Why The SU57 'Felon' Sucks

[Music] thank you the fighter jet The Cutting Edge of Mankind's technological blade has been evolving for decades in every way the dogfight along an epic battle of maneuverability and skill has been replaced by a who can detect who first almost always from Beyond visual range with modern stealth Fighters having such Advanced detection systems and missiles in liquid systems such as a wax the most important factor of what makes a winning fighter jet has become less about speed turn radius and more about how hard it is to detect how good its sensors are and how well it works in a data link with other air and ground assets like how the turn of warfare from The Swordsman to The Rifleman the times have changed once more the su-57 is an attempt to approach the modern world of combat while being strong in only the waves that are no longer Skirmish deciding traits while a wonderful looking aircraft with decent maneuverability and speed and an interesting noise to boot it is inadequate for Modern air-to-air Combat with the su-57 pin reduced as Russia's Premier stealth fighter it seems that it fails to achieve that role instead decided to be the fighter jet equivalent of a lighthouse when compared to its competition now if I'm going to tell you that the issue 57 isn't very good as a stealth fighter after Explain how and to start off that means explaining how this is calculated how stealth is measured and that's in radar cross section so when a radar is looking for a Target and that aircraft is being picked up by radar how much is being picked up as stealth aircraft Are Not Invisible but low observable so if it is a small object on radar it may be completely undetected or filtered as noise we measure this in meters squared so for example the f117 stealth bomber designed in the 1970s had a radar cross section of 0.003 meters squared about the size of a hummingbird when picked up on radar now this doesn't mean it's invisible but low observable as was proven when one was shot down in 1999 during the NATO air campaign in Yugoslavia allegedly after flying repeated flight pass that became known to Yugoslav forces and being picked up on radar as it opened its Bombay doors which increased the radar cross-section of the aircraft as it revealed its non-stealth coated underbelly this being said the F-35 is in comparison claimed to have a frontal radar cross-section of 0.0001 meters squared with its Advanced fiber matte radar absorbent material the su-57 however has a radar cross-section of 0.1 to 1 meter squared now this claim isn't by the west but claimed by Sukhoi themselves this means that it has 1 000 times of a worse radar cross-section than the F-35 in fact it has a similar radar cross-section not to other stealth Fighters but fourth gen Fighters like the F-18 Super Hornet or the Saab Griffin which are not 5th gen Fighters and not stealth with such a large radar cross-section the Felon would be greatly outmatched in any engagement with the F-35 F-22 and being unable to confidently ensure dominance against many Western fourth generation fighters to understand the real world difference let's take the S 400 91n6e search radar as reference according to the manufacturer the the 91n6e has a detection range of 390 kilometers against a 4 meter squared RCS Target so it should be that an F-18 Super Hornet is detectable from 275 kilometers the su-57 from 155 kilometers and an F-35 from 27 kilometers in short a radar will be having around 6 to 10 times greater detection range against a felon compared to its competitor the F-35 so when it comes to stealth for a stealth fighter the su-57 genuinely sucks but why well the issues of the su-57 come down to a number of things stealth is achieved in a number of ways for one and one of these is being shape now shape can be simulated and compared on computer softwares and in physical form with models now I'm going to link some citations to the one I've used and it's fantastic work and goes even further into depth for those of you interested if you wish to look into it now one element of this test is that the material of the aircraft is not taken into account as the classified Ram Coatings cannot be calculated using these simulations now in this test the Air 35 comes out with a radar cross section of 0.06 much less than the stated figure due to the ram coating radar absorbent material not being taken into account and the sg57 comes in at 0.4 added reference the j-20 achieved 0.2 so the su-57 is by far the least stealthy of the three so it's not very well designed for stealth in general but why well firstly the frontal view of the Felon shows that the fan blade of the engine are easily visible front on if scanned by radar with so many edges leading to a spike in radar cross-section this is a big disadvantage for stealth this is due to a lack of something called Serpentine air intakes that would usually conceal the engine as is seen in the F-35 and F-22 respectively as well as this there are certain issues such as the irst Dome an older style targeting module that is not present on Modern stealth aircraft like the Air 35 which has a more advanced system called eots which reduces RCS over the previous system whilst being an upgrade in range and Target acquisition as well as this it's worth noting that the felons irst Dome when in use will not have a ram coating to avoid radar spiking when it hits that area as the irst domes front portion will give off a large Spike to the aircraft's RCs while it says hidden when it's turned off as the rear portion does have a coating when the Felon is actively searching for targets it will have a less stealthy radar cross section this is why this system is absent from Planes such as the j-20 the F-22 and the F35 it is however seen on the su-75 Checkmate so it'll be interesting to see how stealthy the Checkmate truly is the shape of the fighter could also have been greater optimize for stealth but it seems