Sukhoi LTS "Checkmate" #2

GarryB wrote:Not enough to matter much at subsonic speeds.

Drag index does not matter in subsonic speeds? Yes it does, quite a lot in fact. Try taking your head out of a cockpit at 900 kph and you will notice  

Why does the F-35 cost the British 90K pounds an hour to operate?

Because the JSF was setup up as a MIC welfare program.

It might reduce top speed and acceleration a little but having 14 external weapon hard points for missiles is a serious advantage the Su-35 has over the Su-57, which makes the Su-35 useful even with Su-57s around.

That claim was already debunked, the amounts of weapons that the Su-57 can carry are totally equivalent or even superior in some configurations to the Flankers... and most of the time with reduced RCS and drag.

The Su-57 matches the Flanker only when it gives up its stealth advantage by carrying external stores.

A non issue, in a mission where you can use a non-stealthy Flanker, you can use a non-stealthy Su-57 too

Are you going to deny the existence of the model shown?

Ok, so it was that... which one of the plastic models you refer to, just to be on the same page?

Are you going to assume those three models shown were 3D printed hours before the airshow started from some hard drive of one of the ideas they had?

The fact that they presented a variety of ideas in plastic vs. Sukhoi presenting a prototype is one of the main indications that MiG's statements are not so different to the ones we have been hearing for decades, while Sukhoi is working on something real.

Yes, lets look at the facts... The LMFS was put on hold until the PAK FA was in serial production, so unless something has completely changed MiG will now be receiving funding to produce MiG-35s and also to develop the LMFS, a model of which we have actually seen.

Most critical fact is that the Checkmate is a project being funded by a foreign country with no input from the Russian military, and by their own admission no interest from the Russian military yet.

30 million is probably what their MiG-29M2s cost to buy... if they wanted super cheap they would be buying those, but they are instead funding and buying MiG-35s.

That is rather wild speculation. About the costs of the MiG, I am not talking about domestic but export prices, from what we know the recent versions of the -29 are 40-50 million on the market.

It appears the F-35 is already being replaced in the west... and the F-22 is over too... they are talking about 2030 to withdraw the F-22 from service.

When all the stealth fighters in the west are paper projects and upgrade F-15s and F-16s does Russia even need 6th gen fighters... 4th gen are cheaper and get the job done.

The epic fuckups of the US MIC are just a show of what you must not do and don't prove anything in regards of how Russia is going about 5G. Su-57 and LTS tell a completely different story

They never bothered to get the oxygen generating systems working in their F-22 and F-35s so they perhaps were thinking unmanned too?

There are clearly only a few bits holding them back from full production... once they are sorted they should be able to build them in numbers.... what part of numbers aircraft are you not getting?

The really important question is what part is VKS not getting? That Su-57 is done with state tests before MiG-35 tells you all you need to know.

Well they are trying to sell a single engined light fighter... what else are they going to say?

They are also trying to sell the MiG-35, but the arguments are not so easy to find.

This aircraft has not even flown and you are making bold claims for it....

Sukhoi can be in perfect conditions to announce those preliminary specs.

The MiG-35 makes sense because it is in production NOW,

Again, it is not yet done with state tests and many details are missing or changing still to this day.

which is preferable to the promise of something that might be flying in 5 years time...

Two years. With the difference that Sukhoi is actually delivering and MiG not. I hope they get it done, but to dismiss Sukhoi and bet on MiG is a ballsy move.

5th gen fighters are complex... it was about 10 years between the Su-57 first taxi on a runway and serial production, and the LTS will be optimised for all sorts of different missions and flight conditions that is going to need proper testing too...

Yes, that is why it makes sense to do LTS now that Su-57 is ready and the technologies proven, plus digital engineering reducing times further.

The paying customer might delay it a couple of times because they want better stealth or some other such feature... like canards for better flight performance.

Nice fairy tale. The paying customer will keep the property of the development and Sukhoi will not be even able to put their name on the plane, while VKS is totally uninterested and secretly sold on some of the plastic models from MiG. Really...

Man, I honestly can't believe that there are still people out there who actually think that MiG will ba making anything ever again with possible exception of new interceptor

MiG-41 will be their swan song and even that one will be UAC project with MiG label slapped on it because everyone is dogmatically expecting it to be called MiG (thank you Mr. Eastwood)

"mistakes make you stronger"
Everyone in this thread:https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=57934&start=255

Thanks to helo, the piece below seems very well documented and summarizes the contents of what was said at the presentation of the plane (was not in the English version of the video by UAC)

The appearance of a promising light single-engine fighter of the fifth generation LTS of the Russian promising fifth-generation light single-engine fighter under the commercial name Checkmate, developed by PJSC Sukhoi Company (part of UAC) under the LTS program (Light tactical aircraft). The appearance of the LTS aircraft developed in secrecy, the upcoming presentation of which was announced only on July 13, was a big surprise for the entire aviation community. The LTS phenomenon is undoubtedly a significant event for the Russian military aviation,since we are talking about the creation of the second (after the T-50 / Su-57) potentially serial completely new domestic combat aviation platform in four decades - since the first flight of the Tu-160. Our blog made an attempt to summarize the information about the LTS aircraft known to date and published during the presentation. Presentation of the new Sukhoi military aircraft at MAKS-2021. Video broadcast - The LTS sample presented at the presentation turned out to be not a model, but. As the deputy chief designer of the LTS Aleksey Bulatov said, it is an experimental prototype, so far in a non-flying configuration for ground tests (apparently, an analogue of the KNS - a complex full-scale stand), but planned for revision into a flight model: “This is an aircraft that will take off into the air. Of course, work is needed to prepare it for flight.In less than a year, we will end static tests of the aircraft, which will allow us to start organizing the first flight. " - The presented sample bears the side number "75". Presumably, in the Sukhoi Design Bureau, the project took place under the designation T-75. In turn, Bulatov said that the Design Bureau was proposing to assign the Su-75 index for the “internal” version of the aircraft. - The emblem of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aviation Plant (a branch of PJSC Sukhoi Company) is placed on the sample, which, apparently, indicates the place of construction of both experimental and later serial aircraft. - On the part of the KLA it was stated that the plane was "developed in a little more than a year." The word "developed", in principle, can have a variety of interpretations, but the LTS program has been known at least since 2018.- The aircraft is officially considered to be developed by the UAC on its own initiative without the assignment of the Russian Ministry of Defense and at the KLA's own funds. It can be assumed that, in fact, part of the funding came from the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia (as was the case at one time with the PAK FA program), and, apparently, the work was still coordinated with the military. It is possible that some of the funding came from a foreign source (it is possible that the UAE, in accordance with the 2017 agreement). - The first flight of the LTS prototype is scheduled for 2023, the construction of the next flight prototypes - in 2024-2025, the completion of state tests - in 2026. The first delivery to customers should take place in 5.5 years, that is, at the end of 2026. - It was reported that the LTS was designed using scientific and technical groundwork,obtained during the creation of the Su-57 aircraft under the PAK FA program, and with the widespread use of supercomputer technologies, and that in fact it is the first Russian aircraft that was fully calculated by digital methods (analogous to the much-advertised American approach with the e-series). - As can be judged, the LTS really widely used the design elements and systems of the Su-57, making it partly a single-engine version of the latter. - From the characteristics of the LTS aircraft, it was reported at the presentation that it should have a speed of up to M = 1.8–2, a flight range of 3000 km, a ceiling of 16.5 km, a permissible overload of 8g, and a maximum payload of 7400 kg. LTS chief designer Mikhail Strelets said that LTS has “the longest flight range for 'light' aircraft and the duration of loitering when searching for a target or waiting for target designation,the highest carrying capacity ". - At the same time, the weight characteristics of the aircraft and its engine are unknown. Earlier, for a "promising single-engine fighter" it was stated that "the aircraft should have a take-off weight of no more than 18 tons ... The engine of such an indicator is the promising “Product 30” engine with an estimated thrust at the afterburner of up to 18 tons. However, now at the presentation, Bulatov said that "the engine will be in the 14.5-16 t class. This engine is made on the basis of the groundwork of the United Engine Corporation, and will be even more advanced on this aircraft." From this we can concludethat in the foreseeable future, it is planned to use some modified versions of AL-31FN engines of series 3 and 4 and / or AL-41F-1 on the LTS - and, apparently, the thrust-to-weight ratio of the aircraft will be less than one. - The engine uses a controlled thrust vector. Statements are being made about the possibility of creating a variant of the LTS either with a vertical or with a shortened take-off and landing, although it is unclear how this can be implemented (deviations of the main engine thrust and / or installation of an additional lifting engine?). - The aircraft is equipped with an integrated auxiliary power unit. - The characteristic features of the appearance of the LTS is the ventral air intake, as well as the absence of tail stabilizers. At the same time, perhaps, part of their role is played by the controlled surfaces on the sides of the engine. Keely, apparently, are mimicked from the Su-57. - avionics LTS, apparently,based on the avionics of the Su-57 aircraft, and the radar with AFAR, presumably, will be a reduced version of the N036 radar with the Su-57 in terms of the number of modules. For the LTS radar, it is declared the possibility of simultaneous tracking of 30 air targets and firing at six of them (this is about half the previously advertised indicators for H036). - The aircraft is designed with an open architecture, therefore, if the customer wishes, it is possible to install other equipment of Russian or foreign production on the LTS. - At the same time, a new optical-location station ("wide-range all-angle view system") was installed on the LTS under the fuselage, similar in its "faceted" appearance to the AAQ-40 EOTS OLS of the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter (on the latter it is retractable) ... - Another system, ideologically, apparently borrowed from the F-35,is the “Matreshka” automated logistic support system declared for LTS. Using the latest predictive analytics methods, the system will track the technical condition of the aircraft in real time throughout the entire life cycle. This will make it possible to plan preventive and repair work, significantly reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of after-sales service, ”judging by the description, it looks like an analogue of the American networked technical support systems ALIS and ODIN on the F-35. - The LTS aircraft, apparently, lacks built-in cannon armament (one more greetings from the F-35В / С). LTS Chief Designer Michal Strelec mentioned cannon armament only in the context of "suspended cannon containers" that can be installed in armament bays.The head of Rostec Chemezov also said that "the gun will be installed" in the context of the listing of the aircraft's suspended weapons with a total mass of 7400 kg. - The main outboard armament of the LTS is located in the internal compartments. There is one large ventral armament compartment (for three air-to-air missiles or two air-to-surface missiles) and two small compartments along the sides in front (each for one air-to-air missile). Thus, the LTS is capable of carrying a maximum of five air-to-air missiles in its internal compartments. In addition, apparently, there will be four underwing external suspension units. Additional fuel tanks can be installed in the internal compartments. - The RVV-SD and RVV-MD guided air-to-air missiles, the Kh-31PD air-to-surface guided missiles were announced as part of the LTS armament at the presentation,Kh-35UE, Kh-38 MLE (MTE), Kh-58USHKE, Kh-59 MK, Grom-E1 and Grom-E2, guided aerial bombs KAB-250LG-E, K08BE and K029BE, unguided rockets S- 8 and S-13, unguided aerial bombs of calibers 100, 250 and 500 kg, as well as, apparently, a suspended cannon. At the presentation, one X-38 MLE and one Grom-E1 rocket were placed in the ventral compartment of the exhibited sample, and the X-59 MK and RVV-SD and RVV-MD missiles were displayed next to the aircraft. - For the production aircraft LTS Chemezov declared a very low cost of a sample of $ 25-30 million thousand dollars). “According to Sagittarius,“ in accordance with the wishes of the customer, the new fighter can be two-seat, optionally piloted and unmanned.LTS Checkmate was conceived as a platform with modular modification potential. This is being realized by replacing the head of the fuselage and adapting systems at the manufacturing plant. " The presentation stated that "an unmanned version is being created." In turn, the head of the UAC Slyusar said that “it is planned to develop several options, including unmanned and naval versions. Ship, unmanned, double. Adaptation for these versions will be with minimal changes. " - It is stated that both the manned versions of the LTS and its unmanned modifications will be able to operate in a network-centric combat system and work as part of a group of manned and unmanned aircraft. “We are planning to carry out such tests,” said the chief designer of LTS Strelets. - Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said,that RF has an anchor customer for the new Checkmate light fighter. “We already have it, we are doing it for him,” Borisov said at the MAKS-2021 air show. He explained that we are talking about a foreign air force.

