Su-57 Stealth Fighter: News #6

I was working with Photoshop on the image of the assembly line with the wooden radome. I took the photo to extremes and I noticed a great cleaning of rivets (they are very few and positioned and spaced in a precise order). Also from the supply probe you can guess the quality (and diversity of RAM used). But more surprising is certainly the mounting between two sections in the upper part of the J-20, very similar to the mounting of sections of the J-20, which so worried the Americans).

I have a question:

we have always evaluated the level of -DB from the photos of the prototypes. Looking at this photo is it right to suppose that the difference between -DB of an F-35 is reduced at least by 30-50%?

We have seen very worn F-35s where the quality of the stealth would be in serious question... so the better question would be could useful RCS levels be achieved and maintained in peacetime let alone in war time...

Does the extra money spent on much higher levels of stealth actually pay off at all?

GarryB wrote:We have seen very worn F-35s where the quality of the stealth would be in serious question... so the better question would be could useful RCS levels be achieved and maintained in peacetime let alone in war time...

Does the extra money spent on much higher levels of stealth actually pay off at all?

Surely, in many cases like the F-22 and B-2 the excessive importance given to stealth in the overall design has not payed off at all.
Let's see now with F-35 in which more than the same stealth, other elements has contributed more into made it another off-balanced plane (in three versions).

tanino wrote:I have a question:

we have always evaluated the level of -DB from the photos of the prototypes. Looking at this photo is it right to suppose that the difference between -DB of an F-35 is reduced at least by 30-50%?

I don't understand your question tanino, do you refer to "dB" as in RCS reduction of the Su-57 compared to some other plane?

tanino wrote:But more surprising is certainly the mounting between two sections in the upper part of the J-20, very similar to the mounting of sections of the J-20, which so worried the Americans).

Did you mean "between two sections in the upper part of the Su-57, very similar to the mounting of sections of the J-20,"?

LMFS:

I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

on the second production vehicle (I see the photos), you can clearly see that the rivets and the lining have a more signature reduction oriented arrangement, even with the use of RAM.

In your opinion experts the overall reduction (compared to the prototypes) will be very strong? Let's say not obviously 0.0001 sqm but certainly better than 0.2 sqm...

tanino wrote:LMFS:

I'm sorry, I misunderstood.

on the second production vehicle (I see the photos), you can clearly see that the rivets and the lining have a more signature reduction oriented arrangement, even with the use of RAM.

In your opinion experts the overall reduction (compared to the prototypes) will be very strong? Let's say not obviously 0.0001 sqm but certainly better than 0.2 sqm...

Ok now I understand. Well, first of all I am not an expert, but since you are not going to get any real expert giving a real value to you about such an issue, I may well make a couple of comments:

- We don't know what the RCS of the Su-57 is at what frequencies and in what illumination aspect. Some guys have done public simulations are reached -30 dBsm in X band and level frontal aspect IIRC. I cannot comment on that, more than noting the obvious shaping principles applied to the Su-57 that are also known from other supposed VLO designs.
- The rivet issue has been blown out of proportion, other VLO designs as the F-22 show rivets on their fuselage, almost too many to count. Also it needs to be taken in consideration that the first Su-57 had no RAM applied on them
- Su-57 as seen in the last visit of the MoD to KnAAPO seems to have its fuselage made of big composite panels, actually the amount of seams seems extremely small so if you ask me it seems beyond the level of US fighters in that regard. It may include the RAM inside those panels instead of having it applied as a coating. That may allow a deeper RAM layer for better behaviour against lower frequency radars and also improve its environmental resistance, but we don't have further details or at least they are not known to me.
- RCS calculation is not possible without knowing the internals of the plane, the depth and nature of the RAM applied and other measures like RAS or treatment of hot spots. We can perceive shaping issues but that's all, no real RCS values accounting for RAM and its different frequency behaviour can be expected of "eyeballing" the design.
-I would be careful trying to classify stealth designs by their marketing oriented peak RCS values... that is not necessarily relevant from a tactical point of view. For instance, Russians have been saying for a while that they do see US stealth planes and that recently the Rezonans-NE picked them up at big distances during the hostilities with Iran.

