Su-57 Stealth Fighter: News #8

Plasma is only opaque at certain frequencies. There is a "window" of frequencies where radio waves can pass through.

I think the main issue is that using plasma for stealth makes the airplane less visible in the radio spectrum, but lights up the aircraft in the IR spectrum.

lyle6 wrote:Russia has solved the opaque plasma problem actually.
Would be impossible for Kinzhal, Zircon to hunt ships otherwise.

Not only Kinzhal and Zirkon. For over 50 years, this problem has been solved on the Sprint ABM missile, as well as on the Russian 53T6 missiles. These old missiles were also surrounded by plasma at their velocities.

How many Su-57 should be delivered this year ?
10 ?
I agree with AMCXXL and what he wrote about the Su-34, that is, we will no longer get accurate numbers about the number of aircraft delivered to the Russian Air Force. There were three Su-34 deliveries this year.

They lost quite a lot of them. Maybe 10-20% of the whole fleet in Ukraine. They have to increase the production.

Su-57 will follow normal planned deliveries.

More than 10% but certainly less than 20%.
The biggest reason for the loss is the idiotic use of airplanes in carpet bombing.
As for the Su-57, I'm not sure that everything will go as planned.
Before the contract for 76 Su-57 aircraft, Russia was not in conflict with Ukroshitstan, and I would not be surprised if the production of Su-57 aircraft was accelerated. And not only that, but I believe that there will be more than 76 by the end of 2027.
That's just my opinion...

I think the main issue is that using plasma for stealth makes the airplane less visible in the radio spectrum, but lights up the aircraft in the IR spectrum.

Not very logical I would think as any missile travelling at Mach 9 or Mach 10 is going to be visible in the IR spectrum whether they are using plasma stealth or not.

You can buy plasma balls for less than $20 these days and while admittedly they use exotic gasses through which rather high voltages are passed, they are not particularly hot... but even if they were the surface temperature of a missile flying at 3km per second is going to be a bit higher than room temperature.

It is not actually friction, it is more about compression of the air in the normal airflow in front of the missile.

They lost quite a lot of them. Maybe 10-20% of the whole fleet in Ukraine. They have to increase the production.

Su-57 will follow normal planned deliveries.

Yeah, of course they did, but they also have to make lots more Tu-160s to replace the 15 they lost of those... and they have to be real quick before the western media notices...

Before the contract for 76 Su-57 aircraft, Russia was not in conflict with Ukroshitstan, and I would not be surprised if the production of Su-57 aircraft was accelerated. And not only that, but I believe that there will be more than 76 by the end of 2027.

With regard to the Su-57 I rather suspect they will want rather more than 76, but they need to fully test it and Ukraine offers their best opportunity to check its sensors and weapons and its performance against a genuine enemy, but I would suggest there are other things they will be increasing production of first that will be rather more useful during the conflict... the production of the Su-57 is more long term.

pavi wrote:nothing is invisible

But serrated nozzles are FAR SUPERIOR to conventional nozzles[/quote]

They may have a bit lower RCS and smaller IR signature but one can't have 3D thrust vectoring and power loss when compared to round nozzle is in the range 10 to 15 %. These facts are discussed in this forum multiple times during last decade or so. Russians studied them and decided not go for them. Same applies to F-35 too, which is newer design than F-22. Do you get the point?

[/quote]
You seem to be confusing SERRATED nozzles for FLAT nozzles. Russia tested FLAT nozzles on the Su-27 and rightfully rejected them. 3d thrust vectoring with SERRATED nozzles is possible.

The AL-41 will most likely only be used for the first two dozen Su-57s before being replaced by the Idz.30, so there is no point in spending time, money and resources creating a variant with serrated nozzles that will be produced in minimal quantities.
LIKE

What is so extremely expensive about retrofitting AL-41s with serrated nozzles? The Chinese did it without much cost with the WS-10C. What if the izd.30 is a failure and won't be service ever or until 2040+?


BTW I read that before feb 2022 russia had no ability to produce gallium arsenide and gallium nitride domestically and had to import it from South Korea which sanctioned them after and delayed mass production of the GaAs and GaN byelka. Is this true?

