Russia to test PAK-FA in 2007 ( Counter to the F-22 Raptors?)

India-Defence & ITAR TASS ^ | June 8, 2005

[Srirangan]

Russia to test PAK-FA in 2007

KUBINKA, Moscow Region, June 8 (Itar-Tass) -- The development of the fifth generation fighter proceeds in strict compliance with the schedule and the plane will be flight-tested in 2007, the commander-in-chief of the Air Force, Vladimir Mikhailov has said.

About the condition of the Russian Air Force’s fleet of aircraft Mikhailov said, “the Air Force receives planes in sufficient numbers, there are aircraft at the reserve bases, too.”

“We are also receiving new planes, including Su-34 and Su-27SM, and others still being tested. There is nothing we can criticize these planes for.”

Russian presidential adviser Alexander Burutin told reporters that the Russian Air Force by 2012 will have up to 60 percent of new aviation technologies.

“A new armament program has been developed and we shall achieve this parameter by 2010-2012,” he said.

[Srirangan]

More info about the PAK FA [Perspektivnyi Aviatsionnyi Kompleks Frontovoi Aviatsyi]

[PLMerite]

Typical Soviet press release. Several paragraphs of no information and much doubletalk.

[Perdogg]

[Srirangan]

That's not the PAK FA. PAK FA is based on the Su 37 Berkut.

[Perdogg]

oops.

[Perdogg]

http://uploads.abovetopsecret.com/ats15787_PAK_FA.jpg

This was the link.

[Srirangan]

Ah welcome to the internet, its full of fakes. Ever seen CHinese military pics? Rofl!

[Pro-Bush]

[processing please hold]

Niiiiiice

[Mind-numbed Robot]

That must be a French design. They've got the darn wings on backwards.

[Srirangan]

100% Russian. You'll have to admit they come up with great fighters.

[Srirangan]

[F15Eagle]

just like the old X-29 we tested way back in the 80's (starting in 1984 or so)

[F15Eagle]

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/x-29.htm

[Wiz]

[Wiz]

I thought Russia (and maybe India) would use Mig-1.42/1.44 as the platform of the fifth generation fighter. I wonder why they trashed it and start all over with a new one.

[taxesareforever]

If they are built like they build submarines we have nothing to be concerned about.

[burzum]

Why would you say that? While the Russians do not have the money to maintain or operate their submarines at all times, it does not mean that they are not of high quality. Russian and other spies in the cold war ensured that.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

I have noticed that much of our aircraft design ends up in Russia. Some of it we abandoned for various reasons, some not always good, others they seem to have before we can get them into test. Didn't we have and abandon the plane that eventually became a commericail aircraft as the SST and that same design became one of Russia's mainline bombers?

[familyop]

...this PAK-FA?










PAK-FA Sukhoi T-50

Engines: AL-41F1 2*15500 kgs.
Weight:
VSTOL 21000 kg
max 32800 kg (runway 160m)/31600 kg
Fuel (int) 7000 /10800 kg
Dimensions 20.6 x 14.4 / 7.82 x 5.84 м
Sq 54.6 /77 sq.m

Max speed 2250 km/h
Alt.: 18800 m

Load balance: 0.95
Flight range: 4200-5500/7400 km

Armament: 2x30mm gun
Hardpoints: 8 (conf.), 2*4

Development of Russia's LFI (logkiy frontovoi istrebitel)
lightweight tactical fighter has been dramatically accelerated after the Russian Air Force decided its priorities for the next 10 years. Revealed here exclusively as the I-2000 (Istrebitel {fighter} 2000) project, the aircraft is due to become operational in 2005 as Russia's basic front-line fighter. It is also likely to become the leading export product of the Russian aircraft industry. Available information on the I-2000 indicates that it will be closely comparable to the US Joint Strike Fighter, operating in both the air-to-air and air-to-surface roles.

The aircraft comes from a long line of Mikoyan lightweight fighters, such as the MiG-15 and MiG-21. It is about the same size as the MiG-21 (shorter by 1.3m but wider by 4.5m), but noticeably smaller than its immediate predecessor, the MiG-29. Take-off weight is estimated at around 12 tonnes; maximum take-off weight at about 16 tonnes. [1]

In early 2002 Sukhoi was chosen as prime contractor for the planned Russian fifth-generation fighter is called the PAK FA [ Perspektivnyi Aviatsionnyi Kompleks Frontovoi Aviatsyi - Future Air Complex for Tactical Air Forces]. This intermediate class twin-engined fighter will be larger than a MiG-29 and smaller than a Su-27.

