated often in the 1980s some congressman or senator stating in frustration... that America would never again buy a 20 million dollar aircraft... which was how much the F-15s were costing to make each... which at the time was considered very expensive.

The very concept of the light F-16 and F-18 was to make them ultra modern and digital and also modular but also easier to operate and maintain but mainly cheaper...

Of course he was right... they will never buy a $20 million dollar fighter ever again... they can't even make the engines for that.

Of course against third world countries with the support of AWACS and JSTARS they really do allow them to dominate the battlespace, but the proliferation of new anti aircraft systems is going to change things and they are going to have to become less air oriented or they will fail even more often.

Augustine's law Number XVI: "In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.".

Not the same value. 10k$ in 1945 aren't worth 10k$ 70 years after.

Look at the production rates for aircraft. The cost keeps going up and the amount of produced aircraft keeps going down.

5195 F-4 Phantom, 1198 F-15 Eagle, 195 F-22 Raptor.

Sure there is inflation but prices don't go up 10x every 20 years.

lancelot wrote:Look at the production rates for aircraft. The cost keeps going up and the amount of produced aircraft keeps going down.

5195 F-4 Phantom, 1198 F-15 Eagle, 195 F-22 Raptor.

Sure there is inflation but prices don't go up 10x every 20 years.

They are also technologically more advanced. USSR produced thousands of fighters in the 50s and only hundreds of the last generations like su-27 or now now Russia with su-57.

That's true for anyone. Modern jets involve more companies in their production and can do more alone with more weapons.

Ships also decreased in numbers when they became technologically more advanced. Which means more expensive.


A su-57 will destroy tens of mig-17 easily. You can't compare them.

I do not think an F-22 is 6x more effective than an F-15. Not by a long shot.
And that is before you consider its atrocious mission capable rate.

lancelot wrote:I do not think an F-22 is 6x more effective than an F-15. Not by a long shot.
And that is before you consider its atrocious mission capable rate.

Which f-15 ? Because if it is the A version that cost 20 million back in 1970 with a shitty radar and old Sparrow missiles then f-22 will keep flying and destroying them all day long.

Last versions of f-15 cost more than f-35 but is far better equiped than A version and has more chances against a f-22.

You are comparing a twin engine (F-15) to a single engine (F-35).
What is surprising is how the F-35 continues being so expensive when it was supposed to be a replacement for the F-16.

You are comparing a twin engine (F-15) to a single engine (F-35).

I thought he was being generous because an F-16 would be an even more difficult target for an F-35 most of the time due to its improved agility...

The promise behind a single engined fighter is reduced costs to buy and reduced costs to operate over a twin engined fighter.

The thing is the balance of engine power and aircraft weight... the only three engined fighters are exotic VSTOLS like Yak-141 and Yak-38M, because three conventional jet engines in a conventional jet aircraft don't make sense unless they are different types of engines.

We may see the MiG-41 being three engined perhaps where one engine is a turbojet to get airborne and climb a little with the other two engines being ramjets for high flight speed cruising performance... or perhaps a turbojet for takeoff and landing and electric jet engines for normal operations at subsonic and all three engines with the turbojet in dry thrust for supercruise.... who knows.

What we do know is that the most common fighters either have two engines or one and other types are exotic.

Single engine fighters tend to be smaller and lighter and cheaper but there are exceptions... the F-5 is small and light and cheap and twin engined, and of course the F-35 is single engined but chunky and not very light and very expensive.

5th gen fighters are going to be heavier with larger internal fuel fractions for extra range and internal weapons loads for RCS.... which is why I think a heavier aircraft with two engines makes more sense but that is off topic for this topic.

lancelot wrote:You are comparing a twin engine (F-15) to a single engine (F-35).
What is surprising is how the F-35 continues being so expensive when it was supposed to be a replacement for the F-16.

Last version of f-16 are not any cheaper.

Number of engines are not taken into account in US prices anymore. It's all about corruption.

