Via Steeljaw Scribe, comes this open-source examination of Russia’s 5th gen fighter, the Sukhoi built PAK FA (which may now go by Su-50), put together by two analysts from the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). The PAK FA’s maiden flight was on 29 January; it isn’t expected to enter Russian service until 2015. The brief examines the PAK FA’s development and compares it to the F-22; most of the commentary comes from an examination of available images and video of the new fighter.
De-constructing the Sukhoi PAK-FA (Su-50)
The brief says the PAK FA has been designed to win a close-in, air-to-air dogfight; when stealth fighters square off, they will get very close before targeting radars are able to lock-on an opponent. The PAK FA’s Infra-Red Scan and Track (IRST) might be the first sensor to pick up an enemy stealth aircraft; the F-22 lacks an (IRST). In a close in “knife fight,” the extreme agility of the PAK FA may allow it to outmaneuver the F-22 and its larger weapons load may prove advantageous as well.
The analysts have their doubts about Russia’s ability to afford development and production of the super costly fighter; their grasp of the production and maintenance difficulties surrounding low-observable coatings; the ability of Russia’s composites industry to deliver; and the technological maturity of the fighter’s avionics and sensors.
UPDATE: Steeljaw Scribe, for whatever reason, deleted the brief from Scribd. Fear not, the more web resourceful than I am Stephen Trimble over at DEW Line has posted a copy.
– Greg
{ 75 comments… read them below or add one }
For something that is relatively low cost, low tech and a good idea, why don't we have IRST on basically every airframe?
If AF intelligence comes to the conclusion that the Russians can actually field a 5th gen fighter (prototypes are all fine and dandy but….) then you can count on F-22/F-35 upgrades w/IRST capability. It wouldn't make sense for any other airframes because they would be dead meat against a 5th gen fighter before they could ever use it.
IRST has a huge advantage over radar in that it is passive. Currently, without AWACS support (which is a pretty reasonable scenario if we are engaging in any sort of real air-war), if we want our shiny new semi-stealthy 200 million dollar f-22s to engage any other aircraft, they have to broadcast their location to the entire battle space. It seems to me that there are many potential situations where this might be a bad thing. I'm not saying that we should drop RADAR in favor of IRST. What I am saying is that even though IRST has shorter effective range than RADAR it is (or should be anyway) a cheap way to provide additional options.
This is slightly tangential, but it seems to me that far too much of our war fighting capability is predicated on operational satellite uplinks and Boeing 707s loitering around the battle space unopposed. This is just fine if we are knocking over 3rd world countries (as we seem wont to do lately) but is problematic if we end up in a punching match with any modernized military.
Actually, F22s are capable of acting as forward-deployed AWACS, and our latest air-to-air doctrine uses them in exactly that role (not exclusively in that role of course). Their targeting data can be sent over several radios, and are not necessarily reliant on satellite. Whether those signals are susceptible to triangulation or not, is a good question that doesn't have an unclassified answer. Also, F-22s are quite stealthy from a frontal aspect. We're still talking about an RCS the size of a large ball bearing.
The real question is concerning the advantatges of IRST vs. low-detection radars like those on the F-22. If the radars are as undetectable as the AF claims, IRST is really a moot point, except with 5th gen fighters dogfighting. We won't really know the answer to how undetectable our radars really are until we actually go up against another technologically advanced air force.
Why put it on the airframe when a missile does it on its own? Remember we are almost to the point where manned fighter jets themselves are obsolete, let alone using them as a guidance platform for weapons systems.
By the time you get into range to use an IRST, the fight's already over.
In a stealth-vs-non-stealth, true. In a stealth-vs-stealth (which has seemingly never really been considered by the upper heirarchs of the US military) then radar becomes a virtually useless tool – sufficient to detect presence at medium-to-short range, not enough for fire control.
PIRATE has an [unconfirmed] detection range of 145km (90miles) under optimum conditions. AIM120' have a range of between 70km (44miles) – 100km (65miles). IRST on every airframe is worthwhile.
Those numbers are speculative and definitely not accurate for low-observable targets. The Russians are clearly fielding IRST as a terminal targeting tool for close-in engagements and not as a long-range detection/targeting sensor. If they don't have faith in IRST's long-range utility, I see little reason why we should.