Source: https://rusnext.ru/news/1626842311243537

^ From the piece

Presentation of the new Sukhoi military aircraft at MAKS-2021. Video broadcast - The LTS sample presented at the presentation turned out to be not a model, but. As the deputy chief designer of the LTS Aleksey Bulatov said, it is an experimental prototype, so far in a non-flying configuration for ground tests (apparently, an analogue of the KNS - a complex full-scale stand), but planned for revision into a flight model: “This is an aircraft that will take off into the air.

It said "permissible overload" of 8g. Wonder what that means. Also I think the journalist made some mistakes. He said the checkmate will have a thrust to weight ratio of less than one with the upgraded al-41 engine. Now from what I read you base the thrust to weight ratio on either an empty fighter or the average takeoff weight. Not the max load like the author implied.

Drag index does not matter in subsonic speeds? Yes it does, quite a lot in fact. Try taking your head out of a cockpit at 900 kph and you will notice

I am not saying there is no drag, I am saying if I did stick my head out of the cockpit at 900km/h the plane would not stop suddenly or even lose very much speed at all.

Because the JSF was setup up as a MIC welfare program.

Welfare for the billionaires...

That claim was already debunked, the amounts of weapons that the Su-57 can carry are totally equivalent or even superior in some configurations to the Flankers... and most of the time with reduced RCS and drag.

Debunked where... we don't even know how many weapons the damn thing can carry in its main weapon bays...

We can see how many weapons an Su-35 can carry though.

A non issue, in a mission where you can use a non-stealthy Flanker, you can use a non-stealthy Su-57 too

The assumption is that the stealthy aircraft is the specialist aircraft that is more expensive to operate... using it in situations where stealth is of no great advantage means costing more to do the same job.

In the case of the F-35 it is much worse in the sense that the F-16 can carry rather more weapons much further and faster and much much cheaper.

Ok, so it was that... which one of the plastic models you refer to, just to be on the same page?

Obviously the single engine one. Though the fact that they talk about single and twin options suggests the twin carrier based aircraft probably has a land based equivalent too which perhaps with extra weight and capacity could be more useful to countries not needing Su-57s.

The fact that they presented a variety of ideas in plastic

Don't talk shit... these are not random shots in the dark... these are clearly oriented towards specific active Russian Air Force programmes... which gives them more weight than projects being developed for foreign customers.

Sukhoi presenting a prototype is one of the main indications that MiG's statements are not so different to the ones we have been hearing for decades, while Sukhoi is working on something real.

Sukhoi is trying to get export customers for a recycled aircraft design that allows them to get a better return on the funds they already invested in the Su-57 programme.... and good on them.

That is rather wild speculation. About the costs of the MiG, I am not talking about domestic but export prices, from what we know the recent versions of the -29 are 40-50 million on the market.

That sounds about right... the MiG-35 is 50 million for export and the MiG-29M would probably be 40 million for export... with a 15-20% markup for export to pay for everything... 15% of 50 million is 7.5 million, and 20% is 10 million, making domestic prices 42.5 million to 40 million per aircraft, and 15% of 40 million is 6 million and 20% of 40 million is 8 million... so 34 to 32 million for a MiG-29M2... am I not being reasonable?

The epic fuckups of the US MIC are just a show of what you must not do and don't prove anything in regards of how Russia is going about 5G. Su-57 and LTS tell a completely different story

Or does it suggest that privatisation and money end in fuckups and bullshit, while state owned and sensible precaution and self defence focus leads to good solid logic and sensible decisions for the long and short terms.

The really important question is what part is VKS not getting? That Su-57 is done with state tests before MiG-35 tells you all you need to know.

Different positions, situations, design goals... who says you even need a stealthy light fighter if you can get a decent light fighter that is cheap to operate with no obvious problems?

The An-2 has been doing what it has been doing since the end of WWII, and if they were built today they could continue doing the same job for quite some time to come really.

Sukhoi can be in perfect conditions to announce those preliminary specs.

Boeing was too with their F-35...

How many of the original specs have held up so far?

Again, it is not yet done with state tests and many details are missing or changing still to this day.

It is the bird in the hand...

I hope they get it done, but to dismiss Sukhoi and bet on MiG is a ballsy move.

MiG have the contract.

Yes, that is why it makes sense to do LTS now that Su-57 is ready and the technologies proven, plus digital engineering reducing times further.

The LTS is a different aircraft with different roles and jobs and operating in different conditions and missions... a cookie cutter replication paradigm sounds great on paper, but put a main rotor on it and calling it a ready to go helicopter replacement for the Mils and Kamovs is the next step...

Nice fairy tale. The paying customer will keep the property of the development and Sukhoi will not be even able to put their name on the plane, while VKS is totally uninterested and secretly sold on some of the plastic models from MiG. Really...

They will be spending big money on this because essentially they are getting to use Su-57 technology and components to make their plane... they will control this... the needs of Sukhoi or the VVS or VKS is not something they will be bothered about.

Su aircraft made in a Mig facility, you read it here first

There will be no such thing as a MiG facility, but MiG will still work with its traditional subcontractors and so will the other design bureaus.

The idea is not to create their own Boeing super company that makes everything and Northrop that makes everything else.... the purpose is to make sure all the design bureaus can continue to operate as entities even when they don't have a lot of work on... we can see Sukhoi now that the Su-57 is in production desperately fishing for more work with existing products... next we will see an Su-57 with engines on its back with shoulder mounted air intakes for ramjet/turbofan engines wanting to be the new interceptor too... the point is that this is fine... that is what they are supposed to do... that is normal... but the Russian military knows if it just buys everything from one bureau the others wont be doing much and that one bureau will be overloaded and start making mistakes and having problems of burnouts of engineers.