Sorry that I cannot say nothing more concrete...

Isos wrote:https://findpatent.ru/img_show/12839574.html



Here is the full patent. It's what I described rather than what is on your picture (from what I understand...).

Fanart :

No ground based radar system will have the line of sight shown in those photoshopped images. They are a full 15 degrees looking down above the plane section of the aircraft.
Even if the Su-57 were to be approaching the radar parallel to the trajectory of approach, the radar would still not be able to see inside the air ducts thanks to the "scoops"
at the bottom of the intake. The scoops also act to dissipate any radar signal that gets inside the air ducts by scattering off the top of the intake through reflection of the
EM wave inside the air ducts back into the air duct. Coating the interior of the air duct with RAM would be very effective at damping out the reflecting EM wave.

What are the reasons that the Su-57 with the current engines can't supercruise when it has a higher T/W ratio than the F-22, due to it being lighter due to no S-Ducts? It also is more streamlined, and the F-22's thrust is gimped by the flat heat dispersion nozzles

It can super cruise. Su-35 can and uses same engines.

But lmfs I think said something counts as supercruise only if its 1.8m+ like the F-22. Su-57 allegedly will only be able to achieve 1.6m with izd.30, and currently its below that.

limb wrote:But lmfs I think said something counts as supercruise only if its 1.8m+ like the F-22. Su-57 allegedly will only be able to achieve 1.6m with izd.30, and currently its below that.

Really? Why? Who defines what supercruise means?? Do you seriously accept that M1.7 shouldn't be considered supercruise??? Can the F-22 really do M1.8+? Any proof, or do you simply take it on faith?

BTW I couldn't care less what someone says the Su-57 with izd30 can "allegedly" achieve. it's classified and these bozos simply don't know.

limb wrote:But lmfs I think said something counts as supercruise only if its 1.8m+ like the F-22. Su-57 allegedly will only be able to achieve 1.6m with izd.30, and currently its below that.

When the 5th gen fighters (that is F-22) appeared, the term supercruise was coined, it referred to being capable of flying faster than 1.5 M on military thrust. There are and have been other planes capable of flying faster than 1 M on mil thrust, but what would be the use of doing that, unless the increase in speed is substantial? Using much more fuel and even AB to go through the transonic region to fly say 1.1 or 1.2 M instead of 0.9 does not make much sense. Both in US and USSR keeping high energy state on mil power was considered very advantageous when 5th gen air superiority fighters were conceived and therefore corresponding engines and air vehicles were developed to allow for cruising speeds way higher than 1 M, not for a marginal "supercruise" capability as it has come to be used today as a catch word in order to make the own plane look like 5th gen. So in strict sense supercruising is > 1.5 M, in broad sense it is > 1 M but I consider this an improper use of the term.

IMO, for the Russians it would make sense for the Su-57 to fly as fast or faster than the F-22. Why?

> Because the importance of high and fast cruise flight is clear reading Russian experts, designers and military commanders for many years, as it is when analysing kinematics of launching and outrunning missiles.
> The intakes of the Su-57 are notably bigger than those of the F-22, and they are adjustable, needed for flight speeds between 2 < M < 3. Pressure recovery of fixed intakes is not really good approaching 2 M. That should mean more air should be available to the engine at high altitude and speed.
> Marchukov has repeatedly said the izd. 30 will have the highest specific thrust (or thrust per airflow unit) of any comparable engine, that means more than even the F119, which is the paradigm in that regard. The Su-57 has radar blockers, which detract from the intake performance, while F-22 has fixed intakes with S-duct and flat nozzle... my understanding is that F119 should lose more power due to all those factors than the izd. 30. Considering airframe / engine sizes and intake size and performance and therefore expected airflows it is logical to expect that izd. 30 will produce more thrust than F119 in mil settings on installed conditions. Considering similar size / cross sectional area of the planes and very apparent area ruling of the Sukhoi / explicit patent mentions to optimized supersonic performance, this should result in comparable cruising speeds, I actually think it will be faster than the F-22 but I cannot prove it.