The aircraft will feature a long combat radius, supersonic cruise speed, low radar cross section, supermaneuverability, and the ability to make short takeoffs and landings. In accordance with the technical requirements, the PAK FA will have a normal takeoff weight of 20 tons, which is close to the average normal takeoff weight of the two American airplanes, the F-35 JSF (17.2 tons) and the F-22 (24 tons). The new fighter (a medium version) will have a traditional wing form, though the experience gathered as a result of Berkut's test flights will be taken in consideration when designing the fighter. It is supposed that it will be created using the Stealth technology, and equipped with two AL-41F engines by the Saturn scientific and industrial enterprise, a radar system with an active phased array (to all appearances, it will be produced by the Fazatron-NIIR corporation), and high-precision weapons.

The government commission decided on 26 April 2002 to choose the Sukhoi holding company as the head company to develop and produce the fighter of the fifth generation. The prototype of the PAK FA would take-off in 2006 and that in 2010 the aircraft would be ready for series production. The first deliveries, both for Russian armed forces and for export, would be possible in 2011-12.

The new airplane is being proposed to be brought from the concept design to a prototype series in less than 9 years. Historically, fourth and fifth generation fighters have not been created in less than 15 years. The Russian government has promised to allocate 1.5 billion dollars for the PAK FA through 2010. But the Russian Air Force is receiving less than 200 million dollars a year during this period, and will spend it primarily on other needs.

The prices and sources of funding will determine the destiny of the whole program. To date officials agree that the program will cost $1.5 billion. However, $1.5 billion is the sum needed for creating a new generation of avionics for the fighter (considering the fact that pre-production models of the phased array have already been produced, and will soon be tested). Completion of the AL-41F engine (present readiness is 30 percent) will require, in the opinion of the boss of Rosaviakosmos, 600 - 800 million dollars. Saturn said that launching of production of the AL-41F engine would take $150 million. An improved version of the AL-31F will be used on the aircraft originally (though it is not clear how these heavy motors are reconciled with the concept of a 20-ton fighter). The upgrade of these engines will require expenditures of 1.2-1.5 billion dollars. And finally, designers will have to spend several hundred millions of dollars on creating a new airframe. According to some reports, India and Russia have agreed to jointly develop this fifth-generation fighter, under a scheduled with entery into service in 2009. This would be the first such joint development venture between the two countries. [8]

[Mind-numbed Robot]

100% Russian. You'll have to admit they come up with great fighters.

I try to give them credit where due but I also think most of their technical progress, in aircraft and elsewhere, is stolen (given?) from us. It is amazing how similar their designs are to designs we are testing or designs we had and abandoned for political reasons. They don't take near as long as we do to go from design to production.

[familyop]

BTW, that was from warfare.ru - "Russia's Military Analysis"

http://warfare.ru/?catid=255&linkid=2280

[spetznaz]

Actually the biggest threat with have is French UCAV technology falling into Chinese hands (which will definitely happen). That is something the Chinese want more than (almost) anything, and something the French will be willing to offer. The era of manned air-superiority/supremacy basically came to a close with the F-15/SU-27, and all the subsequent fighters (from the advnanced SU-27 derivatives such as the SU-30 and prototypes like the Berkut, Pak-Fa and the MFI; European offerings like the Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon; and US stallions like the Raptor and F35JSF are basically the echo vestiges of a past era). The future is basically UCAV based, with a core of manned fighters for flexibility and guidance purposes (and obviously a bomber force with advnanced stand-off weapons such as the JASSM, as well as busloads of JDAMs).

Anyways, one of the things we need to be watching for is transfer of UCAV tech, particularly French UCAV tech (the French are ahead of Europe in terms of stealthy 'US-style' UCAV technology ....and by UCAV I mean along the lines of the Boeing X-45 demonstrator and NOT the Predator type 'UCAVs' which are in a nutshell recon whizees with Hellfire missiles). The Chinese want next-gen UCAV technology, and the French will be more than willing (and able) to provide it to them (either overtly or covertly).

The following is the French design for their next-gen UCAV. The Dassault Neuron:

But no worries. We also have our own babies:

There will always be manned planes, and the Raptor is the meanest mofo kissing the wild blue yonder. But the future belongs to UCAVs. And while several nations are working on stealthy manned aircraft (from an Indian-Russian alliance that seeks to develop stealth fighters to fight proposed Chinese stealth designs, to even an Iranian proposal from a stealth aircraft ....yep, THAT Iran), you will see many of the relatively richer nations in that region (eg India and China) start delving into UCAVs. And, again, I do not mean things along the lines of the Hunter RQ5A UAV or the Predator, but actual 'true' UCAVs.

Einstein was wrong when he said the following: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." World War 4 will be fought with war-robots and economics...not rocks and sharpened sticks (with WW3 having been the Cold War).