The 'fighter' aircraft division(s) will be tasked and development and production will be moved the the most suitable or available plant. There is probably a lot of work currently being done behind the scenes on common production lines etc.

Different factories will be suited to different sized aircraft production... they wont take a factory making Yak-130s and get them to start working on Slon transport planes... or vice versa.

But they will be able to plan their production schedules much better and refine the process to make sure no one factory is overloaded, while others are sitting idle.

"mistakes make you stronger"

All sunshine makes a desert... and not just of people.

Thanks to helo, the piece below seems very well documented and summarizes the contents of what was said at the presentation of the plane (was not in the English version of the video by UAC)

Poor bastard... going through life using a keyboard with no enter key....

Now from what I read you base the thrust to weight ratio on either an empty fighter or the average takeoff weight. Not the max load like the author implied.

Max TOW and normal TOW make more sense in that they are more practical... your empty weight performance means nothing because you are out of weapons and fuel anyway. MTOW gives worst case performance and NTOW gives what to expect but getting better as fuel weight is burned off in the mission.

I am not saying there is no drag, I am saying if I did stick my head out of the cockpit at 900km/h the plane would not stop suddenly or even lose very much speed at all.

But that's not really the point, is it? Sure, putting ordnance on outside pylons wouldn't stop the plane from flying, but it definitely contributes a lot to parasitic drag. Not to mention that unlike the F-35 flying pig and the F-16 or F-15, even with the weapon bay, the whole profile of the Su-57 seems to be smaller than the Su-35 with its 2 big intakes. What this means is that not only can the Su-57 neglect its weapon bays ordnance's drag (what Su-35 totally can't), it can also become much more maneuverable than the Su-35
at higher load. Just imagine when the Su-35 jaws, the not-very-aerodynamic side of the ordnance would meet the headwind, resulting in a lot of drag, while the Su-57, with at least some weapons in the internal bays, can at least mitigate this. This is also why the F-16 really sucks at carrying heavy ordnance even though they can boast a payload of 7.7 tons. It simply becomes much much less maneuverable (the Su-35 does have a more favorable aerodynamic layout than F-16, but I doubt it will be able to offset the increase in parasitic drag).

Anyway, more drag means more fuel would be needed to achieve the same speed, hence higher operation cost. (though I imagine the RAM coating of the Su-57 would be much more expensive anyway, so there is a trade-off. If the coating is durable, then the average cost may be lower.)

The assumption is that the stealthy aircraft is the specialist aircraft that is more expensive to operate... using it in situations where stealth is of no great advantage means costing more to do the same job.

When stealth is of no great advantage, I would use the Su-34 instead of Su-35 anyway. The thing is much more capable at ground strike, is able to dogfight (better than the Su-30 or Su-27 I heard), and has a targeting pod installed.

Anyway, I still hope Mig can get themselves out of the crap they're in rn. I love Sukhoi, but without competition from Mig (where we're heading), they might just become incompetent.

Backman wrote:^ From the piece

Normally you just need to read what the people in the knowledge says and try to understand, but some "experts" think they know better...

TMA1 wrote:It said "permissible overload" of 8g. Wonder what that means. Also I think the journalist made some mistakes. He said the checkmate will have a thrust to weight ratio of less than one with the upgraded al-41 engine. Now from what I read you base the thrust to weight ratio on either an empty fighter or the average takeoff weight. Not the max load like the author implied.

8 g is the stated overload capability of the plane. Regarding the TWR, he says that the previous statements of it being 1 refer to izd. 30 with ca. 18 tf, so with the currently named propulsion from 14.5 to 16 tf it will be correspondingly lower. I think this is the correct interpretation and the reason why I say that I still think the VKS may receive a plane with different engine and different overload tolerance.

GarryB wrote:Debunked where... we don't even know how many weapons the damn thing can carry in its main weapon bays...

We can see how many weapons an Su-35 can carry though.

8 positions for big A2G ordnance + 4 AAMs for the Su-57 is an amount that is hardly going to be used in reality.

The assumption is that the stealthy aircraft is the specialist aircraft that is more expensive to operate... using it in situations where stealth is of no great advantage means costing more to do the same job.

The assumption is false, as many other conclusions taken form the US way of doing things, like carrier doctrine for instance. New generations of planes have signature management as a must, but still LTS has a claimed price lower than current 4G.

In the case of the F-35 it is much worse in the sense that the F-16 can carry rather more weapons much further and faster and much much cheaper

Again US abominations leading the way. But it is not true that the F-16 can fly more weapons faster and further, in fact is completely wrong. That it is cheaper is totally true OTH...

Obviously the single engine one. Though the fact that they talk about single and twin options suggests the twin carrier based aircraft probably has a land based equivalent too which perhaps with extra weight and capacity could be more useful to countries not needing Su-57s.

I don't know where to start with that...

Don't talk shit... these are not random shots in the dark... these are clearly oriented towards specific active Russian Air Force programmes... which gives them more weight than projects being developed for foreign customers.

Them showing plastic toys proves VKS is not involved. Try to find similar models for any real and hence strictly secret program of the Russian military. LTS at least has already a prototype and is expected to fly in two years and be done with testing in 5-6 years, they kept it secret until now and is based on already known technology from the Su-57, so there is no fundamental breaking of high secrecy that could affect the VKS.

Sukhoi is trying to get export customers for a recycled aircraft design that allows them to get a better return on the funds they already invested in the Su-57 programme.... and good on them.

Recycled parts from another plane is not a recycled design, and is actually a major contribution from this program, if they pull it off. It is a major compliment to be able to design a light single fighter jet with full pats form a heavy twin one, much more difficult than purpose designing.

That sounds about right... the MiG-35 is 50 million for export and the MiG-29M would probably be 40 million for export... with a 15-20% markup for export to pay for everything... 15% of 50 million is 7.5 million, and 20% is 10 million, making domestic prices 42.5 million to 40 million per aircraft, and 15% of 40 million is 6 million and 20% of 40 million is 8 million... so 34 to 32 million for a MiG-29M2... am I not being reasonable?

The intention is highly commendable, but the numbers are probably a bit off. A Su-35S costs the MoD the equivalent of ca. $25 million. Export markups are generous, and most of the time we don't even know what is included in the price.

Or does it suggest that privatisation and money end in fuckups and bullshit, while state owned and sensible precaution and self defence focus leads to good solid logic and sensible decisions for the long and short terms.

That too...

Different positions, situations, design goals... who says you even need a stealthy light fighter if you can get a decent light fighter that is cheap to operate with no obvious problems?

Even the MiG-35 tries to be as stealthy as it gets, only the design is surpassed. Signature management is a must, much more for a tactical fighter that will be used as UCAV and sent to deal with air defences. Nobody is designing now planes that do not at least use planform alignment, faceting and some other basic LO design rules. That has nothing to do with overhyping stealth as US does.

Boeing was too with their F-35...

You mean LM? They weren't since they didn't have developed modern digital engineering by then. This has opened qualitatively new possibilities for the designers just recently, see their hype about the digital century series and so on. LTS is the first fighter designed that way.

MiG have the contract.

For six preseries units and maybe for the Swifts, if they finish the state tests anytime soon...

They will be spending big money on this because essentially they are getting to use Su-57 technology and components to make their plane... they will control this... the needs of Sukhoi or the VVS or VKS is not something they will be bothered about.

Hahahaha, good joke... they will get the IP of the Su-57 and MoD will lose it, because you know, Russians are nothing but beggars... give me a break

your empty weight performance means nothing because you are out of weapons and fuel anyway

It allows to assess the intrinsic merit of the airframe, while NTOW and MTOW are highly misleading.

But that's not really the point, is it? Sure, putting ordnance on outside pylons wouldn't stop the plane from flying, but it definitely contributes a lot to parasitic drag.

It does contribute to parasitic drag, but the effect at subsonic speed is nothing compared with the value of having external equipment to support your mission.

With a stealth fighter you might have 4 or 5 internal self defence missiles and two air to ground weapons... with the Su-57 lets say two wing bay mounted short range AAMs for self defence and 2-3 R-77 type missiles in the front weapon bay with maybe two GROM glide bombs in the rear bay set for extra boom with the unpowered models with extra explosive and no rocket motor (the ones based on the Kh-38 design).

Apart for your cannon you can't carry anything else if you want to use those glide bombs from 60km range from the target with a high speed high altitude release, and you have 4-5 AAMs to defend yourself after you have released your weapons so you can provide top cover for the next few planes while they are doing the same.

With the Su-35 then you have more problems because the enemy is more likely to detect you and take you on, with AWACS detecting you at max range... but that is OK because you can fill 14 weapon pylons... including the self defence R-77s and R-74s, but you can also carry long range AAMs to deal with AWACS platforms and you could carry a few anti radiation missiles to deal with ground based radar threats too and those glide bombs... you can carry 4...

