Russian fifth-generation fighter takes off - pictures

[Shroom Man 777]

A better question would be, how effective is Russian ground defense radar and PAK-FA fighters at intercepting 20 B-2s at altitiude and 90+ B-1s on nap-of-the-earth thunder runs? Your stealth don't mean shit outside 20 miles' range if the hostiles are looking to avoid you.

If your B-1s and B-2s are moving to avoid the PAK-FA, they expend more fuel to evade the defenses and they may also have to dump their bombs to make a quick getaway or evasion. The PAk-FA will also be working with ungodly awesome Russian SAMs and the MiG-31 Foxhound, and will be using all manner of long-range BVR missiles. Can America Fuck Yeah that? Or will Russia, yeah, fuck America?

In case of war, you're right, the balloon would go up and the WHORES WHORES WHORES shrooms would bloom. In that, hopefully NEVER to happen, environment, PAKs would still not be facing our fighters, but trying to shoot down our bombers. B-2s and B-1s don't have offensive radar fits as far as we know, and if they did, would sure as shit not be radiating on the way to give Potemkin Village a megaton parting gift. Your PAKs' effectiveness in intercepting our bombers, along with your surface search radar, would be the deternminants.

Those, and Soviet AWACs and high-mach MiG-31s.

PAKs would give off less backscatter from ground-based radar for our bombers' ECM to detect, but in this doomsday scenario the PAKs would also have their radar sets on and emitting. If you count on GCI, we get through; if you go active, we see you and avoid. Win-win for us. Bad overall, because megadeaths suck.

Lose-lose for you if you avoid. Your bombers have to run away like bitches to avoid getting shot down. If they are diverted from their bombing mission and fallback, that counts as a victory for Russia.

The future for tactical combat seems to reside in the combination of stealth, advanced passive detection, and missile technology. Thrust vectoring is cool as shit, but I'm starting to hold the opinion that if you're at dogfight range, you've lost control of the fight. Low observable tech and extended-range missiles seem to be the future for tactical aircraft, with LO at first place on the list of requirements.

The Russians are great with extended-range missiles. As for passive detection, the PAK-FA has IRST. The F-22... not so. The F-35 does, but it's shit.

The F-22 is a tactical fighter. In that role, I think HURR HURR that it would spank the PAK-FA, especially with AIM-120Ds. If what you say about foreign sales is true, though, the two would most likely not meet in the air. Given the missions, especially if the PAK is a Russia-only plane for defense, you'd be gunning for bombers and a PAK and F-22 would never go nose-to-nose. My first posting was based on my thinking in a "Spy vs. Spy" scenario (Google the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show for context) match against fighters. Strategic realities are, of course, different.

If it takes less PAK-FAs to kill an F-22 then the amount of Flankers it would take to kill the F-22, and if the PAK-FA is cheaper overall than the Raptor plus revenues with selling it to India, then the Russians gain quite a bit even if their plane can't quite killfuck the F-22.

The Russians, in my opinion, don't seem to be interested in fielding the single best badass killfuckerizing do-all superweapon. I mean, shit, that's why they've got a hundred different kind of fighters and fighter variants. Your American planes - from the F-22s to B-2s to P-51s - won't just be facing Flankers and Fulcrums, AND Foxhounds (or even ancient Foxbats ), they'll also be facing PAK FAs now. Meanwhile, they've got all sorts of S-300/S-400/SA-2s and S-whatevers defending the airspace. And when that happens, they'll have Tu-22Ms and Tu-95s and Tu-160s and Su-34s and Su-24s and Su-25s throwing shit back at you.

The Russians have never been about fielding a single badass system. The Russians have always been about burying you.

The Soviets don't neeed stinking badass bourgeois F-22s. Instead, they'll fuck you up with the sheer perfidious prevalent propensity of populous proliferated proficient proletarian PAK planes!

[K. A. Pital]

As for passive detection, the PAK-FA has IRST. The F-22... not so

I once read an apt comparison about radar homing missiles and passive detection (can't recall though who it was):
"Who'd you prefer to be, a cop with a powerful flashlight switched on, or a hiding assassin with bullets that can aim at light?"

The F-35 does, but it's shit.

Not working as intended...or "not working, period"?

