Sukhoi PAK FA

p2prada said:

Weapons tests are set to happen in 2013.

Recently it has all been about opening up the flight envelope.

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without internal weapon bay...?

F-22ski Just Got Later And More Expensive
Next Article → ATTRITION: The Armada Gets Mothballed

May 22, 2012: The Russian answer to the American F-22, the T-50 (or PAK-FA), has been delayed two years. It will now, barring more delays, be ready for mass production in 2019. This is according to India, which is collaborating with Russia in the development of this Russian designed fighter. The delay worries India because they are picking up half the $6 billion dollar development cost. A two year delay means rising costs and the Russians have not announced any budget changes yet. Moreover, the $6 billion only covers work on the basic aircraft. All the avionics will be extra, and India is unclear of how much extra. India has had serious (and expensive) problems with Russian development cost projections before. Undeterred, India planned to buy 250 (now reduced to 200) of the new T-50s, for about $100 million each. An increasing number of Indians now see the T-50 possibly following the same cost trajectory as the F-22.
The T-50 prototype first flew two years ago. Russians and Indians have been doing a lot of tinkering since then. While the T-50 is the stealthiest aircraft the Russians have, it is not nearly as stealthy as the F-22, or even the F-35 or B-2. The Russians are apparently going to emphasize maneuverability instead of stealth. India wants more stealth and would prefer a two-seat aircraft. There are also problems perfecting the engines for the T-50 and the defensive electronics. This puts the T-50 at a big disadvantage against the F-22 or F-35, which try to detect enemy aircraft at long distance, without being spotted, and then fire a radar guided missile (like AMRAAM). These problems are apparently the main reason for the two year delay.

The Russians want to sell their "Fifth Generation Fighter" (the T-50, which they admit is not true 5th Gen) to China, India, and other foreign customers. With the Indian participation Russia now has the billions of dollars it will take to carry out the T-50 development program. India is not just contributing cash but also technology and manufacturing capability.

The T-50 is a 34 ton fighter that is more maneuverable than the 33 ton Su-27, has much better electronics, and is stealthy. It can cruise at above the speed of sound. It also costs at least fifty percent more than the Su-27. That would be some $60 million (for a barebones model, at least 50 percent more with all the options), about what a top-of-the-line F-16 costs. The Su-27 was originally developed to match the F-15, which is larger than the single engine F-16.

Russia is promising a fighter with a life of 6,000 flight hours and engines good for 4,000 hours. Russia promises world-class avionics, plus a very pilot-friendly cockpit. The use of many thrusters and fly-by-wire will produce an aircraft even more maneuverable than earlier Su-30s (which have been extremely agile).

The T-50 is not meant to be a direct rival for the F-22 because the Russian aircraft is not as stealthy. But if the maneuverability and advanced electronics live up to the promises, the aircraft would be more than a match for every fighter out there except the F-22. If such a T-50 was sold for well under $100 million each there would be a lot of buyers. For the moment the T-50 and the Chinese J-20 are the only potential competitors for the F-22 in development. Like the F-22 development expenses are increasing, and it looks like the T-50 will cost at least $120 million each (including a share of the development cost) but only if 500 or more are manufactured. Russia hopes to build as many as a thousand. Only 187 F-22s were built because of the high cost. American developers are now seeking to apply their stealth, and other technologies, to the development of combat UAVs. Thus by the time the T-50 enters service, in 7-10 years, it may already be made obsolete by cheaper, unmanned, stealthy fighters.

Are you all sure you want to do this. ??? as my wife often says to me.

ashicjose said:

without internal weapon bay...?

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Whatcha talkin' 'bout?

average american said:

Undeterred, India planned to buy 250 (now reduced to 200) of the new T-50s, for about $100 million each. An increasing number of Indians now see the T-50 possibly following the same cost trajectory as the F-22.

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Indian purchases don't happen like American.

Though not confirmed, IAF plans on 144 while VVS confirmed 60. The VVS orders are to balloon up after 2020.