But then against ISIS you could just carry two R-77s and two R-73s and a couple of cheap dumb iron bombs in the 500kg weight range and fly "low drag"... but still able to defend yourself. Wingtip R-73s and engine tunnel R-77s and a 500kg bomb on each engine naccelle and you are almost a clean aircraft really.

What this means is that not only can the Su-57 neglect its weapon bays ordnance's drag (what Su-35 totally can't), it can also become much more maneuverable than the Su-35
at higher load.

You are missing the point... the reduced drag means it will burn slightly less fuel... who cares?

There are currently more Su-35s in Russian service than Su-57s and their Su-30s and perhaps even Su-33s will be upgraded to the same standard too, than they will build Su-57s... they are not planning to have 1,500 Su-57s... but then with the potential export success of the LTS and commonality of parts never say never... a combination of the two aircraft makes sense if they can achieve their goals.... they might sell them as a package deal to defend against western imperialism... buy S-400 and complete the set...

The fact that is it more efficient does not fix the problem that if you don't carry weapons externally it is limiting, and if you do you essentially throw away any advantage you might have in terms of stealth.

Just imagine when the Su-35 jaws, the not-very-aerodynamic side of the ordnance would meet the headwind, resulting in a lot of drag, while the Su-57, with at least some weapons in the internal bays, can at least mitigate this.

I assume you mean Yaws, but most of the ordinance the Su-35 carries is itself designed to move through the air at supersonic speed so we are not talking about it carrying multiple airbrakes under its wings.

A plane that yaws and actually speeds up would be a very new thing that has never existed before...

Not sure why you think that might be a problem.

This is also why the F-16 really sucks at carrying heavy ordnance even though they can boast a payload of 7.7 tons. It simply becomes much much less maneuverable (the Su-35 does have a more favorable aerodynamic layout than F-16, but I doubt it will be able to offset the increase in parasitic drag).

Very heavy external payloads are rare for such aircraft simply because they have the Su-34 and Tu-22M3M for such missions anyway.

With an all air to air mission or air to air and SEAD it wont be anywhere near its max external weights so it is not a huge problem.

Anyway, more drag means more fuel would be needed to achieve the same speed, hence higher operation cost. (though I imagine the RAM coating of the Su-57 would be much more expensive anyway, so there is a trade-off. If the coating is durable, then the average cost may be lower.)

Fuel burn is probably the cheapest cost involved in operating these aircraft...

When stealth is of no great advantage, I would use the Su-34 instead of Su-35 anyway.

The Su-34 would be used on the strike missions... that is its job, but it is no fighter and no interceptor.

The thing is much more capable at ground strike, is able to dogfight (better than the Su-30 or Su-27 I heard), and has a targeting pod installed.

It has impressive capability at dogfighting FOR A STRIKE aircraft... it is not comparable to the Su-35 which would beat it every time.

Anyway, I still hope Mig can get themselves out of the crap they're in rn. I love Sukhoi, but without competition from Mig (where we're heading), they might just become incompetent.

This new Sukhoi jet looks very good, the more I see the more I like, but I do think it is not the super manouverable fighter LMFS(the member not the project) was suggesting you would get if you had a single engined light fighter. You can argue canard or tail surface all day long but I think anyone would agree you need one or the other to perform the sort of manouvers it would need to to be a decent light fighter. I think the control surfaces they put on the Su-57s at the front are very very clever... advantages of a canard but without the problems... it can't stall... it does not really block the pilots vision of anything except his own wing...

I would like to know more about how this new plane will manouver.... are all the eggs in the TVC basket or are we not seeing the final aircraft design.

I wish this new fighter every success on the international market... people talk about India buying this but I think its low cost to buy and operate will appeal to a much wider range of Air Forces than many expect.... I said it before and I will say it again... this might be the next MiG-21...

But I also think MiG know what they are doing and they are keeping largely quiet because they have the contract with the Russian AF for carrier and a light 5th gen fighter and the smaller drone that would operate with them.

Sukhoi have done an excellent job and it is very clever to incorporate components and design features of the Su-57 in the design because some of the richer customers who don't like to spend a lot (India) will appreciate commonality and two seat versions of both, and could buy them both in significant numbers too.

It all comes down to costs... if Sukhoi can get Checkmate prices down to Gripen prices... which appear to be about 50% more than MiG-21 prices... which is astounding... then buying them and operating them in huge numbers can be affordable and also offer better performance than a much smaller number of aircraft could ever do.

People suggest the Flanker is better than the Fulcrum because it has twice the range and twice the hard points, but in actual fact having half the number of Flankers means less coverage.... think of them as being doctors covering a rural area... they can only be in one place at a time and in this case you can just set up shop in a hospital and get the customers to come to you.... the Flanker and Fulcrum fly at about the same speed so their ability to cover patients in their area is about the same but having half the number because it can cover more area means the people in that rural area are not going to get good health care outcomes with Flankers.... the people will want more Fulcrums... more doctors, more cops, more fire fighters, more nurses... and all they actually get is more bullshit from more politicians....

I think this is the correct interpretation and the reason why I say that I still think the VKS may receive a plane with different engine and different overload tolerance.

High off boresight next gen AAMs are not going to require tail shots... making the planes less manouverable makes them lighter and cheaper... if you want something pulling 15 g then make it a drone because it is pointless for a manned aircraft to be doing that.

8 positions for big A2G ordnance + 4 AAMs for the Su-57 is an amount that is hardly going to be used in reality.

Even less so with Su-35s and Su-30s and Su-34s and Tu-22M3Ms in service...

The assumption is false, as many other conclusions taken form the US way of doing things, like carrier doctrine for instance. New generations of planes have signature management as a must, but still LTS has a claimed price lower than current 4G.

Claimed. The F-35 had a super management system that was going to make it cheap to operate and support too, and even though it has essentially been cancelled so we will never know... I think it is pretty safe to say they cancelled it because they realised it was never going to work and was only going to add to the expenses of the system.

But it is not true that the F-16 can fly more weapons faster and further, in fact is completely wrong. That it is cheaper is totally true OTH...

I wasn't meaning at the same time... the F-16 can fly at mach 2... F-35 not. To be stealthy the F-35 is very limited as to what ordinance it can actually carry, the F-16 not so much. With external fuel tanks and those ugly conformal fuel tanks its max range should be rather good too... and it does not seem to play suffocating sex games with its pilot either... another plus.

Them showing plastic toys proves VKS is not involved.

With a secret programme you can show plastic toys that don't reveal any actual details of the final aircraft... I rather suspect they were under orders to not take any wind from beneath Sukhois wings because MAKS21 was Checkmate time to see what sort of interest and customers they could get... as a VKS programme the MiG models don't need to worry about interest later on with them being in service with their host country.

LTS at least has already a prototype and is expected to fly in two years and be done with testing in 5-6 years, they kept it secret until now and is based on already known technology from the Su-57, so there is no fundamental breaking of high secrecy that could affect the VKS.

They clearly have not done the ground based structural testing yet, and there were problems with the Su-57 that needed minor redesign to increase structural strength... this is not a conventionally designed aircraft structure so extra testing is probably necessary... the secrecy means nothing to the VKS because it is not a VKS programme, though it would be interesting to see what sort of access this paying customer is getting to Su-57 technology and how much they are actually paying for it.

Recycled parts from another plane is not a recycled design, and is actually a major contribution from this program, if they pull it off. It is a major compliment to be able to design a light single fighter jet with full pats form a heavy twin one, much more difficult than purpose designing.

Much more difficult?

Have you never played with Lego? Take one engine away and look at single engined fighter designs we can form using the remaining parts from this twin engine design... more difficult... no.... clever... yes... sensible... we will see.

I suspect the primary drawback will be a lack of horizontal control surface front or back that might effect performance in specific flight situations.

Roll control mainly... in which case a twin engined fighter with TVC will kick its butt.

The intention is highly commendable, but the numbers are probably a bit off. A Su-35S costs the MoD the equivalent of ca. $25 million. Export markups are generous, and most of the time we don't even know what is included in the price.

You get the point though... and obviously some times there is a lot of other stuff that needs to be paid for including simulators and training and of course weapons and even just tools to work on the aircraft and what spares contracts... get a cheap aircraft and pay more in a support contract, or vice versa.

Or pay more and do most of the support work yourself, which gives you more control over your aircraft... ask Iraq and Afghanistan about that one..

Even the MiG-35 tries to be as stealthy as it gets, only the design is surpassed.

There is only so much you can achieve with an existing design and an existing shape... aerodynamically there is not much wrong with current and next gen Russian aircraft.

Signature management is a must, much more for a tactical fighter that will be used as UCAV and sent to deal with air defences.

HATO has no air defences that move into combat with its troops, and HATO positions behind the lines with air defence will be dealt with using Iskander and its replacement... which manouver to evade enemy air defence systems which is why the air launched Iskander is such a potent weapon.

