A dual seater Su-57 could be used to train pilots and as a command aircraft for a drone swarm.
It could also be used for the fighter bomber role.
It has AI to support the pilot already... the computer based simplification of tasks should allow single person operation for air to air as well as air to ground...
It does not make sense for every fighter in the air to be a command aircraft... you need centralisation and coordination and the sharing of information... otherwise eight flights of four fighters each might end up taking on the same target aircraft while the rest of the targets slip through because each leader wants to take the highest priority target... for instance...
The EW systems of the plane should target enemy radar and SAMs and if the appropriate weapons are on board allow engagement without much interaction from the pilot...
You mix them. The ER and R are SARH. The P is passive homing.
Yup, that is what I meant...
With modern track while scan and narrow beams it would be very hard to use the P. But it can still be very good against air defence systems with an upgrade. Better than using the more expensive kh-31.
The illumination beams were always rather narrow so the missiles were only useful against an aircraft illuminating your aircraft or an aircraft in your flight group...
During a conflict in Iraq a US Patriot system lit up some coalition aircraft and it was taken out by a HARM carried by one of the aircraft it was marking... the HARM really only worked because it was used against a battery that was marking the aircraft carrying the missile.
I seem to remember it happened twice... one allied aircraft was shot down by a Patriot system in automatic mode and one allied aircraft protected itself by taking out Patriots radar when it was being engaged automatically by the system.
It was this conflict where they realised that over time there were inaccuracies in the Patriots radar system and over time it got worse and worse to the point where if the system was running for a few days in a row it couldn't hit anything at all...
I think that this and all other possible variants (naval one, S-70 guide, unmanned) would be stalled until the second stage engines would be in serial production.
N sense to make up a entirely new prototype at a design bureau when you would just modify a serial produced one.
A command version will be broadcasting information and commands so it sort of undoes all its stealth features... I would think an Su-30 with Su-35 radar and engines would be better suited to the command role and sit back while stealthier or less stealthy but radar silent aircraft move ahead of them...
Also, the American publication Popular Mechanics claims that Russian samples of unmanned aerial vehicles are in many ways inferior to foreign competitors. It is also noted that at the same time Moscow is only trying to catch up.
So they think Russia is behind... the only US drone to operate with the F-35 I have seen is an unmanned C-130 transport plane that is supposed to sit in the rear with long range cruise missiles and extra fuel so the F-35 can fly forward and use its superior sensors and stealth to secretly find targets for the C130 to attack with long range ground attack weapons, and the F-35 can pop back from the front line area to top up on fuel from the C-130...
These drones are probably better than 200+ million dollar drones based on the F-35 design I would think they would otherwise make... but will C-130 drones cost even more and be vulnerable to long range AAM attack like AWACS and JSTARS and other inflight refuelling aircraft.
Andrey Yelchaninov: if our partners need a two-seater Su-57, we will make it:
Meaning if export customers want to pay for a two seat model they are happy to make them...