the Russians have doubled down on the Aging fighter philosophy of yesteryear meaning stealth shaping was compromised I'm of the l-35's built-in system that automatically tracks radar signals and autonomously positions the aircraft in the optimal position to reduce its signature it's clear the su-57 is going to have a hard time comparing and lastly there is the matter of radar absorbent material or RAM for sure the F-117 utilized the coating at a heavy maintenance requirement and while this was greatly improved with the B2 and the F-22 the Americans experience with stealth is its eighth up its sleeve with the F-35 stronger more durable and stealthier coating giving it a huge advantage over the felon now some of you may be wondering Kubota what about the exposed screws that I saw in Reddit doesn't that sharpen radar well that is indeed an issue it presents an even greater one than you may think the build quality to put the plane together may have its flaws but the fact that the screws are exposed shows that the su-57 lacks radar absorbent material at least in the viral photo much is yet to be desired of the aircraft's material with the commonly seen paint Scheme looking so different from other stealth aircraft because optimal Ram coating is typically prioritized over having different colors and styles it is unlikely the plane has a very effective coating either if Sakura is claiming an RCS that isn't much better than simulations find from the shape alone but if you are wondering such exposed elements such as Crews and heads will appear on radar too what other build quality can be heavily criticized is the presence of bubbles in the cockpit glass I mean this is Russia's attempt at a fifth generation stealth fighter it should have been the cream of the crop of Russia's Air Force and they couldn't get the glass canopy right you're supposed to be making a stealth fighter not a bubble bath maybe they were going for a more relaxed spa-like atmosphere in the cockpit I imagine the pilot would need it that tells me enough about the quality control to not have high hopes for this poor aircraft not only is the quality of the production quad bad but it seems the Russians have forgotten that they usually try to make up for that recurring shortfall with quantity because this plane's largest weakness seems to be that there's hardly any of them since the first fabled floor in 2010 there are only 10 su-57s in the Russian Air Force in comparison in 2021 alone a total of 142 F-35 fighter jets were delivered with the total number of f-35s and used to be nearly 1 000 as of April 2023 with this numbers planned to be 3 000 as the cost of the fighter jet rapidly tumbles production source and the the su-57s simply cannot compare to this this immediately shows the reasoning behind the classic Russian wonder weapon treatment of the Felon which also translates to other failed projects such as the T14 Armada extremely low production rate leaving the vehicle to have more propaganda value than strategic this shows a further credible expectation for the su-75 checkmate with so many of Russia's post-soviet production attempts failing to win export success or basic levels of domestic production to fit need over and over again truly the su-57 is a metaphor for the Russian military's production Industrial capabilities in the modern era after the fall of the USSR sure Russia can occasionally produce some decent stuff but when it can it's rare or insignificant and the stuff that truly matters is overrated time and time again Russia simply is not the Soviet Union it doesn't have the same production capabilities expertise all the money to make such projects work this will likely be the case for the issue 75 Checkmate 2. as mentioned earlier the initial prototype displayed an old style irst Dome fine for use in the fourth generation aircraft but not on a fifth generation stealth aircraft it seems that if the Russians still haven't Advanced from this who knows what else they will still be lagging behind and while the Felon could have a number of its limiting challenges remedied in the future it is highly likely that this will be too little too late if that is even finally achieved so when we stack the su-57 up against this competition it falls vastly sure yes it makes an interesting sound when it flies overhead yes it paint job looks kind of cool but the truth is it just sucks it's nearly a generation behind the F-35 which greatly outperforms it in every important metric in modern aerial combat by seeing it first hitting it first without even appearing to the su-57 even visually so the su-57 fails as a stealth fighter and unfortunately for it that means in the modern world that the fernan is nothing but the target so that's the end of the video I hope you found the analysis insightful and informative if you enjoyed this video and want to see more content like this don't forget to give it a like and a thumbs up and hit the Subscribe button below if you have any questions or thoughts or opinions about my arguments please share them in the comments section below I always appreciate your feedback and love engaging in discussions with you also if you're feeling generous and want to support our Channel consider becoming a patron on our patreon page your donations will help us continue producing ever more high quality videos that challenge conventional wisdom and inform public discourse on a matters of geopolitics and defense finally if you know someone who might enjoy this video or someone that's bragging about the su-57 the overrated hanger Queen please share it with them I've been Kubota thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: Kaboda

Views: 878,011

Keywords: SU57, Felon, Jet, Plane, Aircraft, Russia, Fighter, Discussion, Defence, Geopolitics, Ukrainewar, F35, F22, F16, F18, Gripen, Military, Equipment, Technology, Science

Id: kwbiOXYFDMg

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 22 2023