Those figures about cruising speed 1.6 M with izd. 30 make no sense to me (why would it be slower than the F-22 if it has substantially more thrust?) and about the speed with current engine, I have seen no reliable source giving a figure.

What are the reasons that the Su-57 with the current engines can't supercruise when it has a higher T/W ratio than the F-22, due to it being lighter due to no S-Ducts?

Supercruising means that what counts is not maximum thrust but thrust in dry settings at the operational conditions. We cannot exactly know the thrust reduction of US and Russian engines while cruising in altitude compared to spec values which are given in uninstalled conditions, but of course an engine like the F119 which is essentially a turbojet (bypass ratio is only 0.3:1) with very high dry thrust (ca. 11.7 tf from what we know) is head and shoulders above any AL-31F derived engine with way higher BPR (0.57:1 IIRC) and way lower dry thrust (9-9.5 for izd. 117). On top of that, it needs to be considered that the higher the BPR, the lesser the propulsive efficiency at thigh speeds. Supercruising engines are either turbojets or turbofans of low BPR or VCEs. In fact designing VCEs was at the core of designing the 5th gen planes, both US and USSR worked very hard on that and had their engines ready many years ago, but the fall of the USSR allowed US to go with a lower risk option, the F119.

miketheterrible wrote:It can super cruise. Su-35 can and uses same engines.

They don't use the same engines, the 117S has way worse parameters compared to 117. 8.8 tf dry / 14 tf wet (14.5 tf in special mode) vs 9-9.5 tf dry / 15 tf wet. Also the weight of the 117 is way lower (>200 kg IIRC). Both Su-57 and Su-35 can marginally supercruise today, but that falls short from the intended goal and therefore Russian military decided to develop the izd. 30.

Isos wrote:I wonder what are the drawbacks of supercruising and if it's worth it.

Flying high and fast is equivalent to having high ground on a land battle, it allows you to hit the enemy while the enemy cannot hit back at you. It is the kind of unfair advantage everyone wants to count on when battling...

Isos wrote:I wonder what are the drawbacks of supercruising and if it's worth it.

If it destroys the engine 2 or 3 times faster than normal cruise speed it's useless.  Same for fuel consumption.

It for sure destroy RAM coating faster on f-22 faster than normal cruising. It's not cheap to repaint it after every flight.

Its pathetic how the world's biggest economy cant keep the RAM coating of its flagship fighters in shape. I doubt about the engine though. The Americans are the absolute leader in jet engine technology(at least by 20 years compared to every other nation, because they created the F119 in the late 90s while russia is still testing its equivalent). Im sure they have some super classified superalloy  that can withstand supercruise without shortening engine life much. Also why would engine life be shortened during supercruise compared to afterburner?

limb wrote:The Americans are the absolute leader in jet engine technology(at least by 20 years compared to every other nation, because they created the F119 in the late 90s while russia is still testing its equivalent).

The Russians were developing the equivalent of the high-end engine for the ATF at the same time than Americans were doing, that was the original AL-41F /izd. 20). It was a VCE equivalent to the YF120, which was way more advanced than YF119. So by that time they had almost closed the gap, of course then the 90's came and the gap opened again. Now US has a substantial advantage in adaptive engines, though Russia is looking into that too. What we don't know is what kind of engine izd. 30 will be, it may be way more advanced than F119. Add to the specific thrust argument I mentioned above, that of SFC equivalent to AL-31F and other comments by Marchukov stating the engine is not 5G but rather 5G+. The issue for US is that when Russia fields the second stage engine, they could leapfrog the F-22 in terms of propulsion.