Nobody is designing now planes that do not at least use planform alignment, faceting and some other basic LO design rules. That has nothing to do with overhyping stealth as US does.

Yes, no one has bright red uniforms too, but every modern military does not deploy all its foot soldiers in ghillie suits either.

In terms of stealth modern and new planes wear camouflage uniforms, but only very specialist aircraft wear ghillie suits.

You mean LM?

Yup.

LTS is the first fighter designed that way.

We will see then...

For six preseries units and maybe for the Swifts, if they finish the state tests anytime soon...

So you are saying they will make 6 pre series aircraft and then 9 more for the Swifts to show off their new MiG-35 fighter and then that is it... no more orders for 5 years while they wait for the LTS... doesn't sound sensible to me.

They will at least order 48 or 96 for a first batch to start replacing old MiG-29s currently in use, which could be sold off to India... they love them cheap like that... and once they have some in service they will quickly work out if they are affordable or not.

Hahahaha, good joke... they will get the IP of the Su-57 and MoD will lose it, because you know, Russians are nothing but beggars... give me a break

So they wont be spending very much at all and still be getting Russian aircraft design technology secrets... the Russians are nothing but stupid beggars?

Such contracts need government approval and any approval will have boundaries and limitations... I rather suspect the LTS is made of Su-57 parts... that makes it affordable and quicker to develop, but this will be an export model with export Su-57 parts so its performance might be quite modest... yet still better than a plane that does not work like the F-35 and available to countries who are not allowed to buy the F-35 anyway.

Would be interesting if they could get Turkey interested... Turkish drones with Russian engines and cameras in it would be interesting... that new contract for the Turkish helicopter with Ukrainian engine... pinch that from the Ukraine with more powerful more fuel efficient Russian engines... change that chin gun from a 20mm to the twin barrel 23mm chin gun turret of the current Hinds... much better weapon... full range of weapons and equipment they could buy.... they could replace the 100 F-35 order and their fleet of almost 250 F-16s and 50 F-4s all at once with a mix of 300 LTS's and 60 Su-57s... they will be cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate... and a huge kick in the balls to HATO.

It allows to assess the intrinsic merit of the airframe, while NTOW and MTOW are highly misleading.

A max performance potential you can never achieve in combat... pointless.

GarryB wrote:High off boresight next gen AAMs are not going to require tail shots... making the planes less manouverable makes them lighter and cheaper... if you want something pulling 15 g then make it a drone because it is pointless for a manned aircraft to be doing that.

On all flight regimes, overload tolerance is relevant for a fighter and +9/-3 g remains the standard for manned fighters.

Claimed. The F-35 had a super management system that was going to make it cheap to operate and support too, and even though it has essentially been cancelled so we will never know... I think it is pretty safe to say they cancelled it because they realised it was never going to work and was only going to add to the expenses of the system.

Again, US MIC, and the most egregious of their scams in fact, being used as a model for Russian MIC... it simply does not apply

I wasn't meaning at the same time... the F-16 can fly at mach 2... F-35 not. To be stealthy the F-35 is very limited as to what ordinance it can actually carry, the F-16 not so much. With external fuel tanks and those ugly conformal fuel tanks its max range should be rather good too... and it does not seem to play suffocating sex games with its pilot either... another plus.

All that above means that in real missions F-35 has a range above 2000 km when carrying a heavy strike payload, having way more turning capability, acceleration and still remaining stealth, compared to F-16. Clean 4G fighters are fantastic, loaded with EFTs and stations like in the reality turns them into turkeys, even compared to a known "turkey" like the F-35.

With a secret programme you can show plastic toys that don't reveal any actual details of the final aircraft...

Show me the early model of the PAK-DA, Su-57, PAK-DP or whatever other please  

I rather suspect they were under orders to not take any wind from beneath Sukhois wings because MAKS21 was Checkmate time to see what sort of interest and customers they could get...

Not to take wind from Sukhoi?? They run to publish and leak all kinds of crap about suppose new models exactly at the same time Sukhoi went public with the LTS, when thy had shown ZERO concepts in the last twenty years... even the old, early 2000's concepts are still secret and they go public with not one but three models at the same time  

as a VKS programme the MiG models don't need to worry about interest later on with them being in service with their host country.

I need to understand where this undefeatable faith comes from, it is really remarkable...

though it would be interesting to see what sort of access this paying customer is getting to Su-57 technology and how much they are actually paying for it.

Exactly. But I can tell you they are not hiring Sukhoi as their water boy and they are not getting IP from a MoD program like the Su-57. Most likely they get early delivery and preferential treatment / prices on a plane tailored to their needs. Of course a VERY generous Gulf country could receive more, or even become a partner in the program somehow, but without actual technology to provide it is hard to see why UAC would give away their independence for the overal LTS program. And Russian military is involved or at least consulted, you can be sure of that.

Much more difficult?

Of course, the optimization of the design has way less degrees of freedom...

I suspect the primary drawback will be a lack of horizontal control surface front or back that might effect performance in specific flight situations.

They have the TVC and the elevators, they are like 1 m long and wide, placed very far from the CoG, not some inconsequential accessory surface. Bu I admit I would like to see some forward placed surface like LEVCONS or some rudimentary foreplanes for supersonic flight and increased authority / trimming possibilities.

Roll control mainly... in which case a twin engined fighter with TVC will kick its butt.

No, roll is determined by ailerons mainly.

You get the point though... and obviously some times there is a lot of other stuff that needs to be paid for including simulators and training and of course weapons and even just tools to work on the aircraft and what spares contracts... get a cheap aircraft and pay more in a support contract, or vice versa.

The point is that we don't even get information to know the real export prices of Russian planes, so it is difficult to compare.

There is only so much you can achieve with an existing design and an existing shape... aerodynamically there is not much wrong with current and next gen Russian aircraft.

Exactly, Russia has not forgotten the rest of relevant attributes of a fighter because of stealth. That is why they can go with their new gen fighters and replace the older ones, and grow in all of the aspects where technology and design have improved (this is apparently forgotten by many) and not only RCS values.

HATO has no air defences that move into combat with its troops, and HATO positions behind the lines with air defence will be dealt with using Iskander and its replacement... which manouver to evade enemy air defence systems which is why the air launched Iskander is such a potent weapon.

If you just design with the best case scenario in mind as the gringos do, you will get the same crap as a result.

In terms of stealth modern and new planes wear camouflage uniforms, but only very specialist aircraft wear ghillie suits.

That is valid analogy IMHO, in a battlefield nobody wants to be the flashy target that dies first.

We will see then...

True, this is the first time this approach is implemented in a new, real plane (those claimed demonstrators of NGAD are still to be known), so there are signifiant risks associated. The fact that most technology comes already from Su-57 turns this into a evolutive, relatively low risk application and shows how smart Sukhoi are in their approach... top notch

So you are saying they will make 6 pre series aircraft and then 9 more for the Swifts to show off their new MiG-35 fighter and then that is it... no more orders for 5 years while they wait for the LTS... doesn't sound sensible to me.

I don't know, but ATM it is what it is. I can imagine that amount is too small even for a token buy. If they don't plan to have big numbers in the VKS long term, they could make an agreement with some country to sell them in the future when once they are fully mature and at a good price. It makes no sense to have a collage fleet with leftovers of several programs, the VKS is not a dustbin.

So they wont be spending very much at all and still be getting Russian aircraft design technology secrets... the Russians are nothing but stupid beggars?

Who says they get any secrets or IP?

Such contracts need government approval and any approval will have boundaries and limitations... I rather suspect the LTS is made of Su-57 parts... that makes it affordable and quicker to develop, but this will be an export model with export Su-57 parts so its performance might be quite modest... yet still better than a plane that does not work like the F-35 and available to countries who are not allowed to buy the F-35 anyway.

Certainly. And using a Su-57 wing is probably nothing very secret or special either, just saves money in the design and production.

they could replace the 100 F-35 order and their fleet of almost 250 F-16s and 50 F-4s all at once with a mix of 300 LTS's and 60 Su-57s... they will be cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate... and a huge kick in the balls to HATO.

It is certainly threatening for TF-X. But I guess they could try to get some involvement, get the know-how they can and keep doing their thing. I very strongly doubt Russia is going to put sensitive issues in Turkish hands.

A max performance potential you can never achieve in combat... pointless.

Nothing of that sort, in fact quite the contrary. It shows the real balance between propulsion and airframe without any distortions related to different fuel fractions in different planes.

BTW, I am going to risk an empty weight estimation for the LTS, 11 t to match the TWR of the F-35A (1.45) with the announced 16 tf engine derived from AL-41F-1... let's see how it turns out
The izd. 30 would allow a 1 t heavier plane (stiffer structure, additional features) still with a serious TWR of 1.5

Sadly I can only give one like to that post above...

No, of course they have not conceded anything, just jumped to the next smear in their list, as they have been doing of 20 years with the Su-57. That is why challenging their fallacies is a total loss of time. They are like monkeys in the circus, just good for laughs and nothing more.

