Sukhoi LTS "Checkmate" #2

“This is a fundamentally new engine, so it takes a long time to create. The engine has a 30% less specific gravity (than 117C - approx.), The life cycle cost is also 30% less, and it itself should be cheaper, "- said E. Marchukov.

https://vpk-news.ru/news/13148?utm_source=warfiles.ruhttps://www.ruaviation.com/news/2012/11/15/1341/?h

I don't use to make up things

Cheaper than the previous engine but not necessarily cheap.

As I have said the F-5 was cheap with two small cheap to buy and cheap to operate engines. The F-20 used a much bigger engine that was expensive to buy and more expensive to operate... so there were no takers...

To this day you still have no data about the operational costs of the plane or the price to the domestic customer, but you "know" it is by far the cheapest all around...

Correct.

According to YouTube experts Russia cannot afford this aircraft. Yet another delusional fantasy.

Its core requirement is to be affordable and the prices they are talking about it costs less than a western LIFT and its operational costs are less than Gripen costs... and it is a 5th gen fighter...

They might not buy a lot because they don't really seem interested in light fighters... that job might go to drones instead.

No new angles, but nice pics.

Only an idiot would believe they can't afford it... they are already buying planes like the Su-35 and Su-57 and MiG-35 that cost more than this plane... it would be like someone saying they can't afford a Lada Niva when they are buying Ferraris and Porches...

What I question is whether they need such an aircraft... if they want a numbers plane I think it makes more sense to have a numbers plane that is not a 5th gen fighter.

The usual suspects claim Russia does not have "rubles" for so many planes... it dos not matter that they don't even know how much Russia can and actually expends currently, such ignorant bleating passes in the West for an argument. It also does not matter that the LTS would substitute planes which are actually much more expensive to buy and operate, or that an unmanned version with even way lower operational costs makes part of the package.

As per the famous quote by Thomas Paine that has become so relevant to diagnose the West:

“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”

Hole wrote:No new angles, but nice pics.

I want to see 3 squadrons of these in Serbian AF...

littlerabbit wrote:...I want to see 3 squadrons of these in Serbian AF...  

And now people can see why Russia gave us those used MiG-29s for free

By the time they expire Su-75 will be hitting the market big time

From the end of last week.

As I said before, this is a brilliant PR plan by Russia. By launching the Checkmate as a fully formed sample, not just a model and some flash artwork, they have seriously increased its impact in the World market for this class of aircraft.

Can you imagine the effect they had on the F-35, Griffin, Rafale etc etc sales teams? Horror and disbelief. In one bound they have crashed the party with the best looking partner. How many countries are now going to tell those salesmen that they are happy to keep their old planes flying for a few more years if they can get hold of this technology at this level of price? Lots I would suggest. Plus some who have just bought from said sales teams and are now muttering 'shit' under their breaths.

In marketing speak this is 'market disruption' par excellence. You rattle the competitor's existing customers and float an impossible to compete with offer in front of prospects. I was only able to do it once in my career but boy, did it feel good!    

MOSCOW, August 9. /TASS/. Russia’s latest Checkmate fighter unveiled at the MAKS-2021 international air show is in demand on the world arms market, Head of the state tech corporation Rostec Sergey Chemezov said on Monday.

"There is no need to look for a geopolitical aspect in our new light tactical aircraft. The true reason is much simpler: the aircraft of this type are really in high demand on the world arms market," the Rostec chief executive said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

As Chemezov said, the Checkmate will become "a truly workhorse solution" for those countries that cannot purchase the US F-35 Lightning II fighter for $120 million. In Rostec’s estimate, the new Russian fighter will cost around $30 million.

The new Russian single-engine fighter is based on stealth technology and is outfitted with an inboard compartment for airborne air-to-air and air-to-surface armaments. The fighter will carry a payload of over 7 tonnes and will be capable of striking up to six targets at a time.

The Checkmate fighter will be capable of flying at Mach 1.8 (1.8 times the speed of sound) and will have an operating range of 3,000 km. The aircraft will be outfitted with a highly efficient powerplant. The new fighter is expected to take to the skies in 2023 and Rostec plans to launch the combat plane’s serial production starting in 2026.