Low observable targets travelling at high speed will always be hotter than the background, even with L/O tech reducing their IR signatures. I can concede that the ranges for detection may well be decreased but I don't believe that IRST isn't a tool for long range detection under optimum conditions.
Its not a case of not having faith in IRST's long range utility that the F22A doesn't have IRST but rather its cost spiraled and was dropped. Not to say it wont make its way back.
That is true, but with a noise and refraction combined with modern tactics, the usefulness of this technology is probably approaching nill against an F-22 or F-35
That reminds me of what they were saying about Guns vs. Missiles on interceptors a few years ago. I commented on this above but it seems to me that a large reason that we should want IRST on all of our fighters regardless of stealth capability is that it is a passive system.
I think my response above applies to this post as well. Furthermore, passive systems are a moot point if you are essentially announcing yourself via RCS, acoustic and heat signature.
I am not an avionics expert. I was just wondering; wouldn't the pivot ability of the F-22's engine exhaust aid in maneuverability? If so, would it be enough of an asset to make it more agile than the PAK FA?
F-22 exhaust nozzles can only pivot up and down. Russian designs are directional in the lateral dimension as well. Russia has always been more advanced than us in directional exhaust nozzles. In general, the Russians have taken air-to-air maneuverability much more serious than us.
Thanks for the info. Though it's a little disconcerting.
What they took seriously and what they did with it are too entirely different things. Don't be too disconcerned.
I agree about not being too concerned. Our avionics have always been substantially more advanced, and I'd be dumbfounded if the Russkies fielded anything approaching the sophistication of the F-22's avionics suite. And obviously, we have vastly more experience with actually producing quality stealth aircraft. Even if the Russians do field a 5th gen fighter, I think there's a good chance the F-22 would eat it for breakfast, even in a dogfight. Our pilots are better trained by far, and I think that would overcome any maneuverability differences.
Good Morning Folks,
Just being curious here. The United States has been at war for all but a few brief months of the 21st. Century. My question is how many direct air to air combat (Dog Fights, if you like) engagements has either the USAF or the USN engaged in this Century? Of course I would like to know who won.
I’ve been researching this question and so haven’t been able to come up with an answer, I simply can’t find any examples. I know that there are a lot of you out there who are more informed about air combat them I am, so could you please put up some examples.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Intriguing, nothing comes to mind right now… but we're only 10 years into this Century, anything could happen in the next 90.
Not quite 21st Century A2A but 5 aircraft shot down in Operation Allied Force in 1999 over Kosovo (4 by F15' and 1 by an F16 using AMRAAMs). Thats as close as I can get.
Not quite 21st Century A2A but 5 aircraft shot down in Operation Allied Force in 1999 over Kosovo (4 by F15' and 1 by an F16 using AMRAAMs). Thats as close as I can get.
None, the last tactical air to air combat was in the first gulf war. That doesn't mean anything per se, as there hasn't been any air to air combat aside from minor drone skirmishes either since the first gulf war. Though with Stealth and missiles, dog fighting doesn't mean anything. Its whoever is seen first. I feel that we are still going to see tactical fighters until someone manages to meaningfully weaponize space
The most recent air -air fight, was the Gulf of Sidra encounter with Ghaddfi, in August 1981/82. Two USN F-14 Tomcats, encountered Two Mig 17's. This was an easy shoot down and first real air-air combat for the Tomcat.
I predict the Air-Air next encounter will be in the straights of Taiwan against 4th generation Chinese/Russian aircfraft .
Good one Byron. Thats why we are only making 187 F-22's according to
defense sec. But will we stay that way with China & Russia ????
Cant always fight the last war. And the U.S. is betting the wars will be limited in the future.
If there was anything happening in the air-to-air department in March'03, I can't recall it. There has not been anything since.
Talking about the future, the Russians can field the Su-50, and sell some downgraded version of it to Chavez, or Chavez's grandson, or possibly the Syrians or Iranians. These are the only types of countries that we can even potentially have an air-to-air conflict with while me or you are still alive.
That assumes that my dream of becoming an immortal cyborg will fall through.