It took 8 years from first flight to introduction in service of Su-27. 10 years for Su-57. 8 years for F-22.

There is nothing particularly abnormal about Su-57 development process.

Especially when you consider that Su-57 is a lot more sophisticated than F-22.

And the Su-27 had a screwed up design... they wanted a design with a percentage advantage over the numbers calculated for the F-15, but when they got the flying prototype in the air they found the numbers were wrong and the percentage advantage was in favour of the F-15, so they revised the design...

Actually they stole the MiG-29 design and scaled it up with a few of their own touches like the swan nose and tail stinger that weren't part of the original MiG-29 design... and superiority of performance was restored.

This was the T-10 original Su-27 prototype...

Deputy Prime Minister Borisov: The Russian military is using the latest Su-57 fighters in Ukraine

The Russian military is using the latest fifth-generation Su-57 fighter jets in combat operations in Ukraine. And this is not about any single case.

This was announced at the economic forum in St. Petersburg (SPIEF) by the agency Interfax Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, who oversees the Russian defense industry.

Repeatedly involved - and single sorties, and several aircraft in coordination, in information interaction used aviation means of destruction

- said a senior official.

He claims that the new combat aircraft during the military operation to protect the republics of Donbass and their population demonstrated their high efficiency in practice and received good feedback from the Russian military. This applies not only to the fighters themselves, but also to the weapons placed inside their fuselages.

https://en.topwar.ru/197946-vice-premer-borisov-rossijskie-voennye-primenjajut-na-ukraine-novejshie-istrebiteli-su-57.html

lancelot wrote:

Augustine's law Number XVI: "In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.".

Should point out that this is an example of distortion and denial... not the numbers down the side of that graph are not even numbers... each number is ten times bigger than the number below it... this is a logarithmic progression... it is not a steady increase in price per aircraft the angle shows... the real increase in price is horrendous and has to be hidden by maths tricks.

Obviously the suggestion is that in 20 years time the price of a new American fighter will be 2 billion dollars per aircraft, but obviously that is not going to be possible so the line will actually level off... but probably mostly because it is not a sustainable increase in price and that drones or SAMs are going to become a more cost effective option over time.

if you read Ben Rich's book about Lockheed after he retired
he specifically lays the blame at the level of "Colonel" "Product Managers"
at the Pentagon who endlessly add new "missions" to new aircraft

when I read the drivel by American armchairs experts about NGAD
"oh my gaaaaard, its going to be sooooooooooo Stelthay ...... and soooooooooooo manoeurvable ..... oh maaaa Gaaarrdd !"

.......... wankers

I reckon NGAD is going right back to the F-117
basically a private airforce ...... low volume
hand made .... and serviced by Lockheed .... mission specific

why the f..k do you need an entire air force of stealth fighters ? exactly

next ....

I fell about laughing when I saw that German military moron "oh by 2030 we will have 600x fighters in za Baltic mein feuhrer !"
yes ..... with hypersonic missiles .....
your pilots will have a nano-second as they "race" towards their "stealth" fighters for combat before they are vapourised ....
along with their "stealth" fighters
..... they are pretty easy to see parked on a runway

at least they will save their relatives the cost of a cremation service ....

such utter delusional drivel .... EU wankers

And they say the Cobra Maneuver has no military application value, ha!  Even Tom Cruise couldn't shoot the Su-57 down with a clear shot because of it!

Some ex-Royal Navy F-4 Phantom pilot who posts a bunch of aircraft pics and generally is a rather unbiased British fella with some pretty cool and rare pics every once in a while, went a bit off the rails and posts this familiar and infamous photo, with this rather absurd caption:

Russia’s Su-57 “stealth” fighter has a radar cross section comparable to clean F/A-18 Super Hornet, and around a thousand times bigger than F-35. Russia’s fleet of Felons consists of 12 hand-made prototypes with varying degrees of finish and just two production jets…



I was so pissed off, especially at the quotation marks around the word stealth so I felt compelled to at least challenge his erroneous information on the number of production jets and even prototypes I believe.  On one hand he dramatically short-changes the number of production jets and on the other he raises the prototypes by 1 (according to my knowledge, anyway) and not sure what the motivation behind all that was, except the ever so prevalent anti-Russian sentiment out there as of late.  So I said that there were actually 11 prototypes and 6 production models (from the info I learned on this thread) and then some A-hole replies "source, trust me, bro" loool.  What a clown and the sad part is he got a lot of support for that idiotic comment.  

