A reader sent me the following picture reportedly of Sukhoi’s first attempt at a stealth aircraft and the Russians’ latest challenger to the F-22.
Looks like the PAK-FA is just ‘paper airplane’ to me, but I’d love some reader input on this.
(Gouge: CF)
– Christian
July 20th, 2009 | Fast Movers | 464469 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fdefensetech.org%2F2009%2F07%2F20%2Frussian-mystery-plane%2FRussian+Mystery+Plane2009-07-20+19%3A44%3A28jnoonanhttp%3A%2F%2Fdeftech.usmilblog.com%2F2009%2F07%2F20%2Frussian-mystery-plane%2F
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{ 56 comments… read them below or add one }
bah out by 2010? rubbish. Every one of their military programs have experienced heavy delays since the collapse of communism, theres no way this one has stayed under such secrecy and reached production when under the same economic climate as the other projects.
I’ll believe a Russian 5th Generation Stealth Fighter when I see a Russian Navy that doesn’t require mass-mothballing.
another sad attempt by an F-22 booster to get his beloved airplane a stay of execution….paper plane??? more like fantasy plane….command and conquer anyone!
huuuuuussccchhhhhhhhh.. wwwschiiingg… whuuuummmm… psiiiinngg.. another 3d picture apears…
If only they could build them as fast as they can draw them hahaahah
If only they could build them as fast as they can draw them hahaahah–
thats what russians famous for.. hahahaha.. seriously russians do build their jets very fast. if they realy need them..
That is an artists concept that has been circulating the web for some time now.
Lots of issues with that conceptual design, not the least of which is buried inlets on the top surface….not a good idea for fighters.
that is one beautiful drawing of a plane. If we don’t have enough composites capacity, I am sure the Rooshians don’t either. They do come out with some cool concepts, though.
thats what russians famous for.. hahahaha.. seriously russians do build their jets very fast. if they realy need them..
Posted by: flying fart prodly joyned at July 20, 2009 03:33 PM
Yes and they pay for that in quality how many of there latest planes have to be grounded all the damn time? Its been what20 yearssence the fall of communism and they still cant do good quality control. Communism is a damn disease.
I believe they may be able to build it but it wont be in large numbers and wont be in good quality.
More than likely this is either a attempt to get nations to pull out of the f35 deals or pressure the US again.
The stealth is probbly based off the F117 that got shot down.
Wonder how well its ejection seats work…
“Communism is a damn disease.”
-Unfortunately, it appears we caught it.
@Valcan
still notreading your postings
Well… to put it simply, even if they halved the development time of the F-22, it’s still a ridiculous amount of time away!
The Russian’s are no way as organised as the west is when oragnising the building of an aircraft!
Successful aircraft building takes decades of development of people foremost! Russia lost it’s full aircraft design capability a long while ago! This is why it’s busy building the Russian Regional Jet, to build up those skills again… it’s of no concern to the government if it makes a loss or profit. For the Russian’s it’s a matter of regaining lost skills!
actualy russians are going to update their PLA fleet with modern long range reasearch and strike capabilities for the next time.
i think they will be happy with “we have all technologies to build own future jet” capabilities. until now russians are going to modernise their navy and army. Airforces are back in the time because russians always plan own airforce by needs of navy, “rocket forces” and army because they see tgeirairfleet as a support power for their defense not as independent part of it.
And yepp.. until now F22 design is not realy that best for the dropping of all installed defense strategies away and to start to playing with new experemential one, wich costs more than 200 millions per unit and needs to reeducation of whole millitary staff..
http://airwar.ru/enc/bpla/tu300.html
actualy russians are going to update their UAV fleet with modern long range reasearch and strike capabilities for the next time.
i think they will be happy with “we have all technologies to build own future jet” capabilities. until now russians are going to modernise their navy and army. Airforces are back in the time because russians always plan own airforce by needs of navy, “rocket forces” and army because they see their airfleet as a support power for their millitary not as independent part of it.
And yepp.. until now F22 design is not realy that best for the dropping of all installed defense strategies and aproved airfleet away and to start playing with the new experemential one, wich costs more than 200 millions per unit and needs to reeducation of whole millitary staff.. (for such massive change you need more than only F-22 and F-35, wich are struggling to take the real life anyway)
http://airwar.ru/enc/bpla/tu300.html
fixed myself.. and sorry to the mod
Artist fantasy? Don’t hold your breath for this one since the Russians are broke and Sukkhoi itself almost went under.
Yup, it’s a picture of an F-22 with some morphing done.