This aircraft will make the F-35 completely obsolete and thus the survivability of aircraft carrier battle groups. Yet the USAF has decided to completely ignore it at our own nations peril and wants us to spend 400 billion on the F-35 program while we should invest in a larger more capable Super Raptor or an enlarged super stealthy version of the F-18 with central weapon bays in between its engines. If the USAF is unwilling to face reality, maybe Australia, Japan, Israel and Boeing can pool their ressources to meet this mortal threat.
I think your assessment is slightly hyperbolic. If the plane turns out to be all the Russians claim it will be (a HUGE if), then it will pose problems. But even in the rather unlikely event that the Russians can mass produce a superior stealth fighter (on their first try mind you), there will never be enough of them to spell the doom of anything. Stealth and hypersonic antiship missiles are a much, much greater threat to our Navy.
It is more likey than not that this fighter will carry the hypersonic Brahmos missile, the world's only hypersonic antiship missile, another threat we have no answer to. Let's face in some areas we are falling behind. You just confirmed my assessment.
The Brahmos is far too large a missile to be carried by a fighter aircraft, especially in an internal weapons bay.
But yes, our tactical defenses against antiship missiles are severely out of date.
Based on the lenght of the PAK-FA it would not take much to modify the weapons bay to accomodate the Brahmos which at some point will be sold to Iran and Venezuela. We need to abandon the wishful thinking of the present military leadership, see the world as it is and move forward with game changing technologies such as laser-based weapons.
The Brahmos is launch capable from land, sea and air. IAF SU 30MKI aircraft should be capable of carrying the air launch variant by 2012. This version MAY fit in the weapons bay of the PAK FA. Its a potent missile, be a shame if it didn't.
I'd like to see some hard evidence that the PAK FA "makes the F-35 obsolete." This is a HUGE claim. Sure, it makes the F-15 and F-16 obsolete, but the F-35 is certainly superior to 1970s-vintage designs.
the PAK-FA is superior to the F-35 because of price, range, speed, superior agility and number of internally carried air-to-air missiles with the assumption that they will have comparable RCS
The quality of the Russian's coatings matter alot.
The last air to air engagement involving US aircraft that I am aware of was the Banja Luka incident in 1994. USAF F-16 shot down 4 or 5 Serbian J-21s. Was not a fair fight.
I myself cannot understand why we do not sell F-22s to the Brits, Australians and Japanese at least. This would bring down per unit costs I would hope and allow us to buy more. I understand there are laws against transfer of certain technologies but we seem to be handicapping ourselves in this regard.
I didn't think there had been interest by the British for the F22..? After all that ITAR nonsense in regards to the F35 I'm not suprised.
damn russians! copycats!
FYI, I was contacted by one of the authors of subj. brief who asked that it be taken off Scribd, which I have done. Regret any inconvenience this may cause.
As stealth and low observable technologies become more and more prevalent, the long range missile fights may go the way of the dodo. At least until counter-stealth technology comes around. Would be interesting to see what would happen if an F-22 went up against another F-22. Would their advanced radars pic each other out, at which point would the missile's tracking systems be enough for a kill? OR would they have to close into visual or dog-fighting range before the radars could get a lock?
The superiority of the Raptor against older aircraft has been proven (as we would expect), but has there been any doctrinal studies on what happens if you put two 5th gen aircraft against each other?
Didn't an F16 score a hit on an F22A at the Recent Red Flag? I think they put it down to pilot error on the F22A side.
No need to mention that in a real war, no F16 is going to get close enough to exploit the same advantage as on Red Flag.
I imagine true stealth air combat would be something akin to submarine warfare, with tactics such as hide-shoot-hide. I doubt the F22 is that stealthy, but someday I'm sure there will be aircraft that are virtually invisible to most electronic sensors in the same way subs are more-or-less invisible.
It looks like the file has been deleted.
I think history is on the side of the Raptor, Back in the day when the old USSR came out with a new so called wonder plane, it turned out to have been over-rated. I'm not avocating that the U.S. do nothing about this new Russian plane. Lets be very smart and think out what are response should be, after all it took them 20 years to come up with something to challenge the Raptor,
Good Evening Folks,
This is a fine article by Greg and I would like to add just a few details to it. The Su-35 or Su-50 what ever it ends up is a joint venture by The Russian Federation and India with an estimated 25% of the R&D done in India.