BUT, a couple of others caught on and one of them posted the first pic, while the other posted the 2nd and I have a feeling many more will catch on!  I thought these were pretty cool to share along with the stupid story that went with them lol.

This guy said "Here's your source!" I'm guessing these don't include the 1st production jet that unfortunately crashed?  So there's 5.



The next fella just tagged me with this pic, showing 11 prototypes.  Those were great!

Russia’s Su-57 “stealth” fighter has a radar cross section comparable to clean F/A-18 Super Hornet, and around a thousand times bigger than F-35.

Is that why they are bringing back F-15s at rather higher prices than their F-35s and discussing putting modified F-16s back into production too?

If Russia could detect F-35s operating on the border of Iran and Iraq from inside Russia (about 4,500km away) and warn Iran about their presence, I wonder how far away they could detect Hornets?

Equally why are the Israelis using F-16s from outside Syrian airspace with standoff weapons for attacks... surely they should be overflying the targets with those invisible F-35s and just cheap dumb iron bomb them to oblivion... isn't the plane to send in invisible F-35s to take out all the AD and then send in less stealthy F-16s to clean up everything else.... or is that not working...  there was a time when Israel could fly over any part of Syria without any cares or problems... the Russian S-400 system is only defending Russian forces there... Syria only has upgraded S-300 and BUK and Pantsir... they should be easy pickings... unless the west is lying about F-35s and Russian air defence.

Interesting that the Royal Navy cut slightly into Crimean waters on their way from the Ukraine to Georgia, but the Royal Airforce didn't do the same to test Crimean Air Space... interesting... regarding respect really... or should I say fear.

Belisarius wrote:

Gomig-21 wrote:Russia’s Su-57 “stealth” fighter has a radar cross section comparable to clean F/A-18 Super Hornet, and around a thousand times bigger than F-35.

This BS has already been refuted here:
https://www.russiadefence.net/t4799p225-su-35-vs-f-22-f-35

Now go back and show this uninformed idiot that he doesn't know the BASICS about RCS.

Just tell him to look at the surface area of the vertical tails on the Super Hornet, and F-22, and the Su-57.
Which ones are largest, and which ones should show up more on radar. Uh?
Also tell him to consider that next time he hears the claim that the Su-57 only has frontal aspect stealth.
With those huge tails on the other aircraft, which ones does he think will show up more on radar looking sideways at it?

As for the S-ducts, it is like I said, and like the guy on Millenium7 said, the damned things make the aircraft fatter, you get larger frontal area, thus worse drag coefficient, and it kills aircraft top speed and acceleration. You are basically flying a brick at that point.
In addition, because of all the gymnastics the air flow to the engine has to do with the S-duct, you get worse air flow to the engine, and even less performance. That and the fixed inlets are why the F-35 cannot supercruise and it cannot reach Mach 2. It is a piece of crap aerodynamically. It is a flying brick.

The Su-57 uses a smoother S-duct, with less of a bend, it achieves some reduction of frontal engine profile, without killing performance too much, so it can go over Mach 2, and it can supercruise, even with the first stage engines. The engines also have a radar blocker in the intake to reduce RCS. Finally it can apply the engine mesh screens to further reduce radar profile of the engine in case you need to, at cost of speed, and the second stage engine will have composite fan blades, and treatments to reduce RCS of the engine in the frontal aspect even without the mesh screens being engaged or without having S-ducts.