Im sure they have some super classified superalloy  that can withstand supercruise without shortening engine life much. Also why would engine life be shortened during supercruise compared to afterburner?

A crucial parameter there is TIT, the F135 runs substantially hotter (almost 600ºF) than the F119.

LMFS wrote:

limb wrote:The Americans are the absolute leader in jet engine technology(at least by 20 years compared to every other nation, because they created the F119 in the late 90s while russia is still testing its equivalent).

The Russians were developing the equivalent of the high-end engine for the ATF at the same time than Americans were doing, that was the original AL-41F /izd. 20). It was a VCE equivalent to the YF120, which was way more advanced than YF119. So by that time they had almost closed the gap, of course then the 90's came and the gap opened again. Now US has a substantial advantage in adaptive engines, though Russia is looking into that too. What we don't know is what kind of engine izd. 30 will be, it may be way more advanced than F119. Add to the specific thrust argument I mentioned above, that of SFC equivalent to AL-31F and other comments by Marchukov stating the engine is not 5G but rather 5G+. The issue for US is that when Russia fields the second stage engine, they could leapfrog the F-22 in terms of propulsion.

Im sure they have some super classified superalloy  that can withstand supercruise without shortening engine life much. Also why would engine life be shortened during supercruise compared to afterburner?

A crucial parameter there is TIT, the F135 runs substantially hotter (almost 600ºF) than the F119.

The only way to make a jet engine run as hot as possible is to have extremely advanced alloys, more advanced than anything any other nation has.

Russia truly had achieved parity in engine construction in the late 80s, but the collapse of the USSR  has kept it 20 years behind, and I honestly am skeptical if it will bridge the gap without acquiring western tech like what
they did with the nene. Modern material science is too complex to be quickly mastered.
The F135 truly has no analogues and is far more advanced than even the izd.30, being able to achieve a whopping 195kN with AB and run at the highest temperatures of any engine in the world. Its the generational leap of the F119 which until recently also had no analogues.  Its however comedic how even with such a hyperadvanced engine, the F-35 has such pathetic kinematic performance. I guess the Americans became so advanced in engine construction and material science that other aspects of aircraft design regressed. even more perplexing is why the americans  havent built a fighter with 2 F135s yet.

LMFS wrote:We cannot exactly know the thrust reduction of US and Russian engines while cruising in altitude compared to spec values which are given in uninstalled conditions, but of course an engine like the F119 which is essentially a turbojet (bypass ratio is only 0.3:1) with very high dry thrust (ca. 11.7 tf from what we know) is head and shoulders above any AL-31F derived engine with way higher BPR (0.57:1 IIRC) and way lower dry thrust (9-9.5 for izd. 117).

I dont think 2.7 tons is that much of a difference though. Thankfully there are ways to maximise aircraft performance with weaker engines, and the soviets did that throughout the cold war and WW2, and the Su-57 is also made with advanced aerodynamic features to reduce drag and weight. The yak-9s and yak-3s outperformed the FW-190 in terms of speed and climb rate even though their engines were weaker by 300-400hp. I think the Su-57 can possibly outperform the F-22 in supercruise and speed because of that.

limb wrote:The only way to make a jet engine run as hot as possible is to have extremely advanced alloys, more advanced than anything any other nation has.

Rather coating and cooling technologies since the turbine is hundreds of K above melting point of the used alloys, but it is true the F135 is the hottest running engine as far as I know.

I honestly am skeptical if it will bridge the gap without acquiring western tech like what

It is of course difficult, but that there was no money for big programs does not mean the brains were no working. Moneys is crucial pro big production runs and manufacturing equipment, there are some things that can be done even under very reduced budgets. So it is not exactly like they did nothing between the fall of the USSR and 2010.