What ever the date that this aircraft become operational, I think Greg might be a bit optimistic in saying 2015, the planned buy for The Russian Federation Security Services is about 50 aircraft. The first and only test flight went a bit ragged, they almost lost the air craft according to one source and give credit to the test pilot for not ejecting and bringing the Su-50 back down in one piece, the Su-50 is not yet ready for prime time.
India has said it would like to have 160 and more Su.30′s. This is a rather low number of aircraft even for The Russian Federation, it would appear that foreign buyers would be sought.
This leads to a lot of speculation. China of course is out of the question as being hostile to India, where most likely this aircraft will be made. Others that might be interest are Venezuela, even one would giving bragging rights in Latin America, South Korea, they already build Russian equipment under license. The Persian Gulf states who are getting a little bit nervous about a rebuilding Iraqi Air Force with F-16′s. Taiwan, at an expected foreign sale price of $50-70 million they would be cheaper then the F-16D’s and of course Vietnam, who would dearly love to meet China in the not so friendly skies of the South China Seas with Su. 50′s.
This is and interesting subject that merits watching.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
I think you are referring to the MiG 1.44. It had 2 test flights 10 years ago, with the first one "ragged". It's gather dust now. Actually in 2002 MiG offered a scaled down version powered by improved MiG-29 engines as its PAK FA competition entry. It lost to Sukhoi. T-50 has had 6 flights at KNAAPO so far without incident. It's just been moved to Zhukovsky for further flights. There is another airframe for taxi tests. Another one for static tests. 2nd flyable by the end of the year. 2 more flyables next year. Weapons bay testing on the S-37 (no drops so far). Engine and radar tests also performed on other Flanker airframes.
This "report" looks like an amateurish compilation of web images (many without attribution). For a real analysis, read these: http://www.defpro.com/daily/details/506/ http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2010-01.html
This "report" looks like an amateurish compilation of web images (many without attribution). For a real analysis, read these:
The Russians (given their economic situation) actually had to consider reasonable trade offs between low observability, cost, and maintenance…we on the other hand are still living in a dream world where we can only have the very best.
LOL. The american economy is totallu f*cked up. It's a matter of time til the poop hits the fan.
the f-35 isn't "the very best", and according to at least one opinion, would be toast against this opponent. (based on its speed, avionics, and weapons.) spending the money on more f-22s might be more effective.
what's worse than buying "the very best" is paying huge bucks for stuff that's inferior or unneeded, for "non-defence" reasons.
What about the AESA that's supposed to be fielded on the F-22 and F-35? Doesn't that negate having an Infrared Search and Track radar? And, if this new Russian 5th Gen. fighter does have an AESA, how does it stack up to the Raptor's? I find it hard to believe that that the Russians can jump into the Stealth game with a prototype that supposedly can best the Raptor in manuverability, lethality, and stealth, even with India's help and the fact that we've had actual combat-proven stealth aircraft for years.
Radar is an active system, you light it up and (almost) everyone knows you’re out there (yes there are various factors involved and I'm not going to list them). IRST is passive, you can see their emissions but they (hopefully) cannot see you. There are other passive systems also that pickup communiqué emissions etc. I know Typhoon and Rafale have them amongst other aircraft. All these passive systems come together to help pick out targets without giving yourself away. Isn’t that the point of stealth? They can’t see you but you can see them, either because of the various passive systems, or say AWACS (active). Why bother with active systems and potentially give yourself away, unless it’s an up close ‘knife fight’.
Another big area of ‘passive’ technology is datalinks – the ability for an AWACS aircraft to share a common air picture with a fighter (which can keep its radar ‘dark’).
This is a field that I know most NATO countries take very seriously – whether Russia has an equivalent system for the T-50 I couldn’t say.
The Russians had rolled out digital datalinks during the Soviet era (Mig 25/31 Interceptors amongst others).
Considering they had quite a few world firsts in the tech department, down playing / rubbishing their efforts with the T-50 by some seems ignorant. Different countries, different philosophies.
LOL, its actually very simple. Once again, the Russians realize that they CANNOT compete with the US in terms of BVR, so of course they HAVE TO go for WVR. End of story. Too bad for the poor Indians.
