How Russia built a stealth jet to beat the west - Su-57

thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video this is one of the most controversial jets ever built not only is it the result of more than a decade of development and the successor to the legendary flanker but the West already claim it's just a copycat it's a fifth generation state-of-the-art Russian stealth jet that apparently isn't stealth and it's the future of the Russian Air Force but they haven't managed to build more than two dozen controversial indeed but it's possible that this aircraft is more than just a fluke is it just all Western propaganda or is it really a future dangerous underestimation of an adversary today let's explore the history the myths and the truth behind the future of the Russian Air Force and their attempt at a stealth fighter the Felon from the East the the Sue 57 in the 1980s there was one type of new aircraft that was hot hot hot and that was a stealth plane the Americans took this in their stride and developed the ATF program that led to what we know today as the F-22 Raptor but what if I told you that the F22 Raptor isn't actually a stealth jet contrary to to popular belief stealth doesn't mean invisible to the radar it means that the enemy radar either an aircraft or on the ground won't be able to detect and achieve a lock on the Target in time and this is the key word the B2 was designed as a bomber that would be able to slip between Soviet air defenses limiting their range and the F22 Raptor was designed as a first strike air dominance fighter that could secure the airspace before the enemy could get missile lock but the Russians when encountering this technology had other things in mind they believe that the aircraft should have a higher performance first and stealth second this led to their fifth gen jet program called the mfi which was aimed at a high performance aircraft with some degree of radar cross-section minimization it eventually gave birth to the Mig 144 which failed miserably due to Russia as a whole failing miserably in the '90s but the rejection in the mfi program led the sooy bureau to put their money where their mouth was and make their own futuristic fighter called the s37 buru this self-funded aircraft aimed to become a technological demonstrator for the ideal future of the Russian Air Force and show the powers in charge what they could do you know the famous forward swept Wing design we all flew in Ace Combat and this inspired the nation to try again the Russian government after the failure of the mfi program in the early 2000s started a new program called the pack far or prospective Air Force complex of fighter Aviation yes it's a very weird name I know sooy was chosen without competition because they had the experience proved to be able to develop a prototype with their own funding due to good sport performance in the 9s and 2000s and well that the mig's future wasn't really that bright and sooy saying all the drama around the F-22 being a stealth fighter wanted to give it a good hot crack and this is where the story of the Sue 57 begins this fighter jet was supposed to be the future of the Russian Air Force but its subsequent production has hit many delays you might think that the engineer must be so frustrated to see so few of their dream aircraft take to the sky something that you as a business owner might feel the same about your sales but unlike the Russian Air Force this is something that we can fix with the Squarespace website but hold on don't skip this apart as I'll have some sneak peeks for future videos so how can Squarespace help you it starts with the best-in-class website template that you can customize every design detail with reimagined dragon drop technology for desktop and mobile so it's both sites in one you can stretch your imagination online with the Squarespace fluid engine built in and ready to go but that's not all because every Squarespace website also has built-in shops to start selling right away or you can use the campaign marketing tools to start driving business instantly seriously Squarespace is the secret weapon that I use for my own online store where you can get this seriously sick posters at www.fpl.com they do rely on sponsors like Squarespace so by supporting the channel and seeing more videos just like this I'm also able to give you 10% off your first site and domain by going to www.squarespace.com slf found for everybody who clicks that link down below and starts a site thanks so much for years the new Russian fifth gen fighter was under the veil of secrecy and the main topic of discussion on forms military blogs and in the news but in 2010 we finally saw the first pictures and the First videos of this new fighter called the t50 taking off from the Airfield and Performing its first flight the media went crazy saying it's just an F-22 copycat that it's so bad it's good but the truth is that it was somewhere in between so I'm going to show you exactly why the Sue 57 was a big Beast of its own and let's start with the obvious comparison the Sue 57 does follow the wing design of the American fifth gen Fighters but this is where the similarities actually stop unlike the F22 or F35 the s57 follows the similar design of flankers with enges located in gondolas and a tunnel between them to increase the maneuverability and lift performance the vertical stabilizers of the Sue 57 AR canted which is the main requirement of any stealth aircraft to minimize its radar return but they're also used as a whole as a control surface similar to the YF 23 design yes that's right the rejected y23 that the Americans didn't choose when they were looking at the F-22 program and it's this jet that the Sue 57 is actually much more inspired by than the Raptor the no section closely resembles not just the YF 23 but much more the nf23 concept which was based off the wf23 