sprstdlyscottsmn wrote:mixelflick wrote:We of course procured the F-22 first....
We also didn't upgrade the Eagles with a lot of the newer tech to save funding/status for the F-22. Russia pumped tons of money into tech demonstrators and Flanker upgrades.
That was a necessity. They had no money for anything in the late 90s to early 2000s. So Sukhoi had to pump out demonstrator and flanker upgrades to attract foreign sales to keep themselves going. It was only after 2005, that Russia had enough money to really start its own 5th generation project. As we see now, they don't really have enough money or domestic industries to really complete it in a timely manner.
Long term, Russia is likely to keep exporting su-35s. There will still be plenty of nations that don't need stealthy aircraft.
For me, it doesn't make sense for them to have both Sukhoi and Mikoyan right now when they can only fund 1 next generation project. They shouldn't try to have a second project that takes away funding from the first one. Unless its entirely foreign funded, this makes no sense. Less annual development budget for Sukhoi simply leads to slower development cycle and eventually lead to more cost overrun and smaller production run -> higher unit cost. It's a disastrous strategy to have such indecision.
They are not China. They don't have money to build several demonstrators and have 2 real 5th generation project.