[spetznaz]

with have = we face

[F15Eagle]

We had two. SAC General Curtis LeMay's big push for the 6-engined XB-70 Valykyrie Bomber, of Mach 2 or even Mach 3 capability, potentially. Expected to fly at 70,000 feet but would still have been vulnerable to advancing Soviet missile technology. And the program was abandoned after a photo-shoot accident in which an F-104 Starfighter got caught in the wing vortex and flipped over striking both vertical stabilizers. Only one crew member managed to eject and survive.

We also developed the SST but noise / environmental regulations killed it. Hence the Concorde could only come to costal cities I believe.

The Russians built the Tu-144. NASA had been studying the plane a few years ago. A Tu-144 was involved in a spectacular crash after (apparently) the controls jammed and in flew right into the ground in Paris in 1974 IIRC.

The Russian Tu-160 Blackjack bomber is very similar to our B-1, and like the Buran space shuttle, appeared after the similar American plane.

I've read (again, IIRC on this one) that the Russian MiG-25 (60's or so) was very similar to the Navy fighter of the 50's. The engines from the plane would later be evolved by Lockheed (J-58) for use in the Air Force SR-71, CIA A-12 and YF-12A interceptor (never deployed).

[familyop]

"...but I also think most of their technical progress, in aircraft and elsewhere, is stolen (given?) from us."

Be sure to see comment #20, and do notice the bold type at the end of it. IMO, we've been had again. And I was promoting India as a tactical partner until now. It's now also no great wonder now as to why our leadership stopped the Arrow-2 staging in Israel (source of high-tech. stuff to India).

[Srirangan]

Great post! Thanks!

[burzum]

Be careful when criticizing Einstein. To say that very few were successful is a vast understatement. Even when Einstein doubted his own intuition, he was wrong (see his cosmological constant in general relativity--wasn't shown to be correct until 80 years after its discovery).

Anyways, Einstein was a person who had seen two world wars. I doubt he would classify the Cold War as WWIII.

[F15Eagle]

[F15Eagle]

s/b "XB-70 Valkyrie Bomber"

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Would it be a good guess, that the tech that the public is aware of, and the UCAV's that the public is aware of, the scientist and our military have things and tech well advanced in decades in what we see today.

[spetznaz]

Actually there are very few people i look at with the same awe i have for Einstein ...actually the only one I can think of offhead is Nikola Tesla. Einstein was a truly remarkable individual (and yes, the cosmological constant thing was quite ironic). The guy was just simply amazing. However I think the Cold War was as much of a world war as the first two, and in a couple of ways even more so. Just because blood wasn't overtly shed does not mean it was not a veritable world war, because it was a world war in every sense of the war.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

?

[taxesareforever]

It was meant as tongue in cheek. However, I do believe that for the Russians to get where they are going they don't value human life in order to get there. Just an my observation.

[spetznaz]

I don't know about the 'advanced in decades' part, but a good measure is to look at when work started on the Have Blue project that gave us the F-117A stealth 'fighter,' and when the plane became operational, and when the public was finally told about it. If the F-117 was kept secret for so long then it would not be a stretch to say that there is probably other stuff chilling out in some dank dark hangar that the public has no idea of!

Let me put it another way ....many of the UFO talk you hear about is not crazy talk. UFO's exist ....as in Unidentified Flying Objects. The only important thing to note is that they are not alien but very much terrestrial! And the funny thing is that if you compare some of the drawings of 'alien spacecraft' drawn in the 70s and 80s you'll see some similarities to the B2 Spirit and the F-117.

[spetznaz]

UFO's = UFOs

I need to go to sleep. LOL. Goodnight.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

I meant... what does " with have = we face " mean ?

[F15Eagle]

This is the classic picture of the American SST in mock-up



I'm sure there are better pictures out there somewhere.

[burzum]

I understand you point that you were trying to discuss and I went a little offtopic. The point I was trying to make is that your definition of World War is more liberal (don't shoot me) than the one that Einstein knew. The definition of World War in the 50s was of a shooting war sparked from a powderkeg of two mutually opposing allied groups on a global scale. While the Cold War would have caused WWIII if the powderkeg ignited, it did not. Liberal definitions of world war can include the Global War on Terrorism, the American Revolutionary War, as well as WWI and WWII. I only bring this up because when people talk of world war, they often don't mean the same thing.

[spetznaz]

I made a typo ....first sentence i believe of my first post on this thread.

The reply on post 35 was directed towards your other post.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

You mean,,,, like the BAT/MANTA RAY ( more BAT ? or MANTA RAY ? or Sting ray ? ) looking UCAV's in your post in 23 # ?