And in the case of the LTS, they will quite malevolently discredit precisely what is the biggest geniality in this program, that is, the ability to smash prices and schedule by smart, unprecedented reuse of the results of the PAK-FA program, again showing that the retards ridiculing Russia for having gone first with the heavy fighter and only then with the light cheap one were as usually full of shit. If US had done this they would be claiming full technological superiority, disruptive implementation of the digital engineering paradigm with a radical reduction in costs and development times that will get their rivals trembling with fear. But it is the subhumans that did it, so it must be flawed, somehow, even if it seems freaking brilliant. It is amazing what brainwash and self serving delusion can achieve with people, nothing short of collective insanity.

@LMFS said 
Nobody is designing now planes that do not at least use planform alignment, faceting and some other basic LO design rules. That has nothing to do with overhyping stealth as US does.

Planform alignment is what stealth is. If your aircraft is planform aligned , it's stealth. And if it isn't , it can't be stealth. This is why the arguments against the su 57 from the get go, weren't logical and still aren't.

kvs wrote:
 On this forum we actually have posters invoking the use of Su-57 production infrastructure as some sort of fail.    Because everyone knows that every jet
design requires high priced, custom designed parts only.    From the "screws" to the wiring.   Even the use of the Su-57 engine is
a total fail.  Only the US style pork barrel procurement process is real technological superiority.

Do we ? Sigh. Maybe they are young. Maybe they havn't had much real experience building or making something work. The fact that the LTS is derived from the su 57 is the main reason why it has a chance of succeeding. If it was some clean sheet contraption, I would be skeptical myself.

LMFS wrote:No, of course they have not conceded anything, just jumped to the next smear in their list, as they have been doing of 20 years with the Su-57. That is why challenging their fallacies is a total loss of time. They are like monkeys in the circus, just good for laughs and nothing more.

And in the case of the LTS, they will quite malevolently discredit precisely what is the biggest geniality in this program, that is, the ability to smash prices and schedule by smart, unprecedented reuse of the results of the PAK-FA program, again showing that the retards ridiculing Russia for having gone first with the heavy fighter and only then with the light cheap one were as usually full of shit. If US had done this they would be claiming full technological superiority, disruptive implementation of the digital engineering paradigm with a radical reduction in costs and development times that will get their rivals trembling with fear. But it is the subhumans that did it, so it must be flawed, somehow, even if it seems freaking brilliant. It is amazing what brainwash and self serving delusion can achieve with people, nothing short of collective insanity.

I have had the unfortunate opportunity to witness professional Russia-bashers in action when I was looking into MiG Ye-8 in a forum which was, admittedly, not the best place for that kind of information (but hey, I was much much younger and didn't know better). These people claimed that Ye-8 was "a failed attempt to copy Eurofighter". And when more informed users told them that, to do so, the Soviets must first invent time travel - which would have been a much greater feat - they neither apologize for misinforming, nor correct themselves, and immediately moved on to the next smear list. They even repeated the Eurofighter copycat claim several pages after.

Concession is never in the head of brainwashed haters.

GreyHog wrote:

I have had the unfortunate opportunity to witness professional Russia-bashers in action when I was looking into MiG Ye-8 in a forum which was, admittedly, not the best place for that kind of information (but hey, I was much much younger and didn't know better). These people claimed that Ye-8 was "a failed attempt to copy Eurofighter". And when more informed users told them that, to do so, the Soviets must first invent time travel - which would have been a much greater feat - they neither apologize for misinforming, nor correct themselves, and immediately moved on to the next smear list. They even repeated the Eurofighter copycat claim several pages after.

Concession is never in the head of brainwashed haters.

Yes Eurofighter was kept under raps since early 1962 but only revealed to us in 1994 due to it's super secret technological advances

On all flight regimes, overload tolerance is relevant for a fighter and +9/-3 g remains the standard for manned fighters.

Not navy ones.

Flight speeds were mach 2 plus until the US realised mach 2 was rarely if ever achieved by most pilots and most planes because you have to climb to altitude and then fly level and straight for quite a considerable period of time in full AB to get to mach two in any aircraft and that will dramatically shorten the flight range and endurance of the aircraft, but in the 1950s everyone thought all planes today would be mach 5 ramjet powered rocket ships because speeds just kept getting higher and higher and then they stopped and then they slowed down a little to make the aircraft cheaper.

Again, US MIC, and the most egregious of their scams in fact, being used as a model for Russian MIC... it simply does not apply

Just pointing out that some schemes that should make a plane cheaper to buy and to use don't always achieve that.

In this case the Checkmate is being made of Su-57s parts but they wont be Russian Su-57 parts, they will be export Su-57 parts, and the real question is are they prepared to hand over Su-57 component parts to countries like Brazil that have their own aircraft manufacturing companies that might learn a lot just by taking these wings and parts apart... and for a very cheap purchase and operational price...

Remember this new plane is aimed at the JF-17 super cheap market... the Gripen market... so this has the potential for being sold to lots of countries in fairly large numbers... the point of cheaper planes is to make up for their reduced size and weight and take advantage of their lower purchase price and lower operation costs by buying lots of them...

All that above means that in real missions F-35 has a range above 2000 km when carrying a heavy strike payload, having way more turning capability, acceleration and still remaining stealth, compared to F-16. Clean 4G fighters are fantastic, loaded with EFTs and stations like in the reality turns them into turkeys, even compared to a known "turkey" like the F-35.

But against Russian IADS they are not stealthy even slightly... Russian radar installations in Russia detected US F-35s on the Iran Iraq border for goodness sake...

Show me the early model of the PAK-DA, Su-57, PAK-DP or whatever other please

How ironic and how quickly one forgets... considering the title of this thread and a certain photo of the nose of a model sitting on a desk...

The fact that they don't normally show them is certainly fair comment but considering what Sukhoi was displaying they had to show something... I doubt they were allowed to show more than desktop models.

Not to take wind from Sukhoi?? They run to publish and leak all kinds of crap about suppose new models exactly at the same time Sukhoi went public with the LTS, when thy had shown ZERO concepts in the last twenty years... even the old, early 2000's concepts are still secret and they go public with not one but three models at the same time

Dude... they had models of three platforms sitting quietly at their display.... they didn't have any full sized mockups in tiny black miniskirts like a whore rolling up and down the runway for no reason other than to show some skin.... they admitted themselves flight tests are years away so why roll it on the runway... to be fair they whipped interest up very well but for them to complain that MiG is stealing their thunder (which to be fair they are not) is amusing to say the least.

They took advantage of a local major air show to tell the general public what they were working on.

Why you have a problem with that I don't understand.

When countries buy this Sukhoi plane and it does not go into service in the VKS then they can just point out that they said at the time it was not a VKS programme.

I need to understand where this undefeatable faith comes from, it is really remarkable...

Having more than one department in UAC able to make fighter planes is more valuable that putting this specific aircraft into service.

No, roll is determined by ailerons mainly.

Tailerons for those that have them normally....

That is valid analogy IMHO, in a battlefield nobody wants to be the flashy target that dies first.

Isn't there a saying... don't look important.... the enemy might be low on ammo...

I don't know, but ATM it is what it is.

Just like until they ordered 76 odd new Su-57s they only ordered 12...

I can imagine that amount is too small even for a token buy. If they don't plan to have big numbers in the VKS long term, they could make an agreement with some country to sell them in the future when once they are fully mature and at a good price. It makes no sense to have a collage fleet with leftovers of several programs, the VKS is not a dustbin.

The MiG-35 is a good aircraft that is smaller and lighter and cheaper than Su-35s, your disrespect is pissing me off.

Archimedes said give me a Fulcrum and I can move the world... the west called it the Fulcrum... not the Russians.

Who says they get any secrets or IP?

Who says they can't take the wings and structure to bits and look at how they are made and assembled?

I very strongly doubt Russia is going to put sensitive issues in Turkish hands.

Sensitive like S-400 missile batteries?

The Su-57 and S-400 and Su-75 will be made for export systems with no sensitive parts in them.

Nothing of that sort, in fact quite the contrary. It shows the real balance between propulsion and airframe without any distortions related to different fuel fractions in different planes.

It is a state you will never meet the aircraft in... and if you do you have already beaten it because it has no fuel and no weapons and no pilot.

BTW, I am going to risk an empty weight estimation for the LTS, 11 t to match the TWR of the F-35A (1.45) with the announced 16 tf engine derived from AL-41F-1... let's see how it turns out Razz
The izd. 30 would allow a 1 t heavier plane (stiffer structure, additional features) still with a serious TWR of 1.5

That MiG model looks smaller and lighter and with its design probably has better manouver performance and will be cheaper.

No, of course they have not conceded anything, just jumped to the next smear in their list, as they have been doing of 20 years with the Su-57. That is why challenging their fallacies is a total loss of time. They are like monkeys in the circus, just good for laughs and nothing more.