The F135 truly has no analogues and is far more advanced than even the izd.30,

We really don't know what is the technological level of the izd. 30 so we cannot say. If the engine is not a VCE, then it must have substantially better technology than the F119. Higher specific thrust + estimated 20% lower SFC at the same time talk about way higher TIT and OPR than one of the best engines worldwide, the other option is that it is a VCE and then it may have worse technological parameters than the F135 but compensate that with a superior layout.

being able to achieve a whopping 195kN with AB and run at the highest temperatures of any engine in the world.

You have to consider the F135 is a way bigger engine than the F119 or the izd. 30 and those thrust values would not be maintained if it was downscaled to the size needed for the Su-57 or the F-22. As to the TIT compared to the izd. 30, we just dont know. The izd. 20 had already reached 1900K 20 years ago, essentially on par with the F119. The F-22 fleet has eate through their engine spares faster than predicted, so it seems it was not a riskless technology for US.

I guess the Americans became so advanced in engine construction and material science that other aspects of aircraft design regressed.

It seems they thought they were untouchable and relaxed too much yes...

even more perplexing is why the americans  havent built a fighter with 2 F135s yet.

As said the engine is very big, it would demand an airframe of the size of the MiG-31. Let us see what they do for NGAD, the adaptive engines are being made first with the size of the F135.

I dont think 2.7 tons is that much of a difference though. Thankfully there are ways to maximise aircraft performance with weaker engines, and the soviets did that throughout the cold war and WW2, and the Su-57 is also made with advanced  aerodynamic features to reduce drag and weight. The yak-9s and yak-3s outperformed the FW-190 in terms of speed and climb rate even though their engines were weaker by 300-400hp. I think the Su-57 can possibly outperform the F-22 in supercruise and speed because of that.

I doubt it, it is very difficult to improve by much the Cd of a fighter designed to supercruise like the F-22. The thrust difference we talk about is huge, a 30%... of course it should make a big difference in cruising speed.

thegopnik wrote:Besides DIRCM, jamming and pulling kulbits if a missile tails you are there any other countermeasures this aircraft has like chaffs, flares or mini missile APS?

1.) Chaff and flares would be apart of the DIRCM suite, that's why it's called Direct Infrared Counter-Measures.

2.) The Morphei missile will be the mini missile active protection system that your talking about, it'll be apart of the Su-57's defense suite.

Isos wrote:Yeah but if that advantage is sutainable for few hours and then you need 2 day rest, it sucks.

Why would it? Do you have any data supporting that?

Afterburner gives you the same advantage but only when really needed and it doesn't really change the outcome of the battle.

At 3-4 times the fuel consumption it obviously needs to be handled much more sparsely and can be used as a reaction only, instead of constituting the baseline survivability of the plane. When US and Russians agree on it, you can be sure it is a real deal. Eurofighter also tried that approach too, only it did not have the engines to become a smaller F-22.

F35 is newer and used in numbers ten times higher than f-22 and doesn't have supercruising. F-22 doesn't even supercruuse all the time.

Are you seeing the F-35 substitute the F-22? Air force officials make it very clear F-35 cannot compete with the F-22 in air dominance roles, it is not that it cannot supercruise, it can barely go supersonic and two of the versions are actually prohibited from doing so, unless there is a justified need. Compare that to Strelets saying the Su-57 is conceived to make the full mission in supersonic. The advantage of the F-35 is highly dependent on stealth and therefore highly vulnerable as low frequency radars render it perfectly visible, the advantage of high end airframes is intrinsic, that is, they take the higher ground in the air battle and therefore increase their own footprint and reach of their weapons, while reducing the engagement range of the enemy's weapons on them.

As to the little supercruising the F-22 actually does, there are several reasons. First, in peace time there is normally no need to spend more fuel and given the degradation of its coatings at high speed it is better not going fast. It also has short legs due to low internal fuel and low BPR engines of high SFC. That is why I think the Su-57 has the best airframe of the whole 5G, US made it easy to surpass them by leaving the F-22 at the point of being rather an experiment / demonstrator and then they screwed the F-35 with a subpar airframe. Thumbs up to them  

Supercruising means reaching high speeds above the mach 1 without afterburner which is more complicated than staying at mach 0.8. That means the engine is more stressed and pushed to its limits.