[burzum]

What I was trying to say is that the Russians, Chinese, etc., will never be far behind us in military technology while we have traitors who sell our technology to them. The atomic bomb espionage case is probably the most obvious example, but there are hundred or thousands of cases. No matter how much money we invest in military technology, we will still have to invest more in the future. In fact, it is wise to make defenses against our own advances since our potential enemies will have the technology soon afterward. One of the most surprising aspects is how cheap the traitors will sell us out for. Billions of dollars of R&D will sell for $10K to the traitor.

[endthematrix]

"I have noticed that much of our aircraft design ends up in Russia."

Yep. Lots of espionage still occurs. Their theoretical work is very good too..plasma generation etc. I'll add that NASA working with them doesn't help.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

George Patton and Douglas Macarthur were right, when you look at the scope of things in hindsight.

[taxesareforever]

I am in total agreement with you. It is almost as if we make sure that the Russians have the same technology as we do. Could it be that this is the way for our government to keep asking for more and better? I wouldn't be surprised in the least if this was the case.

[endthematrix]

I couldn't agree more. Those two could have saved millions more from perishing under the yolk of tyranny.

[Domangart]

Someone was talking about this on 287 a while back. Apparently there are only a few things you can do with a plane to cut drag. Speed is life so the slicker the thing passes thru air the better. Air is not a state secret.

[Wiz]

What an ugly design

[spetznaz]

Someone was talking about this on 287 a while back. Apparently there are only a few things you can do with a plane to cut drag. Speed is life so the slicker the thing passes thru air the better. Air is not a state secret.

What you are talking about is called Convergent Evolution. Basically where different players (or species) arrive at the same solution (or design) since it is the best for that particular task. This is why all the next-gen UCAVs will look more or less the same, why modern Western tanks all look quite similar, and why formula One vehicles look like clones of each other to the untrained eye.

In animals it is quite widespread, and there are a plethora of such examples.

And my personal all time favorite ....the American Bald Eagle versus the Kenyan Fish Eagle.

Bald Eagle:

Kenyan Fish Eagle:

With that said, it is common knowledge that a bunch of Soviet stuff was stolen US tech. A prime example is the Buran space shuttle, which was derived from the NASA shuttle (the Soviets feared that the Shuttle was some sort of space weapon delivery system, and thus they needed to have one too). But all the same convergent evolution does exist in tech and weapons (the tricky part is deciding what is convergent evolution and what is due to sticky fingers).

[Southack]

"The future is basically UCAV based, with a core of manned fighters for flexibility and guidance purposes (and obviously a bomber force with advnanced stand-off weapons such as the JASSM, as well as busloads of JDAMs)."

I'd modify that somewhat. UCAV's certainly have a big future; they offer new capabilities (e.g. swarms of thousands, long loiter times, the ability to switch "pilots" in mid-air, the potential for radical manueverability, etc.)...but the old tools still have value, too.

Stealth UCAV's are going to be going up against American, Israeli, Russian, and Indian optical anti-aircraft missiles, for instance. What a computer can see, can be hit by a missile...if that "target" isn't too fast, too manueverable, or too high (e.g. sub-orbital).

UCAV wars get away from China's (India's too) manpower advantage, so this new trend is definitely go to cause some intriguing discussions in Beijing.

Likewise, now that American *civilians* are putting themselves into Space (e.g. Burt Rutan), the world's militaries have to start factoring in sub-orbital (perhaps even orbital) combat.

So stealth meets the optical anti-aircraft missile...and fighters/UCAV's have to cope with strike from sub-orbital or orbital platforms from high above, too.

Which is to say that aerial warfare is at one of those periodic high-change times. Manned fighters still have some value. UCAV's have some value. Optical anti-aircraft missiles have value. Sub-orbital weapons platforms have value.

The opportunity for new aerial tactics and wildly different types of air wars now abounds.

...And lets not forget that the U.S. is already fielding ground-based as well as air-borne anti-missile lasers, too.

So we're going through a rapid, hyper-fast "evolution" in potential aerial warfare right now.

You might see swarms of UCAV's, swarms in the thousands, attacking one target from multiple points on the compass, while the target itself is defended by air-borne lasers, manned stealth fighters, orbital weapons, and optically (computer) guided air-to-air missiles, for instance.

Hyper-warfare is going to ratchet up a notch, with the U.S. adding yet another length to our lead in this horse race.

I'm reminded of that time right after WW2 when some press-types were interviewing a German rocket scientist about their great progress in rockets but lousy luck in atomic weapons. One American scientist asked the German "where were your cyclotrons?" To which the German responded "we didn't have any" as he hung his head low.

They didn't have any.

Many, many nations could find out the hard way that they don't have the new technology needed to even be remotely competitive with the U.S. all over again. Not everyone has today's "cyclotrons," after all, and it's too late to go get such technology once the war is over.