Russian air force goes stealth
 

Their planned rival for the F-22 has flown for the first time. It looks like a Raptor in that video.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8486812.stm

Do not underestimate this thing just because it is "build in Russia". the Russians have a history of seeing a new American airframe, then starting to think how to counter it, then presenting a design meant to neutralise the American fighter - and having a plane then that at least is en par with the threat it should counter, if not surpasses it (think of the Su-27/33 and the F-15). Also, avionic-wise the gap between West and East is no longer as big as it once has been. And armament-wise the Russian fighters are simply superior to American fighters - since long.

If they manage to build this thing at considerably lower price levels than the F-22 costs, then the round goes to them. So much for overcoming them by a new arms-race. It probably would cost us more than them - with us in general and america in special failing to squeeze the wanted military superiority out of our much bigger financial investements. And an air-combat environment where the already low-in numbers F-22 gets challenged by the T-50 being stationed in several customer nations of the Russians, would put the bang-for-the-money calculation for the hilarious costs of the F-22 program into serious question. For this, the Russians would not even need to reach equal level in military quality with the Americans. All they would need is to shift the loss-ratio so much in their favour that the costs of war with a russian-equipped force becomes unbearable for the US state and unacceptable for the American public. It's much like what NATO calculated in case of a hot war with the USSR: probably not being able to beat the Russians, but to make advancing into Western Europe so costly for them that they think twice before trying it.

Ah, the PAK FA finally takes flight, good to see the final design after ages of speculation, very much influenced by the Raptor I'd say but like you say Skybird, that's nothing new and they have a habit of advancing along those technological lines whilst aiming to counteract western tech. Kontakt-5 comes to mind. :hmmm:
Furthermore, as Skybird also says, if this aircraft can perform anywhere near like the F-22 at a fraction of the cost then the F-22 will be facing dozens of these things across the Russian export zone. Which includes Iran IIRC.

Ah, been wondering how the PAK FA will end up looking like for a while, though I can't decide if that thing is ugly, beautiful or both at the same time.

Looks good.

No canards. Wonder how weapons will be carried.

It was a Russian mathematician who worked out the formulas for stealth shaping.

Found this comparison, but cannot say to what degree the painting is representative for the real thing.

http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/2092/pakfat50c.jpg

From:
http://www.aereo.jor.br/2008/09/09/p...50-concepcoes/

with reference to:
www.paralay.com

Don't understand both languages...

Um...in general, would you WANT the nations the U.S. is likely to fight to be able to hurt the U.S. that much more? Because it sounds like you do, Skybird. Would you support Iran over the U.S.? Did you know they stone women to death, there, and hang others for very trivial reasons (e.g., being gay)? And how about North Korea? God, they're even worse!!!

I fail to see where you draw the conclusion that Skybird implies some kind of opinion on such matters in this thread...

Ah, the good old russian skill!

If there is one guy here who doesn't like the Mullah regime it's Skybird.;)

If you look at that video at time index 8-10 seconds, you see it top-down silhouette like in the sketch I posted. The sketch meets the real plane pretty closely, only the front part of the wings, over the air inlets, are too slim in the sketch, but seem to be more "robust" in reality, and closer modelled to the design of the F-22.

I agree, something tells me that the notion of the PAK-FA superseding the F-22 will not go down well in certain circles of this forum :03: However, it's not a given, although as has already been said, things should not be automatically discounted just because they were made in Russia. Certainly, one of the primary factors in this comparison is how much bang you will get for your buck. If the PAK-FA is the cheap F-22, then you're going to see it becoming popular in the export market, and Russia will make a killing from it. Meanwhile, the F-22, whilst being a fantastic piece of kit, will not be exported, and will not be built to its full potential because the US cannot afford it.
More importantly, perhaps, is the performance of the PAK-FA in relation to the F-35, because that is, for all intents and purposes, the export version of the F-22, if the PAK-FA can outperform the F-35, be sold at a lower cost than the F-35 and have a lower maintenance cost than the F-35, then the Russians are going to make a killing.
However, until these facts are known, I will not stray either side of the fence. :03:

Well, what the Russian jet is missing is thrust vectoring, and Times Online just reported that it uses pretty old engine types. On the other hand it has twice the range of the F-22. But you do not want to use such an expensive and precious jet in close combat, if possible, when eye contact would neutralise most of the advantage from being undetected on radar. And here, the superior Russian AAM with their greater range, high sensor sensibility and high agility, may be more than adequate for compensating an eventual weakness in airplane agility, compared to the thrust-vectoring F-22. but since the Mig-29 and Su-27 we have seen that lacking agility of russian fighters is a relative term anyway. I would not be surprised if the airframe geometry nevertheless makes this plane more agile in dogfighting than one may assume when noting the lacking thrust vectoring.

Frankly, I was a bit surprised, since it'll be darn unlikely that the Russians will make a stealth fighter and use an old engine and even less likely they'll admit it, but when I read it was Golts who said that, I'm like "Oh". While the Russian military has problems, this fella is such a chunk of ice when it comes to the Russian military if anybody should be disappear into a gulag for criticizing the State he'll have to qualify. See also this thread for what I have to say about him.

Criticism generally is a good thing but with such "helpful" critics like him, the Russian military might well be better off it his lot were collectively shipped to Siberia.

To be fair, there is apparently a school in Russian aviation, even in the VVS. that figures that thrust vectoring is not worth the expense considering the limitations in Russian pilot quality (due to relative lack of flying hours). But I don't see how they would pass up supercruise.

Hmmm, this is true, rather odd that they would choose to omit thrust vectoring when they've already put it in the MiG-29OVT, however this is most likely a ploy to reduce operating expenses. Like you say, in gunzo combat the element of stealth is useless, although maneuverablity is king, so close up gunzo, the Raptor would probably pwn the PAK-FA. Long range though, well I guess a lot of that is down to the cross section of the aircraft and the missile range and sensitivity which, like you say, the Russians do do a good job.
By the way, has any more information come to light about the claim the Russians made about the aircraft having an 'artificial intellect'? :hmmm:

Oh, and another thing that made me chuckle, the NATO reporting name....Firefox.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...31_Firefox.jpg