Gaurantee the development time is 1/4 ours. They have probably stolen the plans and are already trying to figure out what they could sell to who to get the money to build it…
Maybe Iran needs more SAMs…
@Drake1
dude belive me this is a fantasy.. artist took the russian Su-30 structure + engines and put the “f-22 like hull” on it. a same artist did that “famouse mysterious parking chinese jet” some time back.
The DEW Line is proud to introduce new blog contributor Dave Majumdar. This is his first post.
Aleksander Dultsev, a Russian industrial design artist, has created some stunning renderings of what he imagines the Sukhoi PAK-FA 5th generation fighter might look like.
Dultsev has created three such designs. One is clearly based on the Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut, while another appears to be based loosely on the hypothetical 1980s vintage Testors F-19 stealth aircraft model kit.
A third design seems to combine the characteristics of the Testors F-19 with that of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/07/private-russian-designer-imagi.html
===============================================
Don’t get too excited.
http://www.duler.ru/design.html
Just free interpretation by guy who knows how to work and render 3D :)
Actually,Russia does not need to build new weapons,they only have to wait for us to continue to disarm our armed forces,which we seem to be doing a very good job at.
Let me get this straight,we don’t need new weapons because the weapons that we are retiring & canceling the production of is far more advanced than anything that anybody else has,& our intelligence,which failed to identify 19 hijackers with box cutters before they hijacked 4 planes & crashed them into the Twin Towers,the Pentagon,& a field in Pennsylvania,or even a 6 foot tall man running around in caves in Afghanistan & Pakistan,well,you get the picture…..
We mock & ridicule Russia,China,Iran,North Korea,& their weapons,& we cut our own balls off at the same time by disarming ourselves. We lie to ourselves by saying that China is not our enemy because they need our money & us to buy their products,& we are all just one big happy family,kumbiya,”we are the world,we are the people…..”
How can you say the US is disarming itself when it spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined? What level of funding would you find adequate for the US military?
Don’t get your panties in a twist, these pics are just artist fantasy. Gizmodo did a post on them recently. Just some dude having fun drawing planes.
I’ll bet it’s invisible to sonar.. ._.
Okay, let me see if I get the timing on this straight…
The F-22 is worshipped by the USAF brass, but is facing increasing opposition in Congress and definitely from SecDef and POTUS. Got it.
Buy of the F-22 is scaled back and hard-capped. Got it.
Opposition to the F-22 is found even amongst hard-care tech lovers and mil.tech obsessives who are normally a good, supportive constituency for new hardware.
Mysterious leaks about AMAZING new Russian fighter aircraft start to appear.
Cui bono, baby, cui bono????
The Russians are very good at building aircraft in a very short time frame. But to have an F-22 equivalent …. and done in secret …. no …. this story does not pass the smell test.
But the diagrams of the plane do look cool.
http://www.centurychina.com/plaboard/uploads/J-14_stealth_mockup.jpg
Hey Roy, The US Armed Forces are not disarming themselves, they are just spending money in a very dumb fashion. See how many Navy an AF programs have gone way overbudget, or are even useless like the Navy one of creating lasers to damage small boats. It’s useless because its something a 30mm round can do much better with 1/10 of the cost of developing some fancy laser.
If money is not well spent, it will never be enough. With the current crooked procurement system where the Pentagon pays for infinite R&D (like the DDX boat class) instead of paying for real results and products(like the A-10), there wont be ever enough money.
The movie Stealth anyone?
Their freaking ballistic missiles dont even work right!!! How on Earth do they plan to make a good 5th gen fighter?
“Their freaking ballistic missiles dont even work right!!! How on Earth do they plan to make a good 5th gen fighter?”
Because, of course, the design and manufacturing principles applied by MITT (who have little SLBM experience, but plenty of ICBM experience) to the Bulava SLBM are directly applicable to those being applied by Sukhoi, one of the pre-eminent military aircraft design teams in the world to the PAK FA, amIrite?
Oh, wait. That’d be stupid.
(and of course, modern SLBMs are so easy to build)
“Mysterious leaks about AMAZING new Russian fighter aircraft start to appear.”
What leaks? The PAK FA has been in development since the beginning of the decade, with news about the requirements its meant to meet and its rough specifications (which is what fanciful concept art is mostly based on) being freely available. Just because you read about it on a defence blog doesn’t mean it didn’t exist prior to this.
Expect a first flight next year, or the year after, with more information being available soon.
“The stealth is probbly based off the F117 that got shot down.”
Hardly. ‘Stealth’ is not some magic pixie dust. Low signature radar materials are not technically difficult – hell, airports can buy the stuff in rolls for buildings that could cause clutter for ATC radars. The real issues are geometry, engine layout, things like that, which have to be worked out pretty much from scratch for each aircraft (as commented, I’m not convinced by the spinal air intakes).