The design point of a supercruising engine is not subsonic flight, it is not "stressed to the limits" by flying in its design flight regime.

Driving your car at 170 when its max speed is 180 is gonna destroy it faster than driving it at 120 and sometimes push at 170.

It is not at the limit, it is not even starting the AB (which you are paradoxically suggesting as a better solution than supercruising...) The engine simply has more military power at disposal.

Do you have a source I cant find the morphei missile APS anywhere? We have too many Su-57 threads and when I try to search for it there are like a bunch of users talking about it and I never heard of a morphei missile on a su-57

There was talk about the 9M100 being a self defence missile, we saw also that "half R-77" that could be used that way. I guess more will come, let us not forge that Russians are being extremely secretive with the planes bays and new missiles, they clearly understand very useful tactical information can be taken from released data.

e really don't know what is the technological level of the izd. 30 so we cannot say. If the engine is not a VCE, then it must have substantially better technology than the F119. Higher specific thrust + estimated 20% lower SFC at the same time talk about way higher TIT and OPR than one of the best engines worldwide, the other option is that it is a VCE and then it may have worse technological parameters than the F135 but compensate that with a superior layout. wrote:

o the Russian level of aircraft engines is at the US level. Perhaps a bit worse or have already surpassed the US if Izd 30 is very advanced. Russia, despite the collapse of the USSR, caught up with the US in this technology. There is no gap in these technologies as limb writes.

It is worth adding that Russia has made a revolution in materials science, including materials resistant to high temperatures for the needs of hypersonic missiles, etc.

The Su-57 is currently the most advanced 5th generation aircraft. It will be interesting how it receives ROFAR radars.

But lmfs I think said something counts as supercruise only if its 1.8m+ like the F-22. Su-57 allegedly will only be able to achieve 1.6m with izd.30, and currently its below that.

That is called moving the goalposts... when you are selling brand X toothpaste and you say yours makes your teeth 5 times whiter than other brands and then find out that brand Y toothpaste actually makes your teeth rather white too, you have to modify your claim to still be the best... better than any other brand on the market perhaps even though their product is a quarter the price of yours and doesn't use bleach like yours does and makes the average persons teeth almost as white as yours without damaging their stomach linings...

I wonder what are the drawbacks of supercruising and if it's worth it.

The drawback is probably requiring new generation engines which are not cheap to develop or likely to buy.

Being able to effectively move much faster than other aircraft without halving your flight range and flight time is a very beneficial thing.

If it destroys the engine 2 or 3 times faster than normal cruise speed it's useless. Same for fuel consumption.

The primary advantage of supercruise is being able to fly at speeds you could only otherwise fly at by using AB and therefore essentially burning two to three times more fuel to achieve.

In full AB you are burning a lot more fuel and only going moderately faster, so it should not increase wear and tear on the engine... just burn less fuel.

It for sure destroy RAM coating faster on f-22 faster than normal cruising. It's not cheap to repaint it after every flight.

And on the F-35 too.

There are and have been other planes capable of flying faster than 1 M on mil thrust, but what would be the use of doing that, unless the increase in speed is substantial?

Being able to cover more airspace than other aircraft without needing to use AB and greatly shorten your flight radius is a good thing.

For a bomber it is amazing because the only aircraft that can catch you need to use AB which automatically halves their flight radius which means the gaps between airfields gets much bigger...

If new engines for the Tu-160M2 had 35 ton thrust in full AB and a dry thrust of 22-24 tons thrust the Tu-160M2 should be able to supercruise... which would effectively mean F-35s would be unable to intercept them most of the time...

> The intakes of the Su-57 are notably bigger than those of the F-22, and they are adjustable, needed for flight speeds between 2 < M < 3. Pressure recovery of fixed intakes is not really good approaching 2 M. That should mean more air should be available to the engine at high altitude and speed.