The amusing thing is that most of the countries buying the F-35 were buying it because you have to buy it to be noticed... if you wanted good relations with the US then you bought some...

I think the luckiest country is Turkey because they have dodged that bullet... I mean lets face it... if the F-35 was any good then there would be no Tempest programme for a start.

If the US wants to keep selling F-35s to its allies it is going to have to buy a lot more itself, which it does not seem interested in doing... which means the countries that have their planes will start paying dramatically more for support and parts because that was scaled to cater for 3,500 aircraft operational world wide.

The thing is that things are very different for Russia because Russias F-22 is actually rather good and it is not expensive... it seems rather cheaper than F-16s and F-15s will be costing the US.

Does Russia want a large air fleet of fighters, or will she want to replace the small fighters with drones.

During the Cold War they had large numbers of small cheap simple single engined fighters like the Su-7s and Su-17s and Su-20s and Su-22s, and they also had enormous numbers of MiG-15s and MiG-17s and MiG-19s and MiG-21s and MiG-23s and MiG-27s that were used variously as fighters and fighter bombers and light strike aircraft... mostly serving Frontal Aviation, with bigger heavier aircraft in the PVO with Tu-128 fiddlers and MiG-25 and then MiG-31 and of course the Su-11 and Su-15/21 in the interception role as well as heavier strike and jamming versions of the Su-24.

The aircraft of that generation were single role aircraft, but the next gen was the MiG-29 and Su-27 which had potential but in their early versions were single role aircraft with a swing role being mostly simple unguided air to ground weapons, but multirole versions and upgrades have led to the position where an Su-27 was essentially a fighter and the Su-35 the multirole fighter bomber, while the MiGs have been largely neglected but MiG-29SMTs could easily have been the fully multirole replacements for MiG-23 and MiG-27 and Su-17 strike aircraft.

Do they want a return of that swing capability of swing fighter bombers.

The MiG-35 fits that role, and I suspect the new LMFS that MiG puts forward will be more of a MiG-15 than a MiG-31.

I am not sure every air force in the world wants or needs a 5th gen fighter... light or otherwise.... I rather suspect many of them were waiting for the F-35 to be rolled out in huge numbers so they could swoop in and buy up the old F-16s and other types considered out of date in the west.

Sukhois 4th gen planes are too big for consideration and for countries thinking about Su-57s then this means they can reduce their purchase of Su-57s and buy some very much related Checkmates too and get a much better balanced and standardised force... the extra flight range and performance of the big Flankers is useful but saving money with a mixed fleet like Egypt is doing with MiGs and Sukhois, and Algeria seems to be doing too and India might consider in the future... having all big heavy planes is operationally expensive... and I wonder what India will be thinking... they rejected the MiG because they already had Flankers and were intending to buy PAK FAs... it would be a bit strange for them to then buy Checkmates no matter how suitable they might be...

News about highly automated production in US hinted for NGAD that is also relevant to our discussion here:

https://www.aero-mag.com/lockheed-martin-spirit-aerosystems-12082021

NGAD and Tempest using very similar design and probably manufacturing techniques would further cement the argument that LTS is actually a precursor of the 6G, when not the first plane of that generation altogether. I know that only the West is entitled to define generations and per definition be always the first getting there, but in the worst case, a digitally designed and produced, unmanned LTS with the already announced three stream engine developed on the basis of the izd. 30 (on an eventual second stage design of the LTS) could hardly be classified as a 5G plane.

BTW, thinking about that eventual future unmanned platform, the huge wing area of the plane would make a lot of sense from that perspective, since unmanned aircraft with higher manoeuvrability requirements will require also more lift and the oversized wings of the LTS would help a lot there. Structure would need reinforcement vs. current overload limit, that is clear.

Why do western commentators keep saying its got huge wings?

They look pretty normal proportion to me, arguably a bit small given the absence of horizontal tailplanes or canards.

SeigSoloyvov wrote:The plan has only just started its development phase and even a "cheap stealth fighter" is by no means cheap to produce or develop.

The checkmate better hopes it gets some super-rich and patient backers otherwise this plane will become vaporware, after all the Russian Gov isn't assisting with funding for the aircraft.