What do you guys think, is this legit

Where there's smoke there's fire...
The second image has a mark of Ufa motor-building production association

Rasisuki Nebia wrote:What do you guys think, is this legit

https://twitter.com/WDequid/status/1670785413236113410/photo/1

Yes, of course it is. Comes from a UEC document from 2021 where some other very interesting data can be found, BTW. Seen at paralay

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/Ci9QyPw-brDg4Q

FYI, some cardinal parameters of izd. 30, as well as key technologies, can be seen at the pdf document, if someone has the time to do the translation of it:

Specific weight
Izd. 30 = 100
F119-PW-100 = 116
M88-3 = 115
EJ200 = 131
Izd. 117 = 119

Specific Thrust
Izd. 30 = 100
F119-PW-100 = 100
M88-3 = 98
EJ200 = 94
Izd. 117 = 94

SFC
Izd. 30 = 100
F119-PW-100 = 125
M88-3 = 110
EJ200 = 112
Izd. 117 = 110

The comparison with F135 would be most interesting but it is not available at that document. What is clear is that the izd. 30 has the same specific thrust of the F-22 and therefore is probably intended for similarly high cruising speed, while the SFC is 25% smaller...
TWR should be around 12, which would mean 18 tf for an estimated weight of 1500 kg.

Also info about 6th gen engines etc...

BTW I read that before feb 2022 russia had no ability to produce gallium arsenide and gallium nitride domestically and had to import it from South Korea which sanctioned them after and delayed mass production of the GaAs and GaN byelka. Is this true?

I would think such materials would be considered strategic and that South Korea would not be allowed by its US masters to sell such material to Russia, which doesn't have a lot of non military uses...

(So I call bullshit... that Russia can't produce such materials themselves...)

GarryB wrote:

BTW I read that before feb 2022 russia had no ability to produce gallium arsenide and gallium nitride domestically and had to import it from South Korea which sanctioned them after and delayed mass production of the GaAs and GaN byelka. Is this true?

I would think such materials would be considered strategic and that South Korea would not be allowed by its US masters to sell such material to Russia, which doesn't have a lot of non military uses...

(So I call bullshit... that Russia can't produce such materials themselves...)

Limb asks and says dumb stuff all the time.

Ausairpower even showed Russian GaAS modules, using their own material, as far back as around 2005. If anyone cares, NPP Istok makes the GaAS and GaN modules. But since this whole conflict started, I cannot access their webpage. I tried looking through their parent company Ruselectronics which mentions them as a company they own but still cannot access. I am assuming they locked it down since it is all about their sensitive equipment used for production of their radar systems and other stuff.

I do wonder though where he gets such stupid questions from?

Nice post, LMFS! Post more often you rarely seem to post anymore!

80% of low purity gallium comes from China. And they have huge production of GaA and GaN wafers.
This technology is used in 4G and 5G mobile phone towers, LEDs for lighting, and various power applications.
These should dwarf any military requirements for the material.

I do wonder though where he gets such stupid questions from?

He seems to have access to lots of western propaganda sources that I suspect he reads and thinks on the surface that they make sense... he appears to be a pessimist who believes negative things about Russia because he knows Russia isn't perfect.... which is fine... who can live their lives thinking the west is perfect when you live there and know it isn't...

There are a lot of posters who read stuff on other sites and lets face it... if it is a western propaganda site then it wont be challenged so they might think it is true.

We have had posters in the past coming here with such posts and getting criticised for asking such questions, but personally I think it is about growth.

There is one particular poster here who started out worse than Mr HD in his hard core pro west views but over the years I have noticed he has realised what he thought he knew and what he reads in the west is not so obviously true anymore.

Wont embarrass him by naming him though but I would say someone who keeps saying teh same things and asking the same questions or making the same false statements despite being corrected over and over... they are the lost causes... who want to speak but don't want to listen.

Russia retained its core industries and tech. While yes, it isn't as advanced, it's usually pretty much on par what is required for modern systems. That said, they been working on the wafers since 2005 or so and have various examples. Fact that Su-57 and Nebo SVU is testimony towards that they still retain the ability to produce it.

I watched the interview with Larry Johnson on the Duran and it was good and one thing he mentioned is how Russia kept its core industries intact while west destroyed theirs, all the while the west kept saying Russia is backwards gas station. One thing that I noticed is people here repeat such lie, that all Russia is, is a screwdriver assembly plant. That they make nothing but just assemble. What's funny, is if that was the case, Russia would have their own jets all using Chinese radar and thus all their jets would have "AESA" at same performance that comes out of China. Yet they don't. They have their own characteristics and composition.

Anyway, it's a moot debate.

Russia would have their own jets all using Chinese radar and thus all their jets would have "AESA" at same performance that comes out of China. Yet they don't. They have their own characteristics and composition. wrote:

They are currently working on ROFAR radars.