At high speed air intakes are closed and narrowed because the air coming in is supersonic and would choke a turbofan or turbojet engine... The only time it would need big wide open intakes is for takeoff for volume of air at low speeds... the intake suction relief doors on the Tu-22M3 and Tu-160 are for the same purpose... to increase airflow to the engines when the aircraft is not moving fast acting like a big air scoop.

Flying high and fast is equivalent to having high ground on a land battle, it allows you to hit the enemy while the enemy cannot hit back at you. It is the kind of unfair advantage everyone wants to count on when battling...

It gives your missiles more range, but you can't hide from anything... S-400s and S-500s will be looking for F-22s on top of the hill...

Im sure they have some super classified superalloy that can withstand supercruise without shortening engine life much.

Funny you mention that because the Russians revealed a new material that has pretty impressive heat resistance performance...

The issue for US is that when Russia fields the second stage engine, they could leapfrog the F-22 in terms of propulsion.

You mean they might have developed a hypersonic scramjet engine... man that would just blow the Russians away... I hope they can steal the technology and make something useful with it....

Also why would engine life be shortened during supercruise compared to afterburner?

The tail structure life of the F-35 is dramatically reduced and its stealth is compromised if the AB is run for 90 seconds or more...

Russia truly had achieved parity in engine construction in the late 80s, but the collapse of the USSR has kept it 20 years behind, and I honestly am skeptical if it will bridge the gap without acquiring western tech like what
they did with the nene. Modern material science is too complex to be quickly mastered.

They have mastered modern material science... they just need the compositions... if the Russians were bloody idiots saved from stupidity by the Nene and Derwent engines the British sold them then why did they improve them so quickly... why were they flying faster better aircraft than the British so quickly?

By the time the British delivered the engines the Soviets already knew the composition of the metals being used... the men they sent to the factory had special shoes and they stood in the metal shavings at the machines where the engines were built so they knew the metal alloys before they were shipped.

The F135 truly has no analogues and is far more advanced than even the izd.30, being able to achieve a whopping 195kN with AB and run at the highest temperatures of any engine in the world.

NK-32 operates at 245 kN... Even the engine planned for the Yak-141 had version in the 20 ton thrust class...

I guess the Americans became so advanced in engine construction and material science that other aspects of aircraft design regressed. even more perplexing is why the americans havent built a fighter with 2 F135s yet.

Better question is why the B-1B has four such shit engines... they could have put two F-135s and made their own Backfire...

Thankfully there are ways to maximise aircraft performance with weaker engines, and the soviets did that throughout the cold war and WW2,

Most of the WWII fighters had fairly weak engines... so they made them smaller and lighter and put big guns in them.

Besides DIRCM, jamming and pulling kulbits if a missile tails you are there any other countermeasures this aircraft has like chaffs, flares or mini missile APS?

We hear titbits about a short range self defence missile to be used across the services... ie as a CIWS missile for the navy in their Redut launchers... four per (9M96) missile tube. It is used on the S-350 ground based TEL as a short range self defence missile for the AF and presumably for the Army too, but it is reported to be used as a self defence missile for both fighters and bombers and helicopters. It is akin to the R-60 which was a small light self defence weapon rather than a dogfight weapon like an R-3, R-13, or R-73.

The missile is described as an IIR guided missile with lock on after launch capacity so it can be launched vertically from Redut or S-350 and then fly by intertial guidance towards where its target is supposed to be and get a lock on target in flight. For aircraft it means it can be carried in an internal weapon bay and fired in the direction of a target without needing a lock before being launched.

Afterburner gives you the same advantage but only when really needed and it doesn't really change the outcome of the battle.

If your aircraft can supercruise even if it has to use AB to get supersonic then you can continue to fly around at supersonic speeds for much longer without needing to use AB.