USAF plans budgets for the duration of the program, like the $1-1.5 Trillion tag for the F-35. VVS makes plans over 10 years while IAF makes plans over 10 years in two 5 year plans. The current order for 60 by VVS is until the period 2020.

For IAF, I would say it would be until 2027. So, what should have been a 214 aircraft requirement from 2017 to 2027, has "reduced" to 144* from 2019 to 2027 period. IAF has only announced plans for until 2022 as of today. The PAKFA schedule is only extrapolation.

The Russians want to sell their "Fifth Generation Fighter" (the T-50, which they admit is not true 5th Gen) to China,

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ROFL.

Not a true 5th gen and China in the same sentence with PAKFA in it. Shows the quality of the article.

Russia is promising a fighter with a life of 6,000 flight hours and engines good for 4,000 hours.

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Su-35 figures, not PAKFA. PAKFA figures are unknown.

The T-50 is not meant to be a direct rival for the F-22 because the Russian aircraft is not as stealthy.

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Completely opposite to what the Russians have revealed to the media.

Only 187 F-22s were built because of the high cost.

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So? You Amrikans fvked up with both F-22 and F-35. But, the concept of 5th gen is quite well established.

Thus by the time the T-50 enters service, in 7-10 years, it may already be made obsolete by cheaper, unmanned, stealthy fighters.

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Funny, F-35 will come out much later than PAKFA, at least 7 years from today compared to 3 years for PAKFA. In 7-10 years, magical UCAVs will replace F-22s. At least get the F-35 inducted first, then we can talk about how "cheap" F-35 is compared to the PAKFA and well after that we can talk about magic UCAVs and its costs. This article is made for kids.

Anyway, did not know 2015 is 7-10 years away. The article must have assumed kids can't count.

The Russian Aircraft industry is struggling, if it was an automobile industry I would consider buying a car Russia had made if it was sitting in front of me and I could kick the tires and take it for a drive. I sure would not buy one that it was going to make ten years from now. The best I can tell the Russians have given up on any idea of air dominace, compared to the USA, they are at most hopeing to build a AWACS/Aircraft killer.. .

Even the Americans are lagging behind with their F-35 development and that is the reason they want INDIA to invest money in R&D of F-35........

Would some one check my figures, best I can tell If i am not mistaken you can buy Mig Stock for .08 cents a share. United aircraft corp jsc (UNAC:RTS) which owns Sukhoi stock it is .0054 cents a share.

I am not sure about my figures, can any one else verfie the stock prices of Mig and Sukhoi. at a half cent a share I might want to buy 2 million shares for 1000 dollars. You would think with what India is spending Sukhoi would be worth more then half a cent a share.

p2prada said:

Whatcha talkin' 'bout?

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Present PAK FA is like a new truck chassis you need to build the body and other accessories to call it truck, internal weapon bay is like oxygen for life without it the PAK FA is not even coming close to F-22 and without this how you can check the flight envelope of the Aircraft ?

I still don't understand what you are insinuating. Are you saying PAKFA does not have internal bays. Your claim is the first I have heard.

Even Su-47 has internal bays. I posted a picture a few pages earlier.

average american said:

Would some one check my figures, best I can tell If i am not mistaken you can buy Mig Stock for .08 cents a share. United aircraft corp jsc (UNAC:RTS) which owns Sukhoi stock it is .0054 cents a share.

I am not sure about my figures, can any one else verfie the stock prices of Mig and Sukhoi. at a half cent a share I might want to buy 2 million shares for 1000 dollars. You would think with what India is spending Sukhoi would be worth more then half a cent a share.

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The recent data for the last 3 months is not even available. The price you are seeing is 6 month old data and that too doesn't look like a reliable indicator at that. It is RTS data.. I am not sure of the info but i can certainly say that it is not the price you should be looking at while purchasing the shares.