Reading the crap from the Sukhoi fanboys that MiG should just give up I am starting to think it would be amusing to put Sukhoi back in its place if they did.

It seems you bias was more than just for single engined fighters because it seems only a Sukhoi single engined aircraft is allowed consideration... that is OK... it is good to know your bias.

Planform alignment is what stealth is. If your aircraft is planform aligned , it's stealth. And if it isn't , it can't be stealth. This is why the arguments against the su 57 from the get go, weren't logical and still aren't.

Stealth is a bit more than planform alignment... the Su-35 and MiG-35 have been modified to have planform alignment but are not by any measure stealthy.

Concession is never in the head of brainwashed haters.

My many years on the internet have included a lot of such disagreements, from the Soviets copying the Geebee racer... P-26, which they didn't, to the Sidewinder, which they did. There were even claims the MiG-23 was a copy of the F-4 phantom, and of course my favourite that the F-15 is a copy of a MiG-25... that goes the wrong way so that is not believed.

BTW the ISS is actually a MIR II design.

Now I will trow a tantrum...be advised in advance.

I'm fed up to the limit with this MiG bashing and above all about this absolute show of absolute show of ignorance of how thing work in Russia own MIC.

What you still didn't have understood about it that you keep on again, again and again to refer to OKB or even NAPO as they were akin to western private owned defence firm?
What we call MiG, Sukhoi, Yakovliev and so on are research and design development institutions, NOT dependant on commercial success of their own products for their immediate survival.
As soon as the development process of the products they were tasked to design is completed succesfully they have nothing to fear, even if the resulting product would be produced in just a few items: they have in any case performed their own duty.

In this regard MiG has done everything it was tasked to with complete success: Mig-29 have been taken to SMT standard and they are in service, Mig-29M and M2 have been developed and sold abroad, Mig-29K are in service in both India than Russia and Mig-31BM conversion has been an outstanding success as they are actually the single  most numerous fighter in russian service.
Mig-35 has been fully developed and it is actually been produced also if in small numbers and so also in this case the OKB named after the name Mikoyan and Gurevich has done its own task in full, now it's up to the russian MoD to decide what to do with they have given them.

In any case it will be NO MORE AN OKB BUSINESS, live with it.

GarryB wrote:In this case the Checkmate is being made of Su-57s parts but they wont be Russian Su-57 parts, they will be export Su-57 parts, and the real question is are they prepared to hand over Su-57 component parts to countries like Brazil that have their own aircraft manufacturing companies that might learn a lot just by taking these wings and parts apart... and for a very cheap purchase and operational price...

There are tons of pictures form the Su-57 production already, this is not where the secret ingredient is, for sure.

Remember this new plane is aimed at the JF-17 super cheap market... the Gripen market... so this has the potential for being sold to lots of countries in fairly large numbers... the point of cheaper planes is to make up for their reduced size and weight and take advantage of their lower purchase price and lower operation costs by buying lots of them...

Yes, but those countries indeed have expectations of getting some buck for their money, no one will spend their hard earn money in exchange for trash. they all expect to receive something which is up to date and has lots of decades of use ahead. So Russia, or any other provider for that matter, needs to put value in their offer.

But against Russian IADS they are not stealthy even slightly... Russian radar installations in Russia detected US F-35s on the Iran Iraq border for goodness sake...

It is not that simple. Even vs Russia stealth is useful, and beyond that, there is no other IADS like the Russian one, not even considering that the detection network vs such aerodynamic targets is 10 years away of getting its gaps closed.

How ironic and how quickly one forgets... considering the title of this thread and a certain photo of the nose of a model sitting on a desk...

A model that was totally misleading and published just a few months before the official presentation. And you say this is a model for export and absolutely not for VKS, mind you  

The fact that they don't normally show them is certainly fair comment but considering what Sukhoi was displaying they had to show something... I doubt they were allowed to show more than desktop models.

Yes, that is exactly what I said in the first place. I understand them doing it, but you saying they were not trying to compete with Sukhoi is clearly not accurate.

Dude... they had models of three platforms sitting quietly at their display.... they didn't have any full sized mockups in tiny black miniskirts like a whore rolling up and down the runway for no reason other than to show some skin.... they admitted themselves flight tests are years away so why roll it on the runway... to be fair they whipped interest up very well but for them to complain that MiG is stealing their thunder (which to be fair they are not) is amusing to say the least.

They took advantage of a local major air show to tell the general public what they were working on.

Why you have a problem with that I don't understand.

I understand why they do it, still it is hard to deny they were effectively trying to compete for attention and recognition with Sukhoi, or at least to save face, with the models and with the leaks on the subsequent days. It is simply not fortunate that they did not have better arguments. A naval fighter is what they are developing, means they don't even try to compete for the light fighter for the VKS, and the plane is a totally restricted niche solution.

Having more than one department in UAC able to make fighter planes is more valuable that putting this specific aircraft into service.

Nobody in Russia is going to close MiG. They just have to raise up their game a bit again, that's it.

Tailerons for those that have them normally....

The main role is played by ailerons. Their force arm is many times bigger than that of the tailerons as you name them.

Just like until they ordered 76 odd new Su-57s they only ordered 12...

Hopefully for MiG

The MiG-35 is a good aircraft that is smaller and lighter and cheaper than Su-35s, your disrespect is pissing me off.

I don't have a clue where do you take that I disrespect the plane, I think it is a perfectly fine fighter and a good option for many countries  

That does not detract from the fact that the program is too slow and too late, for whatever reason. And now after LTS has made appearance, its future at least in the export market is seriously in question.

Archimedes said give me a Fulcrum and I can move the world... the west called it the Fulcrum... not the Russians.

MiG should hire you  

Who says they can't take the wings and structure to bits and look at how they are made and assembled?

They may figure out it is made of aluminium ribs and spars, great.

Sensitive like S-400 missile batteries?

Those that they offered to sell to the US?

The Su-57 and S-400 and Su-75 will be made for export systems with no sensitive parts in them.

Which is exactly what I am saying...  

That MiG model looks smaller and lighter and with its design probably has better manouver performance and will be cheaper.

And girls will like you more with one, sure. Just with the 2 vs 1 engines it will have a 800 kg ballast to compensate for.
Will be lighter and cheaper based on what, exactly?

Reading the crap from the Sukhoi fanboys that MiG should just give up I am starting to think it would be amusing to put Sukhoi back in its place if they did.

For my part, I am certainly not bashing MiG.

What I have said about MiG trying to find a place where they don't compete directly with Sukhoi is just the logic behind the consolidation strategy of the Russian aerospace industry. Inside UAC military they are close enough in competences to Sukhoi to compete in the concept phase and win the projects if they have the best idea, but not do essentially the same products as a norm. Like Il and Tu do, to some extent, the slight overlapping of competences makes a lot of sense for the MoD, because it keeps designers on their toes and perfectly aware that them relaxing or trying to BS the military will end up in them losing the project to another bureau. But apart from that, each company should become a competence center for a certain type of plane, that is what makes economic sense. It is not trivial to design and implement that sort of balance, so we will see. By now, they apparently have the preference as designers and maintainers of the long range interceptor fleet. PAK-DP can evolve into a high tech beast and afterwards allow to do the step into hypersonic and suborbital flights. This is a huge field of research with extreme potential and prestige, they should invest strong into that instead of trying to compete with Sukhoi with poor arguments in the fields the former is mastering so impressively, actually better than anyone in the world right now. It is just bad PR for them.

It seems you bias was more than just for single engined fighters because it seems only a Sukhoi single engined aircraft is allowed consideration... that is OK... it is good to know your bias.

First of all, LMFS was supposed to be a MiG, so you are dead wrong on that...

Stealth is a bit more than planform alignment... the Su-35 and MiG-35 have been modified to have planform alignment but are not by any measure stealthy.

You are right in the first part, but the second is not true. You cannot do planform alignment on a 4G plane unless you radically change the shaping of the airframe to design a 5G one.

marcellogo wrote:Mig-35 has been fully developed

To tell the truth, it is still doing state tests. I personally don't have anything against MiG or against the plane, but for every idea there is a time when it is too early, a time when it is just right and and a time when it is too late. MiG-35 at the time of the Su-35 would have been great, and a bit earlier would have been a big success. After Su-57 is through with state tests it is not remarkable anymore, and when Sukhoi offers a 5G ultra cheap, advanced light fighter... it starts being openly questionable. I have never blamed MiG for this, but the results are not at the same level of those of Sukhoi and that means they have lost prestige and influence.

There are tons of pictures form the Su-57 production already, this is not where the secret ingredient is, for sure.

Certainly very carefully vetted to ensure nothing actually secret was revealed, and with specific areas of the factory hidden or just not visible.

Yes, but those countries indeed have expectations of getting some buck for their money, no one will spend their hard earn money in exchange for trash.

They are getting a 5th gen fighter cheaper than their current 4th gen fighters by a wide margin if we talk about countries with access to western fighters... it needs to be acceptable, it does not need to be a superstar in terms of performance.

they all expect to receive something which is up to date and has lots of decades of use ahead. So Russia, or any other provider for that matter, needs to put value in their offer.

