Posted on February 6, 2010 - by Venik
Sukhoi Stealth Fighter’s First Flight
As many of you already know, last week the Sukhoi T-50 stealth fighter prototype – Russia’s long-awaited answer to Lockheed-Martin’s F-22 – completed it’s maiden 47-minute flight from the manufacturer’s test airfield in the Russian Far East. The single-seat aircraft features low-observable geometry, two widely-separated engines with 3-D thrust-vectoring nozzles, internal weapons bays, all-movable angled vertical stabilizers, and variable-incidence LERX. The official Sukhoi video of the first flight is available here.
A total of three prototypes have been completed so far: static, runway testing and flying. Photos of two of them have been published. The black lines on the vertical stabilizers visible on some photos are pressure feedback sensors used to fine-tune the aircraft’s fly-by-wire system. The large internal weapons bays are about six meters long. A very large HUD can be seen on some photos.
The Sukhoi T-50 (aka PAK FA) has a large proportion of all-new systems and components. The aircraft uses new Saturn engines, new integrated fly-by-wire system, new APAA radar, and a new optical detection pod. The aircraft is expected to enter service in 2015. Nothing is known at the moment about the aircraft’s target production cost. The PAK FA is expected to be produced jointly with India.
Even though most of T-50′s technical characteristics remain classified, some performance figures can be estimated based on the Russian Air Force requirements for the PAK FA project, the engine diameter, the size and key features of the airframe. The question currently burning holes through many aviation-related forums is: how would T-50 compare to its main rival – the F-22 Raptor? It is important to keep in mind that F-22 has been flying for a number of years now. The T-50 was deigned to outperform the F-22 in certain aspects considered to be key by the Russian Air Force.
The new Sukhoi fighter is about the same size and weight as the F-22, but T-50′s new Saturn engines are more powerful. This would give the Russian fighter higher thrust-to-weight ratio, faster climb rate, and higher top speed. Because of T-50′s 3-D thrust vectoring, all-movable vertical stabilizers and large variable-incidence leading edge root extensions the aircraft is expected to be significantly more maneuverable than the F-22. The Sukhoi plane also has a higher-caliber cannon and more weapons stations – both internal and external.
Having said this, it is definitely too early to seriously compare the F-22 to the T-50. Nothing – not even the model name – is known about T-50′s new engines. Very little is know about the airframe materials and their proportions. These two missing key pieces of information make estimating T-50′s performance a highly theoretical exercise. Superimposing the basic shapes of the F-22 and the T-50, it is apparent that, while similar in size, the Russian fighter has a much greater combined area of control surfaces. The T-50 also has more internal space for weapons and fuel, as well as larger air intakes for its more powerful engines.
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February 7, 2010
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Looks promising. Any word on whether the pitot tube seen on the third picture will be removed after testing? It would seem that have such and obstruction would be detrimental to the stealth characteristics of the plane.
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Venik Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:35 pm
It’s needed for testing. If you look at the photos of YF-22 and early production F-22, the tube is there as well. It is removed on the in-service models.
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February 7, 2010
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LOL. Judging by your images and commentary you and I must hang out on the same forums!
The T-50 is a great technical achievement for Russia, but it a new, complicated and expensive piece of engineering. It would be nice if bringing it to fruition on schedule could be free of the cost overruns, funding problems and unforeseen tech glitches that tend to plague similar big and expensive projects world-wide, and which have certainly plagued other big Russian tech projects in the past. One can only hope.
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February 9, 2010
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Do you have any comments about the likely RCS (in particular front and lateral) of the PAKFA as compared to, say, the F-22A and F-35?
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Venik Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
It’s not possible to estimate RCS just by looking at an aircraft. Something that looks “stealthy” may in fact light up the radar screen like a city bus. The most popular software used in the aerospace industry both in the US and in Russia for RCS analysis (among other CEM applications) is FEKO by a South African software maker EMSS. This is very advanced software that can take a 3-D aircraft model (made with a program like Dassault ‘s Catia, used by Lockheed, Boeing and Sukhoi) and analyze RCS from various sides for a range of frequencies. This usually requires a supercomputer or an HPC cluster. Even with this tool, fighter aircraft manufacturers perform extensive testing.
The T-50 has many recognizable LO characteristics, but it’s impossible to say how effective they are. We should also keep in mind that this is the first flying prototype and that the appearance of the aircraft will undergo many changes over the next five years.
The wide spacing of the engines is a very interesting design feature. It offers many advantages in terms of maneuverability, survivability and internal weapons and fuel storage capacity. However, such an engine arrangement is usually not associated with LO geometry. But then again, it’s impossible to make a reasonable prediction about an aircraft’s RCS just by looking at it.
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