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, it's been repeatedly said that it's not as stealthy as an F-22 and not as fast, and its overall performance isn't quite as good. The only aspects where it surpasses the F-22 is in its range and its bomb carrying capacity and attack/air-to-ground roles.


I am quite sad though, that the intake-thruster arrangement is pretty much a straight line, allowing radar to see the PAK FA's fanblades and making it more visible to those radars.

Hold me, Stas.

[Julhelm]

Ever heard of intake blockers?

[Shroom Man 777]

What are those? Stealthy things?

[K. A. Pital]

It does not matter that the intakes are straight. What matters is how the airflow is arranged inside. If there are bends that block a straight line from intake-to-engine blade (and it would make no sense not to have one), the RCS-enlarging factor of the engine blade faces would not be in play.

Well, it's been repeatedly said that it's not as stealthy as an F-22 and not as fast, and its overall performance isn't quite as good. The only aspects where it surpasses the F-22 is in its range and its bomb carrying capacity and attack/air-to-ground roles.

How can that be said about an aircraft which barely saw it's prototype fly yesterday? I can only wonder. Not as fast? How fast should it be? It's top possible speed (and that's the only thing you can calculate until it's declassified) is calculated at 2600 kph (Raptor at 2400 kph) and supercruise is calculated at 1800 kph (Raptor at 1900 kph).

So "not as fast" is kinda strange. Especially when the serial model should field 3 ton more powerful engines, when the plane seems to be already supercruise-capable with the 117S. *shrugs*

What is "overall performance"? In maneuver combat / dogfights 3D thrust vectoring... trumps 2D thrust vectoring. For a skilled pilot, of course.

And to explain a "VLO for dummies and AWACS" - the VLO RCS of a plane is effective (be it 0,1 or 0,001 m.sq) so until it makes it invisible to AWACS until a range that is lower than it's own missiles' effective range. I.e. if the RCS allows the PAK FA to near 90-70 km the AWACS, the job is done, so to say. It does not matter what exact RCS of the plane is.

[Starglider]

It's interesting that it has all-movable vertical stabilisers (so I hear) and 3D thrust vectoring. The F-22 has neither, and is supposedly extremely maneuverable. Why does this fighter need such massive yaw moment capability? Is it because the length increases the angular inertia, so this was necessary to achieve Su-35 level hyper-manueverability? I eagerly await more information trickling out from the flight test program.

[UnderAGreySky]

Does "top speed" really matter anyway (except for one or two scenarios)? Wouldn't the speed you could sustain for long at your operating altitude count more?

IAF pilots were adamant that *nothing* could catch a MiG-23 at low-level. They said they could do supersonic just a couple of hundred metres above ground.

Julhelm: Flying with intake blockers? I've heard of taxiing with them to avoid FOD, but not flying.

Shroomy, I'm not convinced about Russian AWACS capabilities. India evaluated them, did not like, and so put an IAI Phalcon radar on an Il-76 and called it the A-50Ehi. China also wanted to go for Israeli ones, I think, but were denied.

Starglider: All moving *vertical fins?

[Shroom Man 777]

How can that be said about an aircraft which barely saw it's prototype fly yesterday? I can only wonder. Not as fast? How fast should it be? It's top possible speed (and that's the only thing you can calculate until it's declassified) is calculated at 2600 kph (Raptor at 2400 kph) and supercruise is calculated at 1800 kph (Raptor at 1900 kph).

So "not as fast" is kinda strange. Especially when the serial model should field 3 ton more powerful engines, when the plane seems to be already supercruise-capable with the 117S. *shrugs*

What is "overall performance"? In maneuver combat / dogfights 3D thrust vectoring... trumps 2D thrust vectoring. For a skilled pilot, of course.

And to explain a "VLO for dummies and AWACS" - the VLO RCS of a plane is effective (be it 0,1 or 0,001 m.sq) so until it makes it invisible to AWACS until a range that is lower than it's own missiles' effective range. I.e. if the RCS allows the PAK FA to near 90-70 km the AWACS, the job is done, so to say. It does not matter what exact RCS of the plane is.

I was talking about the F-35, Stas.

(I was replying to your
Not working as intended...or "not working, period"? comment on the F-35.)

[UnderAGreySky]

At the 1:50 or so mark in this video, you can see the fins move while he taxis...