As Mindstorm alludes I don't think this is going to be a Russian F-16 at low speeds and low altitudes on a front line... I suspect from his comments about the control surfaces either side of the engine mean this is a super cruiser that operates at altitude that delivers attacks and strikes from distances... which is rather odd because traditionally that is the role of the heavy fighter (F-22).

It will be very reliant on its TVC nozzle for manouver performance at lower speeds which will be interesting and is not to say it wont be manouverable, but its actual flight performance needs to be seen...

It is not that simple. Even vs Russia stealth is useful, and beyond that, there is no other IADS like the Russian one, not even considering that the detection network vs such aerodynamic targets is 10 years away of getting its gaps closed.

I agree for most smaller countries and local conflicts that stealth would be useful, but sales of such aircraft will only boost sales of Russian air defence products, so it is a win win for Russia really.

And a serious problem for imperial white skinned forces around the world used to stamping a foot and getting the little countries in line real quick.

Having Checkmate would not have saved Saddam or Gaddafi or Milosovich, but a lot of missions the west undertook would not have worked with this sort of system in place around the world...

A model that was totally misleading and published just a few months before the official presentation. And you say this is a model for export and absolutely not for VKS, mind you

An early prototype... what does he have on his desk to play with now?

Yes, that is exactly what I said in the first place. I understand them doing it, but you saying they were not trying to compete with Sukhoi is clearly not accurate.

Their subdued display was no attempt to compete with Sukhoi.. they could have easily knocked up some CGI videos of their designs if they wanted to, but they are likely not supposed to talk about it... like Kamov at airshows when the Ka-50 won the competition and the Mi-28A was being shown in the west to get foreign sales interest...

still it is hard to deny they were effectively trying to compete for attention and recognition with Sukhoi, or at least to save face, with the models and with the leaks on the subsequent days

The Purpose of MAKS is to display what you are doing to attract attention and get customers... are they supposed to keep it all completely secret and pretend they are doing nothing at all?

It is simply not fortunate that they did not have better arguments. A naval fighter is what they are developing, means they don't even try to compete for the light fighter for the VKS, and the plane is a totally restricted niche solution.

They showed three models... it is hilarious that your warped mind can accept they are developing a naval fighter with two engines, but ignore the single engined land based fighter they already said they were working on that they also showed. They said they were working on a twin and a single engined light 5th gen land based fighter and by showing one as a ground based and one as a ship based they have showed us both versions of the planes they plan to develop and also the drone they plan to offer to operate with both aircraft.

Nobody in Russia is going to close MiG. They just have to raise up their game a bit again, that's it.

There is nothing to raise, soon they will be producing MiG-35s for the Russian AF and in 5 years time they will probably be testing their new twin engined light 5th gen aircraft replacement with its naval carrier based brother.

The main role is played by ailerons. Their force arm is many times bigger than that of the tailerons as you name them.

On the checkmate certainly.

That does not detract from the fact that the program is too slow and too late, for whatever reason.

For the reason that Russia does not print its money like America does and cannot waste money pissing it away on lots of fighter programmes at one time.

They have the heavy aircraft in place defending the air space and now they are going to put lighter fighters into service to fill the gaps while not massively blowing out the budget like adding bigger aircraft would, and funding a 5th gen replacement for the MiG-35.

And now after LTS has made appearance, its future at least in the export market is seriously in question.

Not MiGs problem. For all we know the LTS might be a special plane with very specific capabilities and performance that really does not suit most countries, so they might only buy a few and use them as supercruising 5th gen fighters... that while affordable leave a gap of light weight high manouver bomb trucks.... hey... lets fill that gap with MiG-35s.

They may figure out it is made of aluminium ribs and spars, great.

For the Soviets the design of the Sidewinder missile was a revelation... they had never seen an Air to Air Missile with such a simple and basic and Modular design principle. The internal design of the AA-1 was a complex network of wires and components and parts with bits all over the place... in comparison the Sidewinder had separate components... seeker at the front, then guidance bits then front control surfaces and their actuators and then the warhead and then the rocket motor and then the tail fins... childishly simple and basic.

They didn't copy it because it was amazingly super advanced, they copied it because it was going to take time to go from what they were doing at the design and construction stage to get to the modular simple design of the Sidewinder... and in many ways they peaked with the R-27 which had modular seekers and rocket motors to create dozens of different missile combinations.

Those that they offered to sell to the US?

Sensitive has different meanings... in terms of sales to the US sensitive means giving away Russian defence secrets... ie examination of the S-400 will help them defeat Russian S-400s defending Russia, which is not the case, but it would be sensitive in the sense that it would teach US engineers how to build a decent SAM system that is effective and capable, sensitive in the sense that it could be used by US military forces to continue their rampage of murder and pillage around the planet...

They knew the US would be too proud to openly accept such an offer... the more so because if they spent a few billion making the US safer, they would know those billions would go to making S-400PMU2 etc etc, which would only make their position worse... and there are few enemy air forces contemplating an attack on the US anyway so it would not be useful even if it was possible.

Which is exactly what I am saying...

Not sensitive to allow a purchasing country to successfully attack Russia, but sensitive for China and Brazil and Turkey to learn the new production techniques and designs for modern aircraft production...

Commercially sensitive.

And girls will like you more with one, sure. Just with the 2 vs 1 engines it will have a 800 kg ballast to compensate for.
Will be lighter and cheaper based on what, exactly?

The MIG model had one engine if you take a second look... does your bias and hate effect your eyesight and memory so badly?

The criticism of the MiG model was that it looked like a LIFT... which is what you would expect a light 5th gen fighter that is cheap but still manouverable and useful to look like isn't it?

Some members here have described the Rafale as looking like a LIFT too.. with its awkward fixed inflight refuelling probe...

What I have said about MiG trying to find a place where they don't compete directly with Sukhoi is just the logic behind the consolidation strategy of the Russian aerospace industry.

That does not make sense and shows you are not paying attention... MiG and Sukhoi are ideas companies... their job is not to build planes but come up with ideas and designs... I am sure Sukhoi will next show a modified Su-57 with a thinner smaller wing and shoulder located engines for the PAK DP project too... that is just their job.

Your leap in conclusion that revealing a design means instant success is amusing... there were lots of fanboys who thought the JSF was a slam dunk and all Russian fighters who seemed to show advantages over the F-16 and F-15 were now doomed because there was no way in hell Russia could afford to make 5th gen fighters so they would be stuck with warmed over versions of the Flanker and Fulcrum for decades to come.

How ironic that the next gen US fighter is an F-15 and likely a modified F-16 with more wing area and probably two vertical fins...

It is just bad PR for them.

It is amusing you come up with all this as though you had inside knowledge.

Presenting a case that Checkmate is all anyone needs... without knowing all its details and purpose, or any comment from the VKS is amusing, but it does not explain a lot of things that I and others have brought up.

First of all, LMFS was supposed to be a MiG, so you are dead wrong on that...

The model they showed is a single engined fighter.

You cannot do planform alignment on a 4G plane unless you radically change the shaping of the airframe to design a 5G one.

Sweep angles and shapes change on aircraft all the time... it was the main change from the MiG-15 to the MiG-17.

To tell the truth, it is still doing state tests.

They wouldn't be testing it if it had not been fully developed... or do you think they hand over an early prototype and say hey... test this and get back to us on what needs to be developed. Microsoft testing. F-35 testing.

MiG-35 at the time of the Su-35 would have been great, and a bit earlier would have been a big success. After Su-57 is through with state tests it is not remarkable anymore,

WTF does the MiG-35 have to do with the Su-57?

Sukhoi offers a 5G ultra cheap, advanced light fighter... it starts being openly questionable.

Offers is the key word here... it hasn't even taxied on its own yet and you are claiming it makes the MiG-35 obsolete?

Obsolete like the F-35 made the F-16 obsolete?

LMFS wrote:To tell the truth, it is still doing state tests. I personally don't have anything against MiG or against the plane, but for every idea there is a time when it is too early, a time when it is just right and and a time when it is too late. MiG-35 at the time of the Su-35 would have been great, and a bit earlier would have been a big success. After Su-57 is through with state tests it is not remarkable anymore, and when Sukhoi offers a 5G ultra cheap, advanced light fighter... it starts being openly questionable. I have never blamed MiG for this, but the results are not at the same level of those of Sukhoi and that means they have lost prestige and influence.

State test means that design is freezed anyway and they are testing that serial product meet the required quality standard, an order has been placed and first planes are being produced, so in this phase normally OKB and APO work together not on plane but to optimize assembly line's efficency.
As I'm sure that you personally won't bash MiG rest assured that I also consider the Mig-35 a late season fruit, to say the least but given that also Typhoon and Rafale were considered like so (in comparison to 5gen ones) and the same Usaf has done an U-turn and is back producing F-15 almost it would end up having a lot of good company.