Prototype and we've done a whole video on the channel about this crazy navy variant the s57 kept the horizontal stabilizers and added lerx control services or Leading Edge route extensions which can be used as sort of canards in flight again with maneuverability top of mind but this is where it gets a little weird from the first prototype onwards one notable design Choice was the regular thrust vectoring nozzles and exposed titanium of its al41 engines but I'll get back to why that's weird later another problem with the engine placement is the not fully hidden compressor blades inside the S Ducks even though the Sue 47 had them hidden speculations about the actual stealth performance of the Sue 57 started to flare up right away with some people questioning that this design was even remotely comparable to the F35 or the F22 when it came to stealth so let's squash that bug right now the kind people at aircraft 101 did an amazing work to settle the question of stealth once and for all they created some highly detailed 3D models of some famous modern aircraft and then use mathematical model and radar scattering simulations to get the data of radar cross-sections over the wide range of frequencies meanwhile a leite document for the Sue 57 stealth design Paton actually stated that it has an RCS of 0.1 to 1 M squared this is much much more than the f35s 0.00005 or the F20 2's 0.001 M squared meaning that the Russian jet has the stealth characteristics of a brick wall these numbers proved correct however there was a caveat and trust me we're about to get really technical but it's the devil in the details if we were to examine the results from the aircraft 101 which does not include the effect of RA materials which can't be calculated with Precision the s57 has a med radar cross-section of 0.48 M squared in a frontal 120° this cocid with the Russians leaked report however an f-35's median RCS stands at 0.06 M squar so if we take a look at the diagram it shows a very slight angle of which the f-35's radar cross-section drops to35 or 0.00001 M squ but that's the minimal RCS not the overall frontal RCS of the aircraft so if you take into account the addition of RA materials and this paper on ra material simulations can decrease the radar cross-section up to 90% when the whole object is covered in these materials but here's the thing the F35 or any other jet is not covered in these materials they only use it on the hatches or important sections where the radar waves might scatter back to the source so a decrease in the median RCS can go anywhere between 20 to 90% but not the 200 or 1,000% that people have claimed the bottom line is that there's no chance that the Sue 57 can match the stealth characteristics of the f35s or f-22s but it's not as far for them as the media wants you to believe any modern radar would have trouble detecting and tracking a sub 1 M squ Target so in the eyes of the Russians it's stealthy enough although I do want to just draw back to those strangely exposed engines on the side or back section of the Sue 57 the radar cross-section is probably much higher than its American counterparts because of those engine issues and then of course we have the famous exposed screws with the Sue 57 but this is not a key factor because well as you could see both the F35 and F22 also have exposed screws and they are both still extremely stealthy aircraft but it's the stealth that isn't the biggest issue with the s57 it's actually those engines the Russians made the same mistake that put to trash so many projects throughout the Cold War they started to development of this jet without its new engines now that's not really a bad idea per se I mean the Rafel and the Sue 27 and many other successful Jets flew their first flight without engines designed for them but that was the floor that was quickly fixed the s57 on the other hand still doesn't have its proper engines the development of e daia 30 is a long and still not concluded story in the serial production of the Sue 57s fly with Al 41 F1 engines similar to the ones used on the Su 35 and these are great engines don't get me wrong however even though they designed as super Cruise capable engines for the mfi program the ones inside the original Sue 57 are not based on the original al41 FS because they were too large for the Felon and instead they're based on the older Al 31s meaning the Sue 57 might not be a able to achieve super Cruise in a full combat load as the Sue 35 can only achieve it in a light configuration yikes now the cool thing is about these L 47s is that they have 3D thust vectoring giving the Sue 57 amazing maneuverability as well as the thrust to weight ratio over one with combat load making it a beast for dog fighting but this isn't the era of dog fighting and this scenario is highly unlikely in Modern Combat sorry Tom Cruz the newest daia 30 or Al 51 engines are supposed to have the super Cruise ability at Mac 1.5 serrated nozzles like the f135 engine on the F35 and the ability to eliminate the exposed titanium area and maybe even more flat more stealthy design as seen on the S70 drone but when exactly that's going to happen remains to be seen oh oh you didn't know this aircraft comes with its own drones this is where it gets really cool what could really give the edge to the Sue 57 is the use of a wingman style drones such as the S70 and unlike the Sue 57 with all of its issues the S70 is much more designed with stealth in mind and its size gives it the ability to carry some serious ornament paired with the s57 it could be the perfect protection or attacking force with a s57 or an awax aircraft could spot the targets for the drones and let them go forward so they can gauge with the Enemy completely unseen along with these drones in their Sue 57 Russia is also developing something called the ozod a new data link system the equivalent to the elak 