[Simplicius]

Starglider: All moving *vertical fins?

Nothing too unusual about that - the A-12/SR-71 and A-5 made use of them decades ago. They were long, fast aircraft; that probably has something to do with it.

[Julhelm]

Julhelm: Flying with intake blockers? I've heard of taxiing with them to avoid FOD, but not flying.

You'd use the blockers to arrange the airflow within the intake duct into a sort of S shape so that there is no line of sight to the fans.

[Ma Deuce]

The Russians are great with extended-range missiles. As for passive detection, the PAK-FA has IRST. The F-22... not so. The F-35 does, but it's shit.

Not if it has a FRICKIN' LAZOR BEAM. I don't know if the 100-150kw laser they're planning to (eventually) add to the F-35 would be enough to kill a fighter, but it would be enough to kill incoming missiles, not to mention would destroy any infrared sensor it shines on.

[Sea Skimmer]

Not if it has a FRICKIN' LAZOR BEAM. I don't know if the 100-150kw laser they're planning to (eventually) add to the F-35 would be enough to kill a fighter, but it would be enough to kill incoming missiles, not to mention would destroy any infrared sensor it shines on.

It’d be enough to kill another aircraft, but realistically it could be another two decades before a sufficiently compact system is ready for production. It’s also unlikely it’s be suitable for retrofitting to existing aircraft at a sane cost because of the need to pipe cooling lines into all the fuel tanks. Right now we still don’t have the ability to make that much laser power from a single solid state unit of any scale.

[Julhelm]

The F-22 has an IRST in order to aquire and track targets for it's Sidewinders without having to have the missile in the airstream, and the addition of this is one of the reasons its development took so long.

Also the problem the F-22 has when it comes to the strike role is that its internal bay is really too small to allow a wide variety of stores, which is something the F-35 with its much larger bays isn't hampered by.

[Sea Skimmer]

The F-22 has an IRST in order to aquire and track targets for it's Sidewinders without having to have the missile in the airstream, and the addition of this is one of the reasons its development took so long.

It has no such thing. It can however fire the AIM-9X and lock on after launch, but any plane with that version of the missile can do the same.

[K. A. Pital]

I was talking about the F-35, Stas.

So what is the state of F-35 IRST? Perhaps someone can fill me in?

Oh, I know it's not that good, but that's because of the boondogles with IRST shape they had to do. And it's quite possible Russia will have to do the same for RCS-reduction on the PAK FA. A round shape is better for optics and hence better for the system itself, but it's impacting the plane RCS.

[Sea Skimmer]

So what is the state of F-35 IRST? Perhaps someone can fill me in?

The individual sensors work fine now, but it’s still a long development cycle to finish the computer software that will allow the system to integrate the data from all sensors and recognize that what each one sees is the same target, especially when dealing with large numbers of ground vehicles. This is the real challenge compared to making an oddly shaped housing. It will be years yet, but then the aircraft wont be ready for years anyway.

They’ve had a three sensor test rig flying since 2005, no idea if they’ve moved onto full scale six sensor testing. But making three work is the main challenge, since it’s unlikely that more then three sensors would ever see the same target in the first place. This also allows for range finding through triangulation, and blending the imagery together also allows DAS to act as hemispherical night vision for the pilot, even when he wants to look through parts of his own aircraft.

[JointStrikeFighter]

[Vympel]

Re: the PAK FA's IRST, I read that its a placeholder which will disappear later. Remember this is only the first prototype (also keep in mind the videos of the first flight are actually intercut with a rollout of another of the PAK FA prototypes, probably the static test article, just for interests sake, people have noticed some inconsistencies between the two).

[Simon_Jester]

The one thing that gets to me is that they're shutting down of the fully-operational F-22, a known quantity, in favor of the F-35 which still hasn't been fully tested and won't be in service for years. The US Military is putting nearly all of its eggs into the F-35, since in 20 years that single design will comprise most of the US fighter fleet. Why not get both fighters, increasing the F-22s to a less tiny number (that would deal with attrition over the years and stretch out the fleet's service life) while scaling back some of the thousands of F-35s? Meanwhile, new cost increases and development problems have been reported as recently as the last few weeks, which undercut the very purpose of the F-35 which is to be cheap. Can anyone tell me just what is the F-35's cost is up to these days, anyway?