.

Em. No. The program is in its 4th year. And they have a rolling prototype to show for it.

Ah. So they skip the whole vaporware phase, but its going to become vaporware.   Being skeptical is fine. I am skeptical about the end price. But what you are writing looks like it was lifted out of a The Drive comment section.

hoom wrote:Why do western commentators keep saying its got huge wings?  

They look pretty normal proportion to me, arguably a bit small given the absence of horizontal tailplanes or canards.

We say they are big because they are big (almost 63 m2 according to Paralay, you can check that against the wing area of similar planes and for instance the F-15 has 56 m2), the proportion wing surface / thrust is 3.9-4.3 depending on the engine thrust taken. vs for instance 43 m2 for the F-35A for a thrust/wing area of 43 m2/19.4 tf = 2.21 or 62m2/19.4 tf = 3.19 for the F-35C. With izd. 30 the value would change to 3.48.

It is difficult to calculate the equivalent lifting surface of the fuselage, but in the LTS is not to be dismissed, because the "elevators" are part of it, so the transition between fuselage and wings works indeed as an airfoil.

LMFS wrote:

hoom wrote:Why do western commentators keep saying its got huge wings?  

They look pretty normal proportion to me, arguably a bit small given the absence of horizontal tailplanes or canards.

We say they are big because they are big (almost 63 m2 according to Paralay, you can check that against the wing area of similar planes and for instance the F-15 has 56 m2), the proportion wing surface / thrust is 3.9-4.3 depending on the engine thrust taken. vs for instance 43 m2 for the F-35A for a thrust/wing area of 43 m2/19.4 tf = 2.21 or 62m2/19.4 tf = 3.19 for the F-35C. With izd. 30 the value would change to 3.48.

It is difficult to calculate the equivalent lifting surface of the fuselage, but in the LTS is not to be dismissed, because the "elevators" are part of it, so the transition between fuselage and wings works indeed as an airfoil.

I'm not really sure why one would want to calculate the wing surface area/ thrust ratio though. The two don't seem to be related at all, except for when you need to calculate lift-induced drag and total drag.

LMFS wrote:
BTW, thinking about that eventual future unmanned platform, the huge wing area of the plane would make a lot of sense from that perspective, since unmanned aircraft with higher manoeuvrability requirements will require also more lift and the oversized wings of the LTS would help a lot there. Structure would need reinforcement vs. current overload limit, that is clear.

I think the huge wing area alone with high aspect ratio might actually make it somewhat less maneuverable. Intuitively, when the plane executes a maneuver, let's say the Pugachev cobra, the large wing area meets the incoming airflow, thus creating very high drag. And huge wing area would make the aircraft too stable in both static and dynamic senses (Think of HALE class UAVS)

The point is that the LTS has a special intake that extends to the sides, which may (I'm not really sure about this tbh) act as a weird-looking leading edge extension that can create vortex and improve the airflow at high AoA, thus making it maneuverable. Also its wings are similar to the Su-57's with low aspect ratio, so there's that.

Lennox wrote:I'm not really sure why one would want to calculate the wing surface area/ thrust ratio though. The two don't seem to be related at all, except for you need to calculate lift-induced drag and total drag.

On the one hand, we don't have clear weight parameters for the LTS, so I am using thrust instead, since TWR of fighters of similar role and characteristics are going to be similar.

On the other, you normally want to match your thrust level with your wing area in order to keep friction drag as low as possible. That is very clear in the F-35 or F-16 with their small wings.

I think the huge wing area alone with high aspect ratio might actually make it somewhat less maneuverable. Intuitively, when the plane executes a maneuver, let's say the Pugachev cobra, the large wing area meets the incoming airflow, thus creating very high drag. And huge wing area would make the aircraft too stable in both static and dynamic senses (Think of HALE class UAVS)

I am not talking about post-stall maneuvers, but about sustained turning mainly. For the same airframe, achieving a 11 g turn is going to demand much more lift than a 8 g one.

The point is that the LTS has a special intake that extends to the sides, which may (I'm not really sure about this tbh) act as a weird-looking leading edge extension that can create vortex and improve the airflow at high AoA, thus making it maneuverable. Also its wings are similar to the Su-57's with low aspect ratio, so there's that.