Aslo, when u purchase the shares, make sure to look at the number of shares and the total market capitalization as well before blindly looking at the share price. It doesn't matter if you purchase 2 million shares.. what matters is 2 million 'shares' out of how many??

aerokan said:

It doesn't matter if you purchase 2 million shares.. what matters is 2 million 'shares' out of how many??

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96,724,000,000

p2prada said:

I still don't understand what you are insinuating. Are you saying PAKFA does not have internal bays. Your claim is the first I have heard.

Even Su-47 has internal bays. I posted a picture a few pages earlier.

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Prove it If I am wrong....do you have any solid proof like some credible pics ?

ashicjose said:

Prove it If I am wrong....do you have any solid proof like some credible pics ?

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Go to post #1101 of this thread.

ashicjose said:

Prove it If I am wrong....do you have any solid proof like some credible pics ?

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What? You want pictures? How old are you?

Wait patiently and all the internal bay doors will open in time.

@ defcon 1,
I was asking for some pics not drawings.....

@ p2p ,
I am 31 ....in front of your knowledge may be I am nothing. Instead of these drawings are you having any credible proof ?
And tell me how long I have to wait to see a picture like this.....

http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00157/ALBERT_US_RUSSIA_HI_157586g.jpg

This is the first flight test pic of F-22 in 1997 September 7.

ashicjose said:

@ defcon 1,
I was asking for some pics not drawings.....

@ p2p ,
I am 31 ....in front of your knowledge may be I am nothing. Instead of these drawings are you having any credible proof ?
And tell me how long I have to wait to see a picture like this.....

http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00157/ALBERT_US_RUSSIA_HI_157586g.jpg

This is the first flight test pic of F-22 in 1997 September 7.

Click to expand...

The pic you posted doesn't show any internal weapon bay either. Or am I seeing it wrong?

Defcon 1 said:

The pic you posted doesn't show any internal weapon bay either. Or am I seeing it wrong?

Click to expand...

You can see the space between the two air intakes is covered not like the t-50 which is hollow.

This was discussed clearly some pages ago.






You can clearly see the weapons bays in this pic.


Already demonstrated on the Su-47 a decade ago. Apart from that the Russians have been making internal bays for over 40 years now.

If you want a picture where they have opened the bays, then you will have to wait for it.

A couple of point on APA studies of RAKFA posted by Dr.Somnath,

9.Where the PAK-FA falls well short of the F-22A and YF-23 is the shaping design of the lower fuselage and side fuselage, where the general configuration, wing/fuselage join angles, and inlet/engine nacelle join angles introduce similar intractable specular return problems as observed with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter design. These are inherent in the current shaping design and cannot be significantly improved by materials application. .... the PAK-FA prototype design will produce a large specular return in any manoeuvre where the lower fuselage is exposed to a threat emitter, and this problem will be prominent from the Ku-band down to the L-band.

10.This problem is exacerbated by the inboard ventral wing root fairings, claimed by some Russian sources to be pods for the concealed carriage of folding fin close combat AAMs, such as the RVV-MD/R-74 series. While these fairings do not introduce large RCS contributions from fore or aft aspects, they will adversely contribute to beam aspect RCS, especially for threats well below the plane of flight of the aircraft.

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I do hope the above two points are rectified with stealth compliant shaping in indian FGFA.otherwise pakfa will remain just a sukhoi adapted to stealth 5th gen shaping with internal bomb bay and not a new design,which is a not a true 5th gen approach by the russians.

Even the chinese have come up with better underbelly fuselage shapings and serpentine air intake in j-20.

I wonder why did the IAF keep quiet about it?we are sinking close to 20 billions in this fighter, surely they could have asked russians earlier.

Sure SUKHOI could have implemented serpentine air intake in place of radar blockers with ram coating for a small portion of the visible compressor blades. And they could have reduced the clustering edges in underbelly design, which is below par in 5th gen design.

.Sure they could easily have addressed the above two points 9 and 10 and easily put serpentine intake , and smooth underbelly fuselage design like J-20,if they wished.But they didn't do it. STRANGE.