SU-57: On hold for a decade

[duplex]

Russia is claiming the 300 km R-37M aam is in final stages of development and will ultimately equip the Su-57.

https://www.rt.com/news/439553-russia-l ... e-missile/

https://iz.ru/755046/aleksandr-kruglov- ... dlia-su-57

The vast majority of Russian claims are propaganda material for domestic consumption ..

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/21/russian ... ter%7Cmain

Big difference between what Russia claims and what it achieves !

[mixelflick]

Russia is claiming the 300 km R-37M aam is in final stages of development and will ultimately equip the Su-57.

https://www.rt.com/news/439553-russia-l ... e-missile/

https://iz.ru/755046/aleksandr-kruglov- ... dlia-su-57

So they'll lug a big, heavy, external weapon around with a 300km range - effective against a stealth target (IF they can find it) at a MUCH shorter range. And in the process, degrade whatever little stealth the SU-57 has.

Brilliant...

[babybat{}.net]

So they'll lug a big, heavy, external weapon around with a 300km range - effective against a stealth target (IF they can find it) at a MUCH shorter range.

Don't read Russian tabloids)
LRAAM is a weapon against AWACS, JSTARS, Mercury, tankers etc.

[marsavian]

Came across quite a detailed appraisal of the Su-57 on Quora which I thought was worth sharing.

https://www.quora.com/Was-the-stealth-f ... ust-a-ruse

Mike McAuliffe -

There are a lot of elements which I would not include in the manner which UA/Sukhoi have in a stealth design. The IRST would have to be completely modified towards an EOSS level with likely placement in the wings to both accomodate supercruise and proper windscreen/nose blending.

You would not generally want to have a separate canopy break in a production stealth airframe.

Production quality overall seems to be going up on the later airframes (which I consider to still be a proper, FSD level, test fleet, unlike the F-35 equivalent which is LRIP Blk.0 production in an unstable testbed configuration…).

But if you note things like this-

At 0:14, you are seeing side look radar as a separate, inset, panel; onventional pitots for the AOA and airspeed system; use of puttied fasteners on the vortex flap as a general lack of design finesse in the LOX or fuel port which should ideally be inside the NLG or weapons bays. Even the chine and the radom shot signs of rough fitting as separate components which could theoretically effect both direct signature and leaks into sensitive RF bays. We literally cast thermoset resin parts which are blended to the airframe skeleton, early in the production process and required the APG-77 (as it’s URR precursor) to have incredible AESA antenna life for the simple reason that you have to cut the nose off to get access to the pressurized antenna volume.

If you move down the airframe, the boundary layer separator inlet and LEVCON fairing could be a little better designed (superior alignment controls, buried behind a splitter or even lost down the DSI intake). I am not a fan of moving structural surfaces on the LE of a stealth platform. It’s bad enough when you do it to the wings but when you put them in a multizone break between upper and lower fuselage chine boundaries, you invite all kinds of creeping/surface wave interactions from both directions up and down the fuselage. I understand their purpose in being there on a wing planform which has more in common with the YF-22 than the F-22 (speed over turn), but you can look at the A/FX and see that we managed to get similar ‘notch’ vortice generation without the potential disaster of an articulated surface in front of an inlet. I suppose it’s better than a canard…

Speaking of turbo paths… Those are some pretty healthy intakes with serious toe out to mask the downstream nacelles and provide decent ram recovery as boundary escape from the fuselage. The problem is that the tunnel inbetween is almost purely vertical which means that, unless you are operating exclusively over a friendly GCI environment, anything lookin up is going to get a multipath return that is simply too much of an inherent design compromise to the aiframe configuration to be ameliorated. Wide pancake for weapons bays = no room for RAM appliques. The YF-23 bypassed this by pushing the engines above the wing and pushing the weapons bays ahead of the airfoil but nothing with a ‘super agility +’ rating is going to be doing that with an almost pure delta sweep of 46.5`.

I would need to have a close look at the jet’s technical drawings to be sure but IMO, their is not enough serpentine in the inlet trunking to mask the engine face, even with the very long ducts and a probable blocker. By itself, this is a disaster for FQ VLO and indicates a serious bias away from VLO towards maximum aerodynamic and weapons system performance (long LRAAM like the Izdeliye 810).

Do the Russians know something about stealth engineering as BVR combat that we don’t? These are serious (MiG-31 level) configurationally permanent compromises which make very little sense when looked at from a pure VLO design standpoint, especially given all the specialist variants of ‘multirole’ (penetrating) ordnance that have been developed specifically for the jet.