Planes that can't supercruise need AB for a long time to accelerate to supersonic speeds and need to continue burning fuel rapidly to maintain that speed.

For lower drag aircraft being able to maintain supersonic flight without AB means moving faster but without burning fuel at a high rate.

IMO it's like having a car of 500hp in a city full of red lights. At the end the small car with 80hp does the same job at the same speed but the 500hp car cost 10 times more...

Not really... in combat there are no speed limits so get rid of the city and the traffic lights. Think of it as a giant flat salt plain... an the planes we are talking about they all have the same top speed but have different ways of achieving that top speed... the better analogy is that a normal fighter has a liquid fuelled rocket attached to the car so for very short periods it can go very very fast, but the liquid fuelled rocket takes its liquid fuel from the fuel tank so when you use it you dramatically reduce the driving range of the car so you only use it when you need a burst of speed. If you use it all the time it takes you 20 minutes to get to full speed and by the time you get to that speed you are burning fuel so fast you can only drive for another 40 minutes and then you run out of fuel. If you don't use the AB and just use engine power you can drive for 5-6 hours, but move much slower so you really end up going 300km with the rocket burning... you cover it in 40 minutes driving time. With no rocket boost you can drive 600km.

So essentially with the rocket motor going you can drive at 300km/h, but only for one hour, but without the rocket booster you can drive twice as far but it takes longer to do... say with a normal engine you can drive at 100km/h but you can drive for 6 hours.

The advantage of supercuise is that you can go faster than other normal cars but you are not burning fuel at the rate that rockets burn fuel... so it is like a turbo supercharger that increases the power of your engine so you don't need to use the rocket... you might get 200km/h out of your standard engine without using the rocket. The increased power means you do burn more fuel... you don't get AB speed with dry power fuel efficiency because you are essentially adding the extra power you normally get from AB but you are getting that extra power in dry thrust instead of by an after burner which is just pissing fuel into the exhaust to get extra thrust.

The difference is that in one hour you can cover 200km and because you are using your fuel more efficiently than with AB then you can drive 500-550km still...

The practical difference is that the only other cars that can keep up with you are using their rockets so their driving range is much shorter than yours... it takes 20 minutes for them to accelerate from normal speed to supersonic speed so you get plenty of warning they are coming and if you decide not to fight you can turn and leave and they wont have the range to catch you... for a bomber I suspect you can see the advantages too...

Supercruising means reaching high speeds above the mach 1 without afterburner which is more complicated than staying at mach 0.8. That means the engine is more stressed and pushed to its limits.

Engines at mach 1-1.6 that are designed to go at Mach 2.4+ will not be stressed.

Driving your car at 170 when its max speed is 180 is gonna destroy it faster than driving it at 120 and sometimes push at 170.

These engines are designed to operate at these speeds.

1.) Chaff and flares would be apart of the DIRCM suite, that's why it's called Direct Infrared Counter-Measures.

D is Directed... ie an infrared counter measure that is directed... literally like a laser beam in fact.

It needs to detect and orient towards incoming optically guided weapons so you would link flares and chaff to it I suppose.

Do you have a source I cant find the morphei missile APS anywhere? We have too many Su-57 threads and when I try to search for it there are like a bunch of users talking about it and I never heard of a morphei missile on a su-57

Morfei is the light 9M100 missile in the S-350 system and is also part of the Redut Naval SAM system too.

o the Russian level of aircraft engines is at the US level.

There are a lot of gaps in the range of engines the Russians make and quite a few foreign engines are currently used from the US and France to fill those gaps.

They have invested in new technology and new generations of engines to help solve the problems and over the next couple of years new engines will get into service including families of engines that can be used for a range of different weight classes of aircraft and vehicles.

People talk about this or that country being ahead, but it is a broad field if technologies and capabilities... the Russians are on the verge of introducing a whole new range of new engines so they are stepping up. I don't know that they are getting ahead of anyone completely but in some areas they are very competitive...