It's a poor mans F-22 raptor...

[razgriz]

just google or yahoo image search it u will find tons, it got a lot of attention for a failed design.

[krullnar]

Wow is it me or did they just rip the Raptors design?

[speedstriker]

that would be the aborted Su-47 Berkut (golden eagle) a forward swept wing fighter with thrust vectoring and an internal weapons bay which could probably out fly or out fight anything in the sky but unlike the raptor it wasnt stealthy, they only built a single prototype and well its not likely to make it into production. they (sukhoi and the russians) apparently are working on something called the pak-fa (russian abbreviation for prospective front line fighter aircraft) that apparently is their version of the raptor, from the pics ive seen it even looks like a raptor wit some russian touches.

Excuse me for being very naive about practical aeronautical designs, but damn! This is one sexy machine! The forward swept wings and the rectangular fuselage just spell awesome for me. Proves once again that Just having the looks irl isn't quite enough doesn't it? Especially seeing how Raptor isn't much of a looker either...

[krullnar]

Thats what i thought when i first saw it but alas it was not ment to be.

[razgriz]

well at least the berkut lives on in ace combat games as well as some homages to it in other genre like macross and even transformers animated. it will be interesting to see if that sukhoi pak-fa comes out looking like a raptor clone it would be an interesting dogfight scenario if that were the case cuz we know the russians are just full of deadly surprises

[speedstriker]

Wait...why did that thing fail again? From what razgriz said, it should be quite a machine, even without the stealth. It should also be cheaper to produce than the Raptor, so why was it abandoned after all this research? Is Russia that broke right now?

[SNT1]

Not to delve too deep into politics, but most of the world IS broke right now. Russia doesn't need an F-22 challenger right away; and there are no potential customers for super-agile dogfighter Sukhoi that can actually afford a proper 5th gen. What everyone wants is a good, reliable, jack-of-all-trades multirole jet. Thus, Typhoons and Lightning IIs are the most wanted. Ok, so the Raptor is also a super agile dogfighter that everyone wants, but its basically an air Lamborghini. Everyone wants of those. But get real, world

Money is most always the determining factor when considering these things.

[speedstriker]

TT__TT Sad truth is sad... Sorry for not contributing much to the discussion.... B'aaawww!!!

[razgriz]

well sukhoi did come out with the su-30mki specifically for the indian air force its a gen 4.5 fighter but a damn good one it could easily outpace anything in the sky short of the raptor, it could probably do well against eagles or super hornets

[Lans]

Wait...why did that thing fail again? From what razgriz said, it should be quite a machine, even without the stealth. It should also be cheaper to produce than the Raptor, so why was it abandoned after all this research? Is Russia that broke right now?

Russian is somewhat healthier than most countries. They don’t really effected by credit crunch like US or EU, only very small portion, like 5% of their population involved in stock exchange. Changes of production demand might be horrendous but they pretty don’t really excel in international trade except for natural resources so they the economic crisis didn’t really hurt them much.

The economic mess of Yeltsin's era is already over, 2006 or 2007 they even paid all the international loans far ahead of the initial prediction (meaning it includes fine since it's faster than scheduled). Since then we could see more and more Russian's military muscle being stretched out after so many years. The era of old, junk, cannibalization war machine is over. It isn’t right anymore to think them as the same old Russia or Ex-Soviet Russia.

The Berkut is just an experimental platform, not really a prototype. It’s not like the YF series for Raptor or anything. Things like the Berkut or its derivative rarely reach mass production and usually enters museum when it’s over. Still, the research and data can be used for existed or future fighters.

[razgriz]

apparently china and india and even japan have plans for their own homegrown gen 5 fighter, so if the world economy improves the raptor may have a worthy opponent before you kno it. its fun to be the best, but isnt it also fun to have some healthy competition?

[speedstriker]

apparently china and india and even japan have plans for their own homegrown gen 5 fighter, so if the world economy improves the raptor may have a worthy opponent before you kno it. its fun to be the best, but isnt it also fun to have some healthy competition?

Hehehe....This is why i mentioned that no nation that produce their own line of fighters will be smart enough to not call other nations names!! Rumour has it that China's J-xx is produced to specifically counter the American (noticed how I just had to bring up the name of the country XP) F-22 Raptor! Like I said, I'm not too knowlegdeable when it comes to aero engineering, but China on a whole wouldn't boast about just anything, so this J-XX seems to be one hell of a project for them. Hopefully we'll have another update for the Flight Simulator and could carry out simulation battles b/w all of these amazing machines. That or WW III break out and we all get screwed over.

[FEMC_Mirage_Corp]

Hehehe....This is why i mentioned that no nation that produce their own line of fighters will be smart enough to not call other nations names!! Rumour has it that China's J-xx is produced to specifically counter the American (noticed how I just had to bring up the name of the country XP) F-22 Raptor! Like I said, I'm not too knowlegdeable when it comes to aero engineering, but China on a whole wouldn't boast about just anything, so this J-XX seems to be one hell of a project for them. Hopefully we'll have another update for the Flight Simulator and could carry out simulation battles b/w all of these amazing machines. That or WW III break out and we all get screwed over

I wouldn't look for an F-22 challenger from China anytime in the next 10-15 yrs. They're having enough trouble getting the J-10 to work and it's just bottom grade f-16 knockoff. They can't even produce reliable engines for it on their own yet and those are the heart of any good fighter. They simply don't have the technical base for producing something comparable to the F-22, yet. They will eventually, but no time soon.