16 in NATO that would allow for such military drone operations the S70 has already performed several test flights and is deep in the development phase so it's not a paper project but the war in Ukraine and the state of the Russian Armed Forces afterwards begs the question where exactly are they going to find the money to fund all of these prospective but far-fetched projects so it's taken me 13 minutes into today's video to get to the real issue with this project money originally India partnered up with Russia in 2007 to help Finance the development of the new fighter in return to get their own two seater variant and the license to build this new jet at home the development of the t50 Prototype and the pakfar program as a whole suffered numerous delays and issues due to the engine and the completely new avionics with the radar sensors Etc That was supposed to go into this aircraft and so the Indians rightly so got fed up with it in 2018 they exited the project with the option to buy a finished aircraft in future if Russia ever got around to mass producing it and it entered service within the Russian Air Force but this is where it gets dicey Russia dropped their initial plan of 200 of these Fighters all the way just to one Squadron of 12 talk about a decrease but this was soon change with the first contract for 76 aircraft being signed in 2017 but this delivery has been extremely slow and so far only around 10 plus airframes are in operational service the Sue 57 was allegedly used both in Syria for testing and in the war in Ukraine in an air-to-air battle and even apparently scored a kill against the ukrainians through 27 but all of that is in the realm or might or might have not and because this war is a fully-fledged battle of propaganda from day one spinning a yarn that the suit 57 was an amazing aircraft in the heat of battle would be an incredibly successful image for Russian customers so again that's me telling you to take this all with a grain of salt now to answer the very big question that's on your mind what would exactly happen if the Sue 57 went toe to- Toe with America's best the F2 22 Raptor or perhaps the F35 well I hope you're strapped in because we're going to go into the real nitty and gritty detail and we'll start with its electronics and weaponry the Sue 57 is equipped with the new aesa radar called the n36 Bela which is actually made up of five different antennas the main antenna operates in the xand and is used to lock onto enemy targets and engage as well as detect enemies on long distances there are two side antennas that also operate in the xand but with a shorter range giving the aircraft much better coverage around 270° and there's another two antennas on the wings that are operating in the lower L band frequency and they're used as part of the electronic warfare system yes that's right this aircraft is digital at the front of the canopy is a system called the irst which allows for detection of thermal signatures of enemy aircraft and the use of ir guided missiles without using the radar it's the same as the one of the eots functions on the F35 and something that the F22 Raptor lacks but it might get it in an upgrade soon now the Su 57 does have Sensor Fusion in a computer working on all of the collected data to give situational awareness to the pilot similar to the Dazz on the F35 but it is certainly inferior to the unpowered situational awareness that the F35 pilot has with that amazing helmet and Dez system one being issue of the Sue 57 is the lack of an interrogated targeting pod like the F-35 the F35 on the other hand can use its internal systems for targeting groundbased targets so it Still Remains stealthy to sum it all up the s57 is quite capable platform with some issues which place it behind its Western counterparts in some aspects but it is Way Beyond any fourth or fourth Plus+ gen aircraft in the market and any fifth gen fighter development as well so it's truly something to be reckoned with but what about the future of this program as we explained in the video the Sue 57 although not perfect still has a very powerful radar and avionics decent stealth capability and great engines well sometime soon if they come along the planned Sue 57m update will feature them at least because drones and other stuff is still in the Sci-Fi domain to be honest but neither of these Western jets would be able to detect the Sue 57 in time if they in combat because it's also capable of carrying the r 37m longrange missile Iles and firing them from at least 200 km away Russia plans to use the s57 as a team leader of several Jets to provide surveillance and support in combat although all of this is very nice in theory the issue is there is only about 10 to 15 sou 57s built even with that whole first batch of 76 delivered that's not enough to counter even the single F22 Fleet and definitely not the 1,000 strong f F35 Fleet in both the US and NATO ironically all of this discussion about who would win makes me think that we're looking in the wrong direction the Chinese j20 is a way bigger threat to the US because it is actually in serial production unlike the s57 and given the state of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine right now time will tell for all we know that this is one hell of a good-looking bird and that its claim of being a stealth aircraft is as real as those engines and even though some people say that it's obsolete I think that this aircraft along with the F22 design will shape many future aircraft and maybe even whole generations to come I hope you guys and that one girl enjoyed this video and I hope to see you soon in the next episode of found and explained

Channel: Found And Explained

Views: 688,133

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Id: gIBuxZv9J44

Length: 21min 53sec (1313 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 21 2024