The PAk FA will be the end of US air dominance as we know it and we seem to be in a state of denial about this. We can respond to it economically through (r)evolutionary upgrades and expansions of proven designs such as the F-15 and F-18 Super Hornet, not by dumping another 60 billion of R and D for a 6th generation fighter without much to show for it at the end. We also need to start partnering with companies such as MBDA to introduce weapons such as the meteor which is superior to the US AIM C to the US arsenal.
Meteor, ASRAAM'… the later is already integrated onto the FA18… they belong to the Australians however. The choice not to field these missiles on US aircraft is probably a political one hiding behind economics rather than technical issue.
And if air combat in the mid 21st Century ever returns to within visual range dogfighting, Pierre Sprey will be ROTFLHAO.
"In a close in “knife fight,” the extreme agility of the PAK FA may allow it to outmaneuver the F-22…."
Russians spending a lot of money they don't have, so they can bring a knife to a gun fight…
In case you haven't realized, we won the cold war with money we didn't have.
The F-22's were built with money we didn't have.
The V-22's were built with money we didn't have.
Our defense spending, mostly with money we don't have, exceeds than the China, Russia, India, Germany, France, and 15 other countries combined.
The sad part is, because only a few companies are allowed to compete to provide military hardware, we're not getting much bang for our buck. Ironic isn't it? We're supposedly the biggest promoters of free market economics yet by failing to enact competitive markets for defense spending we're letting ourselves down.
There is nothing to suggest the PAK-FA will carry a larger internal weapon's load than the F-22A. The F-22A also has outstanding manueverability, so it is quite unlikely the PAK-FA will have any clear advantage in that category.
The PAK-FA should lead the USAF to build more F-22s and continue upgrading the fleet. The F-22 should be an ongoing project just like the F-35. Side AESA arrays and an IRST were originally planned for the ATF and should be on the upgrade path as well.
Why was my post automatically deleted?
Admin, could you undelete that comment? Nothing was wrogn with it.
@FLYNAVY "The most recent air -air fight, was the Gulf of Sidra encounter with Ghaddfi, in August 1981/82. Two USN F-14 Tomcats, encountered Two Mig 17's. This was an easy shoot down and first real air-air combat for the Tomcat. "
Nope, the more recent Navy vs Libya encounter was in 1989 when Tomcats of VF-32 "Swordsmen" shot down two Libyan Mig-23s.
And the dogfight you mentioned involved F-14s from VF-41 "Black Aces" downing a pair of Su-22s.
The USAF can always resurrect the YF-23 if shit ever hits the fan.
Hardware is a nice comparison between the F22 and PAK FA, but pilot training and tactics are what win the day.
why not just building more upgraded F-22s instead of taking chances. It is just a matter of political will, not magic.
some of you seem to have forgotten that navy lt scott speicher was shot down by an iraqi mig-21 during desert storm
A predator engaged in air combat in the late 90s and actually shot at a Iraqi MIG cant remember if it shot it done or not
It didn't.
Hilarious ! Ask any UK fighter pilot armed with Asraam and with awacs support and they would tell that even an old Tornado F3 would take out this pile of Putin Junk !
Russian Jets = Crap Radar Crap missiles Crap Avionics Crap Engines Crap Training Crap Tactics etc etc etc sorry for being as boring as those hyping yet another Russian pipe dream !
Re Current fighters and full service intergration and all weather usability it does seem that the Eurofighter is making rather more use of its ability than the F22 at the moment ?
pretty low tech plane from my understanding, pretty much like everything that russians have..
http://www.red-dot-scopes.com/
I agree with Brian. We have to remember that there isn't good (unclassified) data about how well stealth geometries defeat IRST. Infrared is, obviously, in a different spectrum range than radar. Still, we're talking about electromagnetic energy propagation. Stealth geometry is designed to reduce direct reflection of radar. The same principles could significantly disperse the propagation of infrared energy in any single direction, thus defeating IRST. Obviously AF intel already knows the answer to this question. But as for myself, I'm confident in speculating that IRST won't be effective against an F-22 or F-35 beyond visual range, at least from a frontal angle.