I wouldn’t underestimate the Russian scientific community in the area of pure radiation/field physics, which is what you’re talking about. In terms of the funding and capacity to turn a concept into a production aircraft – especially avionics – yes, they have problems (see the Su-47 Berkut) but in terms of the ability to understand the technology itself….the F-22′s stealth capability is final year university, maybe master’s degree physics from twenty years ago.
“How can you say the US is disarming itself when it spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined? What level of funding would you find adequate for the US military?”
_________________________________________________
I am sorry, but take a hard look on something called:
Purchasing power parity.
Now look at what a typical US-SOLDIER get/or has to get compared to a russian or a chinese one.
Apply that to people you built weapons.
And remember that half the US Defense budget is personal cost.
Never ever trust the Russians! They could build an aircraft like this, it might take some time but don’t ever say they can’t build one. That’s whay we need to keep our military strong and keep the money flowing in. And one more thing China puts more money into their military then any other nation on earth…
Never underestimate your adversary’s abilities to adapt. I agree that this looks way too futuristic and fake, even if its one beautiful looking model. However the notion that the Russians don’t have the knowhow to build a 5th Gen. aircraft is just as imaginary. Key note, a Russian scientist was the one that created the theories of stealth that the US uses today on the B-2, F-22, and soon to be on the F-35.
As for the Russians having problems with their ballistic missiles? Its not a plural, its one system, not all of them. Their Navy has had issues for decades now, all the money in their GDP won’t fix that. Their Airforce however has been getting better. Sukhoi is the new blessed Strike Aircraft maker in Russia. Note the SU-27 and the SU-34. Sukhoi has almost completely replaced Mikoyan Guriyevich in Russia. I wouldn’t put it past Sukhoi to figure it out. They are getting lots of cash from export orders currently.
Looks like a couple of different aircraft to me. Canards up front, and leading edge wing shape. Must be an attempt to upset the US Government into reacting to it. I’m not sure about it as a serious threat. Maybe a RC type?????
They can’t even afford the best versions of the planes they have now. Looks good on paper though.
Razer–Where do you get your information? The F-35 program has been around for a decade. The plane first flew in 2006.
you honestly think that this plane can hang with the f-22, the thing looks way too long to be able to bank like the f-22 does. With the intakes on top, it wont get the maximum amount of air flow or pressure when u rapidly bank or turn upward, this plane looks to me like nothing more than an acceptable bomber or reconasaince plane…as of today nothing would be able to match the raptor
Riceball: The air moving along the upper surface of an airfoil designed to generate lift is necessarily of a lower pressure than that moving along lower surface. Most planes nowadays of this type are semi-lifting bodies, where the fuselage itself is designed to generate at least some lift, and therefore act as if it was part of a wing. Being lower pressure, the air on the upper surface is of lower density, therefore has less oxygen per unit volume than that on the lower surface. There is a certain rational range in the fuel/air mixture where combustion will take place and an even narrower range where efficient combustion will take place inside the engine. To put it simply, more air means more fuel, hence more power at the business end. This is why you see large precompressor fans on commercial aircraft, where the actual turbine part of the engine is from half to a third the size of the precompressor fan. This is also known as a turbofan engine. They are designed to mechanically maximize efficiency of the fuel/air mixture. Military aircraft may have precompressor fans, but many rely on aerodynamic precompression instead of mechanical, as it cuts down on weight. You can see this especially on the ‘fast mover’-type aircraft such as the F-15 and F-14, with the large ‘scoops’ surrounding the intakes. This is fine for a high-speed aircraft, but not so much for a low speed one such as the Harrier, where a large precompression fan is prominently visible in the inlet cowling.
IF the engines on this vehicle are turbofans, there probably isn’t going to be an issue with performance for the most part. If they aren’t, based upon what I can see of the design from the picture, there could be issues at low speeds, since the inlet cowling isn’t prominent enough to ‘grab’ air for the engine. This could result in low-speed flameouts, where the engine is drowned in fuel relative to the volume of air entering the engine before the fuel flow regulation systems can compensate. That’s why you don’t ram the throttle with a turbine at low speeds… you need to gradually apply the gas so the engine’s air intake systems can catch up. If you’ve ever spent time around a airfield, you’ll know what I mean – you always hear a ‘spin-up’ in turbines.
Riceball-
Q: “I’m no aeronautical engineer here so could someone please explain to me what exactly is the problem with the intakes being on top?”
A: Airflow to the engines would be hampered in maneuvering flight. Notice the intake on an F-16, for comparison.
But to be fair, a rear 3/4 view from slightly above doesn’t show if it might have inlets below too. MiG-29s and F-117s, even old F-5s had blow-in doors if demand overran supply. Those could be supplemental intakes.