Arrow wrote:

They are currently working on ROFAR radars.

Currently yes, Russia is working on rofar and has working prototypes of ground based rofar as well as skin based radar. But there is still quite a bit of time till it becomes a real reality. I think rostec is still building the two testing facilities.

sepheronx wrote:

GarryB wrote:

BTW I read that before feb 2022 russia had no ability to produce gallium arsenide and gallium nitride domestically and had to import it from South Korea which sanctioned them after and delayed mass production of the GaAs and GaN byelka. Is this true?

I would think such materials would be considered strategic and that South Korea would not be allowed by its US masters to sell such material to Russia, which doesn't have a lot of non military uses...

(So I call bullshit... that Russia can't produce such materials themselves...)

Limb asks and says dumb stuff all the time.

Ausairpower even showed Russian GaAS modules, using their own material, as far back as around 2005.  If anyone cares, NPP Istok makes the GaAS and GaN modules.  But since this whole conflict started, I cannot access their webpage.  I tried looking through their parent company Ruselectronics which mentions them as a company they own but still cannot access.  I am assuming they locked it down since it is all about their sensitive equipment used for production of their radar systems and other stuff.

I do wonder though where he gets such stupid questions from?

Sorry, I meant that russia doesnt have domestic lithography machines to manufacture GaN wafers at all, and Lithography machines for GaAs are very limited.

This article claims that the UAC sources gallium arsenide transistors from south  korea.
https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2022/01/13/sanctions-busting-south-korea-must-stop-supplying-gallium-arsenide-to-russias-jsc-phazotron-niip/

Is there any evidence that Chinese foundries are willing to risk secondary sanctions in order to ship the transistors to russia?

https://madeinrussia.ru/en/news/11874
this article tallks about the very first GaN foundry being opened in russia in 2022.



If everything was just peachy with GaN transistors, why isnt the byelka being mass produced to be retrofitted onto the Su-27 family, just like china is putting AESAs on its Su-27?  Why isnt the seeker head for the R-77M still not in mass production?

Currently yes, Russia is working on rofar and has working prototypes of ground based rofar as well as skin based radar. But there is still quite a bit of time till it becomes a real reality. I think rostec is still building the two testing facilities.

Give me 3 reasons grounded in materials science and electrical engineering knowledge that ROFARs aren't vaporware and not "just 10 years way" like nuclear fusion or quantum radar.

Ausairpower even showed Russian GaAS modules, using their own material, as far back as around 2005.

And what came of it, other than lagging behind china, israel and the US by 10 years in terms of mass Aircraft X band and S band AESA radar procurement?

Fact that Su-57 and Nebo SVU is testimony towards that they still retain the ability to produce it.

Around 12 byelka radars and the stillborn piece of shit that is the Zhuk doesnt prove russia has "retained" diddly.


And you fanboys have no logical reason to claim chinese aesa is somehow underperforming when russia's own Zhuk AESA is such a worthless piece of garbage in development hell that not even the MoD cares about.

limb wrote:BTW I read that before feb 2022 russia had no ability to produce gallium arsenide and gallium nitride domestically and had to import it from South Korea which sanctioned them after and delayed mass production of the GaAs and GaN byelka. Is this true?
...
Sorry, I meant that russia doesnt have domestic lithography machines to manufacture GaN wafers at all, and Lithography machines for GaAs are very limited.
...
This article claims that the UAC sources gallium arsenide transistors from south  korea.
https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2022/01/13/sanctions-busting-south-korea-must-stop-supplying-gallium-arsenide-to-russias-jsc-phazotron-niip/

That article is a jumbled up mess. If I understand correctly, they claim Russia is getting Gallium Arsenide wafers and some other semiconductor materials like high purity Hydrogen Fluoride from South Korea. Not transistors. Materials to make transistors. The thing is, even if Russia was getting those materials from South Korea, just like they were getting fiber for PCBs from Europe before the sanctions, there are similar materials from Chinese vendors even if Russia did not produce these themselves. In a lot of cases there is substantial inertia in semiconductor manufacturing and once you have a trusted vendor you do not change unless you have a good reason to do it. It takes a huge amount of time to manufacture a product batch, weeks or months, and it isn't worth it screwing up a batch because you decided to cheap out on one of the materials. China was not always a leader in these technologies. Gallium Arsenide and Gallium Nitride are base material to make LEDs. Guess who is the world's largest manufacturer of LEDs for lighting. And guess who has the whole supply chain for that. Radar processing elements aren't that different from cellphone tower antennas. And China has no shortage of production of those either.