I don't have any doubt that is the case, the MiG izd. 33 had a LERX that looked just the same and this is also the same kind of combined DSI intake/LERX setup already found in the F-35, only placed much forward and below the nose. Actually if you look it in detail at the bump and consider the wall splitting it in the middle, the intake of the LTS is configured as two DSI intakes, placed angled below the nose of the plane.

This LERX is the same kind of lift augmentation device used in the 4G planes, so this is the baseline we have to consider when comparing wing area with other existing designs. It is still a source of drag and not so flexible and effective as far as I know as the LEVCONS present in the Su-57, so apparently a further concession to cost, weight and simplicity.

Someone attempted a simulation of that vortex on CFD:

Someone attempted a simulation of that vortex on CFD:

Hmm, in that case the tails may have a lot more pitch authority than I was assuming since they're operating in/will directly affect the vortex.

almost 63 m2 according to Paralay,... the F-15 has 56 m2... 43 m2 for the F-35A

If those numbers are correct then ok yeah they're big wings.
Whats the Su-57 area?

hoom wrote:If those numbers are correct then ok yeah they're big wings.Whats the Su-57 area?

82 sqm is the value I saw, also from Paralay

LMFS wrote:

On the one hand, we don't have clear weight parameters for the LTS, so I am using thrust instead, since TWR of fighters of similar role and characteristics are going to be similar.

On the other, you normally want to match your thrust level with your wing area in order to keep friction drag as low as possible. That is very clear in the F-35 or F-16 with their small wings.

I assume you are talking about skin friction. In that case, it has to do with the boundary layer and skin shear stress, and so, indeed, it has to do with matching thrust (or velocity) and wing area

I am not talking about post-stall maneuvers, but about sustained turning mainly. For the same airframe, achieving a 11 g turn is going to demand much more lift than a 8 g one.

The Cobra maneuver was only an example to show how the large wing area meets the airflow when a plane executes a maneuver. In reality, the ability to turn sustainably has more to do with the stress and load on the wings, not the wing area. Delta wing aircraft, for example, have large wings but turn very poorly.

I don't have any doubt that is the case, the MiG izd. 33 had a LERX that looked just the same and this is also the same kind of combined DSI intake/LERX setup already found in the F-35, only placed much forward and below the nose. Actually if you look it in detail at the bump and consider the wall splitting it in the middle, the intake of the LTS is configured as two DSI intakes, placed angled below the nose of the plane.

This LERX is the same kind of lift augmentation device used in the 4G planes, so this is the baseline we have to consider when comparing wing area with other existing designs. It is still a source of drag and not so flexible and effective as far as I know as the LEVCONS present in the Su-57, so apparently a further concession to cost, weight and simplicity.

Someone attempted a simulation of that vortex on CFD:

Even if the model in the video is only somewhat correct, then it already did confirm the special intake also acting as LERX. Note how the vortices turn the laminar flow into turbulent flow, thus preventing the flow from separating from the fuselage at high AoA (which is actually very very important to sustained turning in the argument above, more so than the wing area). Nice find!

Lennox wrote:The Cobra maneuver was only an example to show how the large wing area meets the airflow when a plane executes a maneuver. In reality, the ability to turn sustainably has more to do with the stress and load on the wings, not the wing area. Delta wing aircraft, for example, have large wings but turn very poorly.

Yes of course, the wing needs to stand the effort needed to turn. Nevertheless, most fighters are +9/-3 g rated, but some have a way better STR than others, because in order to turn, the aircraft needs first to be able to generate the force (lift) needed to change its velocity vector's direction. Hence why wing loading is directly related to STR. You can see this clearly in any EM diagram of a fighter and how their ability to turn is radically affected by altitude (air density), apart from the ultimate structural limits that need to be respected at any time.

The delta wings normally have a very low aspect ratio and they indeed create a lot of drag when turning. That is why most modern planes have bigger wing areas but with trapezoidal shape (i.e. F-15 to F-22 and Su-27 to 57)

The more I see the aircraft the more I like it.

I think it looks like it is grinning... presumably at the F-35....