UPDATE: Reader Tamas Szorad from Hungary (blogs at AirBase – but brush up on your Hungarian before you go there!) passed some great information and image links on this T-50 Prototype.
A great image slide-show is here, and here is one screen capture from that slide show. As Tamas points out in his comment, there are 2 weapons stations between the engine nacelles – and that would be it. Anything carried on hard points externally (if there are any hard points) either on the wings or on each nacelle would severely degrade whatever stealth capabilities it may have. Also, look at the engines…another comment from Jason points out the engine nozzles appear to be conventional nozzels vice thrust-vector controlled exhausts – but we know the Russians have that technological capability by seeing the MiG-29M thrust vector test bed (go watch here ) so by these few first-flight images and videos mean nothing.
Photo courtesy kommersant.ru
Here’s a better video of the first flight.
Bottom line? At this stage? Nice looking platform, but we can’t really make any determinations about capability in the 5th-generation fighter comparison until it is fielded as a full-up-round unit. Mark this one in the “undetermined” category for the next handful of years.
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Russia just test flew a new stealth fighter aircraft design. The Sukhoi T-50 prototype took off for its first test flight from the company’s production plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Friday – which would be today since the Sukhoi production facility is in eastern Siberia and that means they are however many hours ahead of us time-wise.
First impressions? A Russian F-22 Knock-Off – or at least looks like it, flies like it (or so we’re told). It remains to be seen if it has the same or similar capabilities of the F-22. Smallish vertical stabilizers. Dunno/Can’t see if weapons are carried internally or externally, but if they want to maximize the stealthiness of the vehicle, they will *have* to be internal.We’ll just have to see.
Some pics:
Fri Jan 29, 6:00 AM ET
In this image made from a TV screen and provided by APTN, a Russian-made Sukhoi T-50 prototype fifth-generation fighter jet is seen during a test flight near the Siberian city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Russia on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010. Russia’s new fifth-generation fighter made a successful maiden test flight on Friday, the manufacturer said.
The below image seems to show a hint of extended leading edges on the forward wings – an aerodynamic effect first seen on F-16 XL test beds a number of years ago:
Those leading-edge extensions help in the high-angle of attack flight regime – they extend as long as possible the lift on the wings and delay the lift-killing that happens as the nose come up and the airflow over the wings, providing lift for the platform, slowly dies away.
What this means to whatever air balance of power out there in the world remains to be seen. Whatever lead the US had with the stealth/flight capabilities of the F-22 Raptor may be short lived, although this sort of technology will not be produced as the old MiG series of aircraft were where thousands upon thousands upon thousands (over 10,000 for the MiG 2and its variants. The old Soviet idea of quantity over quality does not apply so much in today’s technological battlefield). Still, the Air Superiority and Air Supremacy in the battlespace we have come to count on and expect might have to be contested when and if we engage into the next peer or near-peer conflict.
Anyone headed to Paris anytime soon? Perhaps you’ll see one there next year.
J. Carmichael // Jan 29, 2010 at 10:39 am
Has a little F-23 in it too… no?
Jason // Jan 29, 2010 at 10:52 am
I’m guessing the vertical stabs can be smaller because the FCS incorporates 3-D TVC (thrust vector control) to add additonal longitudial stability. The afterburner nozzles look conventional but probably do incorporate TVC similar to the TVC on the SU-35. Note the lack of ventral fins for stability.
The F-22 has 2-D TVC with the trapeziodal afterburner nozzles.
Pinch // Jan 29, 2010 at 10:54 am
JC,
Definitely. Hate their old ideology, but they did build beautiful ships and planes. I still think the SU-27 Flanker is one of the purtiest things around – behind a Tomcat, of course!
John // Jan 29, 2010 at 10:59 am
Surely not “behind” a Tomcat?
And those intakes look enormous.
Pinch // Jan 29, 2010 at 11:07 am
ACK…!!!!! I hate those sentences that look ok one minute and then look so horribly misused the next! lol…yes, JC…thanks for pointing that out…not *behind* a Tomcat, but AFTER a Tomcat.
Matt // Jan 29, 2010 at 12:46 pm
As an engineering student this is exciting. Our aerospace industry has been sluggish since the end of the cold war, maybe now there will be some big bad new projects to work on!
Pinch // Jan 29, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Matt,
Could be, but don’t shirk the unmanned side of the equation. Talk abounds that manned aircraft are on the way out based on the capabilities of the aircraft to exceed the capabilities of the human body. I know the arguments – you’ll never havea better computer in an aircraft than a human brain, but still…logic doesn’t drive these things and there *are* a number of good points to combat-capable UAV aircraft.
Matthew S // Jan 29, 2010 at 2:51 pm
So this was the first maiden test flight eh? According to Wikipedia the F-22 started flight tests in 1997 and entered service in December 2005. I wonder if it will take a longer or shorter amount of time for the Soviet, er Russian, to get operational.
Pinch // Jan 29, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Matthew S:
Along what you speak of…
Technology being what it is, I first saw the Bell XV-15 tilt rotor, which was what the V-22 Osprey was based a large amount on, at an airshow in Halifax in 1984. It first flew in 1977. Full-Rate Production of the V-22 was issued in 2005. That would make a 28 year development cycle for a military tilt-rotor.
Matt // Jan 29, 2010 at 6:58 pm
True, UAV’s are probably the future. At this point its hard to imagine a computer handling all the different inputs/senses and decision making process that a human pilot would use in the role of a fighter pilot. For attack roles it is much simpler. I always thought they should be called RMAV (remotely manned aerial vehicle). But the idea of someone hundreds of miles away looking at a few screens and trying to win a dogfight against someone who is actually in the other plane seems far off. Then again how often does anyone ever get into an actual dogfight? I suppose it is inevitable, but it will be a sad day when the last manned fighter is retired.
John Carmichael // Jan 29, 2010 at 11:09 pm
I’m curious as to how UAV’s fare in our sims when a war game includes a respectable air power enemy. Using UAV’s in air dominance theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan) is one thing… but I’m just wandering what their survivability is in a more competitive environment. I’m sure stealth has a lot to do with the potential survivability, but once engaged by the enemy… I’m thinking the SA of the operator is severely limited…. Ya know, no InstaPinch in the back seat checking six and all that.
Also… Pinch is it me or do the majority of Soviet birds take their first flight sans paint? I always wondered if that was an experiment in RCS… “Ok here’s what it registers nekkid,” then paint it with their version of RAM… then test again? Just spitball’n hadn’t really thought that through.
-JC
John Carmichael // Jan 30, 2010 at 12:58 am
Ok two corrections… the word is “wondering”… I wasn’t strolling. and second, yeah… I guess they ain’t “Soviets” anymore. I forgot we won the cold war there for a moment… muh bad.
SJBill // Jan 29, 2010 at 11:13 pm
Film at 11:00.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22fN4fVoFdY
SJBill // Jan 29, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Sorry for the second post, but more here also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxWZiSdWvns
Tamas Szorad // Jan 30, 2010 at 10:30 am
Hello from Hungary!
If I know well it has two weapon bays between engines.
Some photos at:
http://www.kommersant.ru/dark-gallery.aspx?PicsID=415335&stpid=65
Best regards,
Tamas Szorad
Aeromagazin
Air Base blog
Hungary
Glenn Mark Cassel AMH1(AW) USN Ret. // Jan 31, 2010 at 12:30 am
I would say it resembles the YF-23 more than the Raptor. I see Raptors every day here at Edwards and it is sort of close. But way more like the 23.