[Lans]

Probably more like 15 to 20 years. Till now they haven't dedicate much to pursue 5 gen fighter like F-22. The big boys in this area are still the same, USA, French and Russia.

[Demon Lord of L5]

Don't forget the EF Typhoon Countries UK, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, etc, which France was a original member and were going to have the only carrier variant but then got inpatient and couldn't agree with the other members so the pulled out and commissioned the Default Rafale.

[Lans]

Don't forget the EF Typhoon Countries UK, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, etc, which France was a original member and were going to have the only carrier variant but then got inpatient and couldn't agree with the other members so the pulled out and commissioned the Default Rafale.

So far, they seem to be satisfied with 4 or some said 4.5 gen fighter. OFC, there's also the problem of them wanting the craft to be able to do so many things. They put too much thought on the terms multipurpose.

[Demon Lord of L5]

Don't forget the EF Typhoon Countries UK, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, etc, which France was a original member and were going to have the only carrier variant but then got inpatient and couldn't agree with the other members so the pulled out and commissioned the Default Rafale.

So far, they seem to be satisfied with 4 or some said 4.5 gen fighter. OFC, there's also the problem of them wanting the craft to be able to do so many things. They put too much thought on the terms multipurpose.

Not really seeming in the RAF/Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm most of its aircraft are multi-role with the Harrier GR-9 and FA2 which are in old terms Fighter Bombers and the Tornado which is yet again a Fighter Bomber and Recon aircraft.

And also the Typhoon is built as one standard unit by mainly BAE Systems, BAE Spain, BAE Italy and powered by Rolls Royce Engines and then sent to each country where it is then customised to each countries specs in which the UK models are going to be air supiority Fighter Bomber.

My honest opinion is I can't stand the over hype of the F-22 mainly because of the the design, the design is more about stealth and high speed over aerobatics like in a dog fight situation, where the other current generation have gone with either more advanced thrust vecturing technology or make the airframe completely unstable.

[Lans]

We can't really tell, stealth does have strong point in today's warfare. We just can't fight something that won't even show on radar. and all the range weaponry pretty much stuck on radar capabilities. Against stuff like F-22 we pretty much fighting blindfolded with guns while them could see us perfectly, and launch a missile or two from BVR if they really want to bother with us.

[FEMC_Mirage_Corp]

My honest opinion is I can't stand the over hype of the F-22 mainly because of the the design, the design is more about stealth and high speed over aerobatics like in a dog fight situation, where the other current generation have gone with either more advanced thrust vecturing technology or make the airframe completely unstable.

The high speed has a couple of very important effects that aren't immediately obvious.

1) It substantially increases the range of the missiles on it. Launch at Mach 1.5 vs .75 = substantially greater kinetic energy and thus range.

2) It vastly increases the area you can effectively cover with the plane, since you can transit to and from locations much more quickly.

As far as stealth goes, well historically the most successful and effective pilots have been those that acted more like assassins and not jousting knights. From what I've read, most pilots who have gotten shot down were taken completely unaware or never saw the aircraft that killed them. Kills in head to head dogfights are the exception rather than the rule as I understand it.

The F-22's other really big advantage in this area is the radar. The AESA (active electronically steered array) radar it has is dramatically more powerful and effective than anything else currently deployed and neither the Rafael or EF are getting anything comparable for at least 4-5 yrs (though the CAPTOR radar on the EF is very good in it's own right). It is supposed to be very difficult to detect, so the first warning an aircraft will get is when the AMARAM's radar kicks in at which point it's probably too late to do much. The EW capabilities are supposedly incredible, to the point where it may be able to actually burn out radar seekers on incoming missiles.

There are no other current generation fighters with more advanced thrust vectoring. In fact aside from some prototypes and the Su-30MKI (2D Thrust Vectoring) none of them (Rafael, EF, F-35, Su-what ever they are calling it this week) even has thrust vectoring.

All current fighter designs are inherently unstable. Even the F-16 and F-18 were "relaxed stability" IIRC.

Just consider that it has been getting kill rates against F-15s in exercises of 100+ to nothing and that the F-15 has a record in air to air combat of 104 to nothing.

Being a hot shot in dogfighting is something that sounds a lot better than it really is with current airplanes. The biggest problems is that a dramatically inferior aircraft has a decent chance to take you out. But you do grossly underestimate the F-22's capabilities in this area. There is nothing that is clearly superior to it and those that may have an edge (mainly the EF) don't have much of one. Thrust vectoring + an enormous T/W ratio make it an opponent you have to respect.

It really is in a league of it's own currently.

[Demon Lord of L5]

The F-22's other really big advantage in this area is the radar. The AESA (active electronically steered array) radar it has is dramatically more powerful and effective than anything else currently deployed and neither the Rafael or EF are getting anything comparable for at least 4-5 yrs (though the CAPTOR radar on the EF is very good in it's own right). It is supposed to be very difficult to detect, so the first warning an aircraft will get is when the AMARAM's radar kicks in at which point it's probably too late to do much. The EW capabilities are supposedly incredible, to the point where it may be able to actually burn out radar seekers on incoming missiles.

You can't compare the base unit due to each country are going to have they're own varient, in which I knowthe UK varient will actually be fitted with the latest BMARAM which in fact will have the longest range, this is due to unlike most air to air missiles which use solid fuel rocket propellent this latest missile will actually have a small jet engine to propel it.


My opinion the Main weekness of the F-22 is that it is an aircraft designed for one single purpose which is air supiority, which the last one was the F-15 but that even got changed to a Fighter Bomber with the F-15E Strike Eagle. My truthful opininion is that a modern fighter needs to do more than air to air.