The vertical tail fairings, engine nacelles and boat tail fairing are all very tightly packaged. I would expect a lot of edge glint and multi aspect (Mie _and_ Rayleigh) scattering from tunnel effects. I’m not an aerodynamicist but the jet has got a really broad, thick, a$$ end and that’s seldom good when it comes to wavedrag (note: The F-22 is a ‘triumph of thrust over drag’ so it’s not like we are perfect at this either).

Finally, coatings. My understanding is that it’s functionally impossible to unify impedance loadings along multiple panel boundaries and material types and so we paint our jets with a silver based conductive prime coat which treats the entire airframe as a surface duct for travelling waves and then ‘top coat’ over this with something that is nano engineered to have specific RF cancellation behaviors. It is this combination of base-metallic and top RAM coats which gives jets like the F-22 and F-35 their oddly reflective/dusky look.

The camouflage on the Su-57 looks like paint. It’s crudely applied in some areas and it’s very diversity of color patterning means it’s going to be subject to divergent thermal as well as RF behaviors, due to the size of pigment balls. Now, I know the Russians have been pushing really hard into molecular chemistry as their own pursuit of third generation stealth capabilities. There are documentaries covering the Su-57 on Youtube which highlight this ‘Secret Lab Work’ effort. But the jet at the moment does not look like it is using full spectrum integration of the shape-shape-shape+materials paradigm with careful surface designs integrated with optimized coatings specific to RF band (BVR) specific stealth as we now know it.

Quantum ‘Sunflower’ radar? Advanced Opto-Acoustic tracking networks? Or simply a different vision of how 21st Century Air Defense is to be executed in the future? When everyone and their mother’s uncle was maneuvering to end the F-22 program without making too big a deal about it, Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings Institute fame came up with a clever interpretation of number of F-15s ‘at the coal face’ of the 1991 air campaign as something like 90 jets in-theater and 60 available on any given day.

About five years earlier, LMTAS got a ‘note in the night’ which was so worrisome that the VP brought in the engineering staff on the weekend and told them to dump the faceted Su-27 design that was then Lockheed’s leading solution to the ATF problem and replace it with one which would eventually look like a cubist F-15.

IMO, something happened, in the intervening years, that changed the paradigm. It may have been an improved material or system. It may have been a vulnerability to a specific waveform or even something exotic like multistatics or quantum stuff, related to AESA. But stealth got turned on it’s head in that time frame and the idea of penetrating OCA as a HVA specialist sniping asset went with it, to be replaced by something with a more balanced design point as SC&M (Super Cruise & Maneuver) emphasis: the short lunge rather than the long jog.

I find it amazing that the Russians have had a similar epiphanic moment with similar numbers conclusions (60 now, 160 of the ‘second generation’). I do not believe that the AL-41F1 (MiG-1.44, vari-cycle) vs. AL-41 TVS-117 (AL-31FM, Su-35) engine has anything directly to do with it.

It could be economic. The Squeeze consequences to the Crimean and Donbass reactions to Western meddling in Ukrainian politics could really be beginning to effect Russian strategic theory, especially if they foresee a likely war before the 2025–2027 period when the production system is ready.

But I don’t believe that’s the case. The Russians are much better than we are at making quiet progress, using existing systems/upgrades as testbeds for a new design and then integrating established and new systems together without as much fuss as we ‘clean sheet’ always seem to encounter.

I think there has been a major change in the way the warfighter’s are expected to interact and while RFLO still has a considerable part to play in that, it may well be that manned systems are no longer seen as viable guarantors of ‘edge’ sufficient to ensure victory.

[knowan]

Came across quite a detailed appraisal of the Su-57 on Quora which I thought was worth sharing.

https://www.quora.com/Was-the-stealth-f ... ust-a-ruse

Quora is 99% sh*t, but there is the occasional post by people that actually know what they're talking about, like this one.

[mixelflick]

Forget who here said it, but "F-22 is a triumph of thrust over drag"

Really?

It looks plenty sleek to me. Granted the fuselage is boxy but also flat, leading to improved lift. The F-35 is boxy as hell too, and that has plenty of thrust, just not so much relative to weight as the F-22.

I suppose like everything else the drag figures are classified. Thought the real game was lift to drag ratio though?? I could be wrong. Still, mach 1.8 supercruise ain't too shabby (and that's what's been admitted to, not what's classified..

[hythelday]

I have to admit that I never scrutinized Su-"Flatfish"-57, but I have recently noticed that intakes are concave (at least on the T-50-9 they are)



Any idea as to why?