As for lithography machines and other such tools. The truth is GaA and GaN manufacturing facilities typically use depreciated old fab equipment with smaller wafers than silicon manufacture. i.e. they are basically the same tools adapted to GaA or GaN process. These typically work on 6 inch wafers. Russia has plenty of such tools from Soviet times which can be adapted for the purpose.

For example the old Soviet Angstrem plant in Zelenograd which they demolished had loads of those tools. I doubt they sent them to the trash. I was once checking out the site of a factory in Russia which makes discretes and noticed they "upgraded" their production facilities equipment at roughly the same time the Soviet era Angstrem plant for ICs which was shut down. Discretes typically use smaller wafers than ICs because each is smaller. Gee. I wonder what happened. Where did those tools come from.

limb wrote:Is there any evidence that Chinese foundries are willing to risk secondary sanctions in order to ship the transistors to russia?

They aren't shipping any fabricated semiconductor components. This is about semiconductor materials. From what I get the components for the radar were being made in Russia all along.

As for sanctioning sales of semiconductor grade materials to China, if the West does that, they will be in a whole heap of trouble. They basically make those semiconductor grade materials by processing raw materials which nearly invariably come from China in the first place. Like I said 80% of gallium comes from China. The article you posted itself states that South Korea was making the semiconductor grade materials for etching gas based on lower grade chemicals which they imported from Russia and China.

limb wrote:https://madeinrussia.ru/en/news/11874
this article tallks about the very first GaN foundry being opened in russia in 2022.
...

So what. Russia is not using GaN radar yet, they are still using GaA radar in operational weapons systems.

limb wrote:If everything was just peachy with GaN transistors, why isnt the byelka being mass produced to be retrofitted onto the Su-27 family, just like china is putting AESAs on its Su-27?  Why isnt the seeker head for the R-77M still not in mass production?
...
And you fanboys have no logical reason to claim chinese aesa is somehow underperforming when russia's own Zhuk AESA is such a worthless piece of garbage in development hell that not even the MoD cares about.

Because Russia does not have the huge economies of scale of having a consumer electronics industry which uses this material in large scale amounts like China does, which means the cost of the product will be way up in comparison? Because Russia already has a system developed, tested and validated, i.e. Irbis-E and is unwilling to expend R&D resources on such adaptations? Perhaps China was crap at manufacturing such klystrons for radars as Russia uses in Irbis-E and decided to just leapfrog that technology and go straight for GaA radars instead? There are many possible reasons.

People forget that China was so behind technologically that some train drivers went straight from coal powered steam trains to electric highspeed rail. In some cases there is just no point in developing intermediate technologies if you know that itself was obsoleted.

Add to that, performance of the n036 is same as Irbis E while being lighter to Irbis.

You can't just easily retrofit same radar to the older jets, doesn't work that way.  And in the end, why bother when performance is relatively similar and doesn't require the needs to be in stealth mode when the jets in question aren't stealth?

What limb said was absolutely retarded, that's for certain.

A lot of what is achieved with current tech isn't exactly needed for current structures of equipment. Advancement is purely in the newer equipment (Su-57, Armata  etc).  AESA TR modules are already en mass production and use on nebo svu which is already in large quantities, AESA TR modules used on Su-35 wingtips, used on Polimont Redut system, used in various applications.

Maybe Russia imports raw material, but to make the wafers, well, as Lancelot said, doesn't require modern or even 20 year old lithography equipment

Now, last bit, Limb mentioned lack of GaA but just links to GaN. Because, in reality, GaN investment in Russia is very recent and has mostly to do with 5G tech they are looking to get involved it.

Zhuk AE should be produced for mig35 to ramp up production of such radars

But I don't think Chinese AESA is better than Russian radar

And we have no clue if PL15 would perform the way it does in demonstrations and test firings, vs actually in the field against other fighters

For now its just limbs claims because we have nothing to substantiate them except his word and some twitter random

What's cool is that we have proof and evidence that S400 and actually S300VM intercepted targets at 150Km and 217km against su27 and su24 which were flying low and popped up from brief second

Which shows how Russian radar was able to see them at long range and flying a low profile, and maintain a track against a target which was diving and climbing to launch missiles

The other stuff cannot be substantiated

There is not enough proof or real metrics to compare against - the pamphlet ranges don't interest me, only real world results in combat

R-37 on a MiG-31 also achieved a long range kill against Ukrainian target.

Sorry, I meant that russia doesnt have domestic lithography machines to manufacture GaN wafers at all, and Lithography machines for GaAs are very limited.