Pretty painting, anyway.
Concept. That’s it. I think people fail to realize just how cash-strapped Russia’s military is. The oil-bubble got them all excited (see long range bomb patrols restarted and that tired-ass Russian missle ship that got a tug to Cuba) but the reality is – no money.
Lotsa hype – not much substance.
Haven’t we seen this before from the Russians a million times?!
Here to remind people this drawing has nothing to do with Sukhoi, and is an independent artist’s imaginging of what the PAK-FA could look like. The Russians are capable of prodcuing superior aircraft, but Russia is cash strapped, which has meant delays for the program. When it finally does come out, it will no likely be more capable/durable than the F-22,(in more ways than one)by the fact that it came out later.
Sorry OsdocII, I was being sarcastic. I was replying to the comment that the F-35 was a “pet project of the administration”. I was pointing out, using sarcasm, that the F-35 was in the works long before Obama’s administration was in office and that saying the F-35 is a pet project of the administration is ridiculous.
Remember that Hitler was astounded and caught by surprise when the Russians produced the T43 tank that kicked his rear-end all the way back to Germany. Another time and era but something to consider when people start negating the idea that this can be done. Especially if they have the plans in hand. Where they will have problems is with the avionics suite that is extremely complicated to produce and where the F-22 excels. First look/First shot capability on multiple targets is hard to beat! Especially with some stealth mixed in. Hard for the enemy to shoot back at a ghost!
PAK-FA is an anagram of FAK-AP.
But seriously folks, I had no idea Hollywood was planning a Firefox remake. Can Clint Eastwood still pull 9 Gs ? YES HE CAN!
Never believe a design concept from Russia. This is pure disinformation. Western intel are not that stupid to be fooled around with the barbaric stupid Russian jokes.
The F-22 is such a huge leap the Russians HAVE to come up with a counter.
This is yet another reason to keep the F-22 which is the most important system of any service currently in the pipeline.
Having said that I think we are at least five or ten years from seeing any hardware from the Russians unless they have really pulled off a real coup with this thing.
Cancel the F-35 not the 22.!!!!!
@Never believe a design concept from Russia.
lol.. are ou sure this artist is in Russia?
Nice painting. The Sov..i mean Russians don’t have anything CLOSE to the F-22. LOL!!!
Rhyno327 said, “The Sov..i mean Russians don’t have anything CLOSE to the F-22. LOL!!!”
And neither do we…cuz we just decided to sh*t can it! We’re doing to ourselves what the Soviets or Russians could never do to us: Consciously giving up technological capabilities that only we have while others clamor to reach that same level.
I’m sure that the Russians are very grateful that we’ve spent billions of dollars to do their proof of concept work for them and then decided not buy what we just spent billions to develop. In 10-15 years the Russians will have plenty of F-22-like aircraft while we’re still flying (at that point) 30-40 year old F-15s (F-35 was not meant as an F-15 replacement) that are breaking up in mid air, all while spending billions of dollars to develop the next fighter (which we likely won’t buy enough of either) to replace the replacement that we also didn’t buy.
Of course, Gates’ decision to push for the cancellation of the F-22 is based on the assumption that the future will look exactly like the present–i.e. counterinsurgency is the future of warfare. Though the assumption that what you’re doing now is all you’ll ever do in the future is patently ridiculous and blatantly contradicts common sense, that is the assumption driving SecDef Gates’ planning at the moment. We can only hope at this point that his assumption, however ridiculous, is correct, that air superiority will be assured as we only fight insurgents wielding low-tech weapons. Because if he’s wrong, if his assumptions about a precisely knowable future are wrong, the consequences could prove disastrous for U.S. forces.
Sean-
We are & will be operating the 187 F-22s already purchased, most likely for a few decades.
Consciously giving up technological capabilities that only we have while others clamor to reach that same level.–
WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..
The fact “IS” that the F-22 Has Design flaws. So from the beginning it was a problem. The plane leaks water for christ sake. Avionics over heats like a super computer without cooling capabilities. It has structural integrity issues through out the front of the plane and for some reason the military decides to put it into it’s line up before these problems are fixed. Please we as a country have grown ignorant. Used to being the best, instead of staying the best. Now we have fell behind as a society and things like this prove it. Having an opinion is one thing, but being ignorant about something and trying to sound smart about it seems to be the new american way.
If you really want to question me, first know that my Grandfather served in WW1, my father served in WW2, Korea and Vietnam, and both are buried in Famous Punchbowl Crater in Hawaii. I never joined because I always saw the military as a fall back career, not first choice>
Oh I also forgot, it leaks fuel out the top of the fuselage. LOL
rusian airplane is beautiful and strong