[mixelflick]

So Vlad surprisingly has ordered 76 SU-57's, to be delivered by 2028 if I understand correctly.

Several possibilities..

1.) Flanker vs F-15C/F-22 dances didn't turn out so well over Syria
2.) Intelligence reports that the US 6th gen is moving faster than expected
3.) They plan to sell this thing to anyone and everyone with the money
4.) Intelligence reports of just how effective Israel's F-35's are..

Of those possibilities, I think #3 is most likely (although I also think 1 and 4 are also on the table). A token Russian order (on the cheap, supposedly after Putin negotiated the price down) for 76 would signal confidence to foreign buyers. Already there have been reports of Russia pushing it on Turkey, India and China. If I'm not mistaken, Vietnam and the UAE may be in the mix too.

They can't continue to sell Flankers forever, and I rather doubt anyone will be ordering the Mig-35, given it'll be a 4++ gen in a 5th gen world. I say China bites first, but the order will be small. India really needs it, but not if it isn't up to snuff being VLO. Turkey comes behind China, as they continue to look East.

May well in fact turn out to be quite a success for them...

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

I doubt China will bite. Unlike India and Turkey they have a legitimate native 5th Gen in the J-20

[wrightwing]

I can't imagine China being interested, unless they're still having issues getting engines developed. Even then it's doubtful.

[milosh]

I can't imagine China being interested, unless they're still having issues getting engines developed. Even then it's doubtful.

J-20 is design to be pure A-A 5gen fighter, narrow weapon bay to be precise maybe even narrower then F-22 weapon bay. So Su-57 would be nice for China as stealth fighter bomber:

https://external-preview.redd.it/cfAxJw ... 057a7180ab

that is one big missile, around 800kg heavy and it can carry four of them.

[fidgetspinner]

https://tass.com/defense/1069215

Seems at the moment the turks are only getting offered the su-35s for now.

[swiss]

https://tass.com/defense/1069215

Seems at the moment the turks are only getting offered the su-35s for now.

Also nice to see that Tass confirms the Su-35 has empty weight of 19 tons.

The Su-35S weighs 19 tonnes, has a service ceiling of 20,000 meters, can develop a maximum speed of 2,500 km/h and has a crew of one pilot. The fighter jet’s armament includes a 30mm aircraft gun, up to 8 tonnes of the weapon payload (missiles and bombs of various types) on 12 underwing hardpoints.

[mixelflick]

I can't imagine China being interested, unless they're still having issues getting engines developed. Even then it's doubtful.

J-20 is design to be pure A-A 5gen fighter, narrow weapon bay to be precise maybe even narrower then F-22 weapon bay. So Su-57 would be nice for China as stealth fighter bomber:

https://external-preview.redd.it/cfAxJw ... 057a7180ab

that is one big missile, around 800kg heavy and it can carry four of them.

Why you'd want a fighter sized aircraft to carry these, I don't know. I thought the TU-160 was designed for this purpose, given it isn't stealth? Plenty of range to those missiles, so no need to get close to the target. Otherwise, the SU-57 I think is struggling to find a mission. The SU-35 can do 90% of what the SU-57 can, and do it considerably cheaper...

[milosh]

I can't imagine China being interested, unless they're still having issues getting engines developed. Even then it's doubtful.

J-20 is design to be pure A-A 5gen fighter, narrow weapon bay to be precise maybe even narrower then F-22 weapon bay. So Su-57 would be nice for China as stealth fighter bomber:

https://external-preview.redd.it/cfAxJw ... 057a7180ab

that is one big missile, around 800kg heavy and it can carry four of them.

Why you'd want a fighter sized aircraft to carry these, I don't know. I thought the TU-160 was designed for this purpose, given it isn't stealth? Plenty of range to those missiles, so no need to get close to the target. Otherwise, the SU-57 I think is struggling to find a mission. The SU-35 can do 90% of what the SU-57 can, and do it considerably cheaper...

I really don't see what is problematic with stealth fighter carrying stand off weapons. For F-35 you have couple of longer ranged weapons in development.

Btw Tu-160 was designed for one thing and that is nuclear war. And as it look like Tu-22 would have similar role with M3M upgrade, IMO Tu-22M3M would replace Tu-95 in strategic role. That is quite logical because even though they aren't stealth bombers they have lot smaller RCS then Tu-95 or B-52, and upgraded variants of 22s and 160s are geting PAK-FA coatings, paints and canopy glass.

So Russians will rely lot more for conventional missions on fighter bombers then on classic bombers in future.