Actually, this is my favorite idea: keep up low-speed production of F-22s at least long enough to see if F-35s work as combat aircraft, because we may have to do what Shep wants and use them to replace the F-15 and (some of?) the F-16s if they don't work.

I'm thinking forward-deployed US forces against whoeverthehell you sold the PAK-FAs to; could be Venezuela, Cuba, China, whoever.

Looking at it from the Russian point of view as best I can: why do they care what happens to Venezuela or Cuba all that much? Worst case, they buy some of the fighters, thumb their noses at the Americans in their backyard, then find out they can't match their new fighters one to one against F-22s, and the Venezuelans or Cubans are fucked. Bad, yes, but at least you got the sales. Better yet, if they're close enough to you that you're willing to sell the fighters, they're probably close enough that you can keep them from doing anything rash and dumb.

Point to Loomer. Composites have gotten a lot stronger since the X-29, as has their lifespan, but vectoring can point on as fast or faster than aerodynamics.

The future for tactical combat seems to reside in the combination of stealth, advanced passive detection, and missile technology. Thrust vectoring is cool as shit, but I'm starting to hold the opinion that if you're at dogfight range, you've lost control of the fight. Low observable tech and extended-range missiles seem to be the future for tactical aircraft, with LO at first place on the list of requirements.

Although, if both sides are relying on stealthy fighters that use advanced passive systems to spot the enemy for long range missile strikes... I could imagine the whole thing degenerating into a cluster-fuck, because if both sides do a good job neither side will be able to find each other except at point blank range.

In which case yes, you've lost control of the fight, so has your opponent, and the victory goes to... either the best dogfighter, or more likely the one who delivers the best-placed bombing sorties.

Just guessing, of course.

Those, and Soviet AWACs and high-mach MiG-31s.

Minor note: the singular of AWACS is AWACS; the last word in the acronym is "system."

[K. A. Pital]

In which case yes, you've lost control of the fight, so has your opponent, and the victory goes to... either the best dogfighter

And this is exactly where maneuverability comes into play. Ditching 3D TW from 5 gen requirements was a bad idea, allegedly fuelled by thу notion that the F-22 would only face 4th generation machines and kill them in BVR combat.

In case of hide-and-seek between stealthy machines, the game is far more brutal and dogfights far more likely to occur (like eye-weak men with homing bullet guns, waiting for who switches lights on first, and closing to melee when they are near).

[Sea Skimmer]

And this is exactly where maneuverability comes into play. Ditching 3D TW from 5 gen requirements was a bad idea, allegedly fuelled by thу notion that the F-22 would only face 4th generation machines and kill them in BVR combat.

Its far more related to the fact that 3-D thrust vectoring is just not that much advantage over 2-D when you factor in the increased weight of the system, which inherently detracts from maneuverability. It also detracts from stealth. Its not like this technology is new, planes have been flying with it 20 years now. Meanwhile the Su-37 prototypes which had 3-D thrust vectoring got converted back into Su-35s which have only 2-D last I checked, which doesn’t say much for the value of the system. For a whole new jet yeah sure, why not have it, but it’s hardly a big deal especially since the PAK-FA is blatantly not going to be all that stealthy.

[K. A. Pital]

Meanwhile the Su-37 prototypes which had 3-D thrust vectoring got converted back into Su-35s which have only 2-D last I checked

The Su-35BM (which is the current production version) is not a return to the Su-35 of 1988 (confusing names in Russian weaponry is common today), but more like an expansion over the Su-37 programme. They have 3-D thrust vectoring - last I checked, because they have the same engine as the PAK FA prototype, and that engine has a 3-D thrust vectoring nozzle... *shrugs* I might be confused, of course.

EDIT: Skip that, apparently PAK FA already used a new engine, but that still doesn't change the fact that Su-35BM engine has 3D thrust vectoring.

[Marcus Aurelius]

Those, and Soviet AWACs and high-mach MiG-31s.

Minor note: the singular of AWACS is AWACS; the last word in the acronym is "system."

If we want to get all nitpicky here, the acronym AWACS should not be used for anything else than the US designed AWACS variants, which are somehow related to the original USAF Airborne Warning and Control System. The generic acronym is AEW&C for Airborne Early Warning & Control.