Episode 45. Su-35. A guest from the future

Original video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4vYgQc7WZo

If your a fan of Russian military aviation, you'll want to check this out. Some incredible scenes taking you inside and outside Sukhois jets.

Very nice video and very interesting to see Russian way of thinking and doing things. Of course they hype up their own gear and there are definitely errors and some very selective comparisons. But anyway Su-35 is highly impressive airframe and has some very interesting systems and capabilities. I would definitely not underestimate it at all, especially in any 4th generation fighter. There is definitely a reason why F-22, F-35, AESA radars, Meteor, AIM-120C-7/D and AIM-9X/IRIS-T/ASRAAM etc. have been developed.

Big fan here, and yes I did watch it/great documentary.

Still, they seem fundamentally arrested in the late 90's insofar as fighter tech. Given their limitations though, they took the SU-35 about as far as it can go. The big PESA will eventually give way to an AESA, and I expect air to air weapons to improve considerably. But the very airframe that lends itself so well to great range, payload and agility... is also its undoing - no stealth for you. They'll tell you its RCS reduced and it very well may be, but even so it's going to show up a LOT sooner on the F-35's scope vs. the other way around. All of that Russian know how will be eating AMRAAM's in any BVR encounter, and WVR won't be the picnic they're portraying. As impressive as the SU-35's agility is, it's no match for the AIM-9x block II.

SU-35 vs. F-15EX is the better matchup, and it will be interesting to see what happens if it occurs. Personally, I'd put my money on the Super Eagle...

Big fan here, and yes I did watch it/great documentary.

Still, they seem fundamentally arrested in the late 90's insofar as fighter tech. Given their limitations though, they took the SU-35 about as far as it can go. The big PESA will eventually give way to an AESA, and I expect air to air weapons to improve considerably. But the very airframe that lends itself so well to great range, payload and agility... is also its undoing - no stealth for you. They'll tell you its RCS reduced and it very well may be, but even so it's going to show up a LOT sooner on the F-35's scope vs. the other way around. All of that Russian know how will be eating AMRAAM's in any BVR encounter, and WVR won't be the picnic they're portraying. As impressive as the SU-35's agility is, it's no match for the AIM-9x block II.

SU-35 vs. F-15EX is the better matchup, and it will be interesting to see what happens if it occurs. Personally, I'd put my money on the Super Eagle...

True. It's basically a hotrodded 1970s airframe which means no stealth but aerodynamically it's definitely a very good design.

I agree that F-15EX would likely win more than it loses against Su-35. IMO, that's mainly because currently it has superior weapons. But Su-35 would definitely be highly dangerous opponent for any 4th gen fighter jet any case and they might come up with better weapons rather soon.

New weapons are def needed and fast - the old ones almost guarantee BVR doesn't go well. Very high likelihood its missiles will miss, a higher likelihood western weapons won't (particularly Meteor).

And the Archer is long in the tooth, so WVR isn't a guaranteed slam dunk either. On top of all that, new generation American weapons (AIM-260, Perigrine etc) will soon make their way onto the world's weapons market. Couple that with the F-15EX's mission computer (said to be the world's fastest), and I'll take it any day vs. even an up-engined/up-rated SU-35.

But it sure does look pretty, I'll give it that

Some random thoughts and impressions about this video.

1. There seem to be some kind of trauma in Russia about that Su-24 shoot down by Turkish F-16 five years ago. They mention that incident many times in this and F-16 seems to be their main "bad guy" in this video. Not really sure why, because any lonely non-stealthy attack aircraft is an easy target for a moden fighter jet with modern weapons.

2. Interesting that they mention F-16, F/A-18, EF Typhoon, Dassault Rafale and JAS Gripen as main competitors. Nothing about F-22, F-35, J-20 or even F-15. Especially lacking to mention F-15 is interesting given that it's the aircraft that the Su-27 was developed to counter. I think they intend to use Su-57 to go against the 5th generation opponents.

3. Interesting errors in description of R-77 missile when missiles are described starting at about 20:20. The English subtitles says that it's a passive radar homing anti-radiation missile and description matches that. So either there is error in translation or the pilot doesn't know what he is talking about or that is really an ARM version of that missile. I know there are rumors about R-77P, but I haven't seen anything about that officially and I'd think that regular R-77 or RVV-SD would be preferable in almost all likely scenarios. Could some Russian speaking person tell what the test pilot is saying?

4. Another interesting thing is that the combat ranges for Western fighters seem to be in rather strange. Rafale is supposed to have the shortest range when it likely has the longest of those mentioned. Also F/A-18 has the longest range while depicted with F-16 image? Btw, the radar range comparison also shows F/A-18 in text with a picture of F-16. Of course the media often gets these things wrong in all countries.

5. I'm not sure I'd want to try Kulbit or other somersault maneuvers when trying to escape an active radar guided missile as described starting at 7:00 or so. I can see how it could work with making the aircraft potentially disappearing in the doppler notch while launching chaff to decoy the missile. But it would need almost perfect timing and execution to work at all. How do you know when to do that maneuver? You'd need to know the range, speed and approach direction of the missile very accurately to do that with any reliability. A bad thing is that the aircraft would be out of energy for some time and enemy might just be naughty and fire two missiles at you with short interval between launches. I also think that the maneuver is really doable only in relatively narrow speed and altitude band.

6. The number of tracked targets by different fighter radars is also quite off when it comes to Western fighters, especially Rafale and Typhoon. IIRC Typhoon with current radar can track 20 targets simultaneously and Rafale can track 40 targets at least with AESA RBE2. Not sure about Super Hornet, but I bet it can track more than 20 currently as smaller AESA radars can do better than that.

3. Interesting errors in description of R-77 missile when missiles are described starting at about 20:20. The English subtitles says that it's a passive radar homing anti-radiation missile and description matches that. So either there is error in translation or the pilot doesn't know what he is talking about or that is really an ARM version of that missile. I know there are rumors about R-77P, but I haven't seen anything about that officially and I'd think that regular R-77 or RVV-SD would be preferable in almost all likely scenarios. Could some Russian speaking person tell what the test pilot is saying?

Doesn't speak Russian but I can understand and read it, pilot said

"данная ракета c pадиолокационная"

which can be translated as "this is radio location missile" which can be ARH or SARH.

If he said

"данная ракета с пассивной радиолокационной"

that would meant "this is passive radio location missile".

There isn't any point of making R-77P when there is already operational R-27P.

Thank you milosh, that makes sense. So the pilot just said that the (R-77) missile is a radar guided missile. Then some editor decided that the description needed more content in the text and just gave a wrong description about how that missile works.

I see only possible sense in developing R-77P in that it could be used internally by Su-57 as R-27 derivatives probably can't be used. Even then I'd rather use Kh-58UShKE which is likely way superior to what could be crammed inside R-77 body. Range is definitely way better and I bet even maneuverability should be good enough to go after AEW aircraft.