I thought the Dutch had a monopoly on that technology, which means most countries don't have that capacity.

I have read that China and Russia are not happy about that and are working together to find solutions to that problem.

This article claims that the UAC sources gallium arsenide transistors from south korea.

That is fantastic.... because when Putin ordered a ban on cheap food imports from the EU Russia did not starve... they funded and developed their own food industry and are now exporting to the whole world... if Russia thinks it needs these then it will do the same and set up its own development and production and can then export to other countries too.

Is there any evidence that Chinese foundries are willing to risk secondary sanctions in order to ship the transistors to russia?

The US is escalating sanctions against them... they will be put under sanction eventually anyway.

The US is already ordering companies in Taiwan and South Korea to stop cooperation with China and Russia...

If everything was just peachy with GaN transistors, why isnt the byelka being mass produced to be retrofitted onto the Su-27 family, just like china is putting AESAs on its Su-27? Why isnt the seeker head for the R-77M still not in mass production?

Well couldn't you turn it around and ask why the MiG-35 and Su-57 have AESA radars and also they put AESA radars on their ships and major SAMs and even, as you point out, their new standard AAMs if the supply of the material they will be made from is at risk of sanctions?

Right now BARS is doing a great job at a fraction of the price of an AESA radar... but eventually the prices will come down and the performance will improve and it will make sense to introduce the new type to widespread service.

Give me 3 reasons grounded in materials science and electrical engineering knowledge that ROFARs aren't vaporware and not "just 10 years way" like nuclear fusion or quantum radar.

How about one reason grounded in economics.... Russia is cut off from western money and western influence... from their end, its military budget is tiny and is not increasing even at the rate western military budgets are increasing collectively, so it is pretty safe to assume a few things... first that they will invest their money carefully and not wastefully, second they always get excellent value for money in everything they buy, and third if ROFARs are made up, why are western companies trying to make them too?

Are hypersonic manouvering missiles made up?

And what came of it, other than lagging behind china, israel and the US by 10 years in terms of mass Aircraft X band and S band AESA radar procurement?

Yeah, all that amazing US superiority in radar and drones and stealth... it is having devastating effects in the Ukraine right now, those western wonder weapons are shining so bright it blinds to the point some people can't see clearly any more.

Around 12 byelka radars and the stillborn piece of shit that is the Zhuk doesnt prove russia has "retained" diddly.

That is funny.

Take the example of Javelin... when it came out it was going to make Russian armour scrap metal... tanks were suddenly going to be obsolete. Russia could never develop and ATGM with a thermal sensor because Russia can't make thermal sensors...

But as usual the truth is rather different.

Cheap simple laser beam riding missiles like Kornet and Vikhr are devastating western tanks and Soviet tanks in the Ukraine and because they are cheap they can be carried and used and PRODUCED in enormous numbers which also makes them effective... having thousands of Kornets makes them more useful.

But of course where it makes sense Russia does use high tech, like LMUR with a high quality IIR sensor with a two way datalink... a bit more expensive than Kornet obviously but able to destroy a much wider range of targets with a warhead close to the all up weight of a Kornet and a range of 25km.

It is everything the Javelin was supposed to be, but they also have suicide drones of a fraction of the price of any other weapon that can also get the job done too.

And you fanboys have no logical reason to claim chinese aesa is somehow underperforming when russia's own Zhuk AESA is such a worthless piece of garbage in development hell that not even the MoD cares about.

We have no idea how the Chinese AESA radars perform... though the Turks could have bought Chinese versions of the S-400 but chose the more risky Russian option despite the Chinese system being cheaper... big air defence systems are more effective if there are more of them so cheaper is important because for a given budget you can have more.

In some cases there is just no point in developing intermediate technologies if you know that itself was obsoleted.

Reminds me of a lot of people who said that the Russians can't develop EM catapults for their aircraft carriers because they haven't mastered steam cats yet.

Well China seems to have done the same thing... no steam cats... straight to EM cats...

That would be like saying China is going to develop a new sniper rifle so they are starting by making a really good matchlock musket and once that is working well they will upgrade it with rifling and the improve the weapon by replacing the match lock with a flint lock...

GarryB wrote:I thought the Dutch had a monopoly on that technology, which means most countries don't have that capacity.

The Dutch make latest generation EUV lithography machines for the latest large scale chips with lots of transistors. Which is not what is required to make radar elements.

You can probably make those radar elements with machine tools of a technology level from the late 1980s.
It is more about materials and process than the tools.