OMG, thanks for the laugh-riot!  Apparently the Russian Popular Mechanics is even more fanciful than the original American magazine.

 

American amateurs may laugh but Russia is 5 to 10 years backward USA in technology (10 years for electronic mainly due to restriction on ITAR components and restriction of Wassenaar list) while F22 use a technology from nineties except the radar and RWR/.ESM mesurement suit which use post yr 2000 components.(France and UK are late behind USA between 2 and 7 years in average depending technology fields - 2 to 5 years average late in electronic - according to French and UK Mod public reports.)

 

Which means clearly that Russians can field a plane corresponding of a delivery of a similar US plane in 2010 for the airframe and 2005 for the electronic.

So it should be as advanced as initial F22 but maybe lighter.

However I doubt that Russian will have an internal bay bigger than the F35 bay or even the F22 main bay.

Internal bay cost a lot in performance and weight.

I don't think they would handle more than 8 missiles internally even for a new compact missile.

 

Internal bay cost a lot in performance and weight.

I mean you have to get a bigger and more powerful aircraft to compensate for the internal bay impact in weight and increase of frontal drag (since it occupies a good volume in airframe).

Good luck for the Russians.

80 millions $ is a lot considering Russian manpower is 3 to 5 time less expansive than in EU or USA.However it will be probably an export price or a program price.

I've got to admit it's a good looking fighter (and incidentally, looks quite a bit like the KFX...hmmm).  The question is, can and will the Russians build it?  I've been hearing about PAK-FA since about 1998.  Here we are, a decade later, and all we're seeing is awesome-looking artwork.  No mockups (that I know of, admittedly), no prototypes, no flying examples.  And who's going to build it--MiG or Sukhoi? 

 

I have no doubt that if the Russians put their mind to it and they have the money, they can turn out a damn fine fighter.  The question I have is, when does this become real and when does it stop being a really long leg-pull? 

 

 

 

They will not get a 5th gen. fighter until at least 2020, and it will not be as good in A2A as the F-22, or as good as the F-35 in A2G. Just look at the SU-34 and 35. Those planes were spouse to come out during the early 90's and after two decades there are only handful of them. They would of been top of the line in the 90's, but they came out to late and still are not in mass production.

 

I do agree with you about the money part. I have always said if the Russians had money they would be right there with the US in fighter tech.

It's real?  Hmm.

 

 

Hmm again.

 

 

And lastly, hmm some more:

 

On 20 August 2009, Russian Air Force Chief Alexander Zelin said that there were problems with the engines and research was continuing.

...I find it curious that all the renders of the PAK-FA we see always display it with circular nozzles.

I'm well aware that the US has for several years into the early F-22 program been depicting many conceptual drawing  re-doctored with 2-D vectoring nozzles replacing all the previous conceptual drawings with "standard' round nozzles, once the benefits (IR suppressive abilities, thrust vectoring in the vertical) of 2-D nozzles became the choice to have for any future ATF (F-22 program's initial moniker).

 

Seems though that with the advent of the thrust vectoring nozzles the Russians have developed for the Flanker series and recently migrated into the latest developmental Fulcrums, it's still interesting that the Russians have still opted for circular vectoring nozzles rather than the US approach of flatter-profile 2-D shapes.

 

Could it be that the Russians have further mastered TVC control of a manned aircraft to the point their vectoring engines are no longer 2-D (up and down like in the first Flankewrs which featured them), but more 3-D, not unlike the axis-symetric vectoring engine of the USAF's F-16 AVEN program?

With a 3-D TVC ability (yaw as well as pitch), that could lead to serious advantage in WVR dogfights (even with HOBS AAMs,...missiles generally run out faster than gun ammo).

 

Another thing to draw in part from that: notice the depicted PAK-FA's vertical (canted) tail fins are considerably smaller than earlier generation aircraft (Flanker, Fulcrum, etc).

In part, a stealth requirement, I realize that.

But also needs to be taken into consideration: flight stability with such small control surfaces obviously hints to a much more capable flight control software,

as well as the possibility to include a considerably-capable FADEC system for 2 as-yet-unknown engines which feature 3-D vectoring nozzles that can also be utilized to maintain effective flight control.

 

This leads to something else to cosider: a flight control software program that the US once referred to as "Control Configured Vehicle", wherein an aircraft with damaged control surfaced (affecting trim and flight profile) can rapidly adsapt to the damage and continue to fly effectively.

 

Seeing as this Russian aircraft, if/when it ever takes flight (as a production system) is going to be technologically nuilt in an age where electronics, servos, and sensors can be built superior gto what's in the current F-22 Raptors,

I for one certainly believe the PAK-FA will have some advantages over the F-22 that, as has been discussed numerous times, will be prohibitively expensive to upgrade (and we are indeed foolish if we think it will never need so).

 

Considering the US was indeed surprised when that fellow defected to Japan in the MiG-25 all those years ago,

and that MiG-15s gave us some run for the money in Korea as well as the handling we got by Russian designs during the Viet Nam conflict, as well as the fact that the USAF designed the F-22 to counter what became the MiG-29 and Su-27 families in Russian that they built to counter the US Teen series,

the fact that the PAK-FA is/might be being built of a technology generation newer than the hardware in the F-22, does indeed suggest we (US) are foolish to believe that we will somehow never again be superceded by Russian equipment in any given avenue.

 

Capability doesn't stand still. The weapon-counrerweapon cycle of growth may slow down at times, but never fully stops.

There again though, it's getting to the point the US may be just be pricing itself out of the ability to even afford to equip a capable military.

We cannot see the future well enough to know (or not) that never again will Russian, or anyone else (yes, china) won't for a time get even a slight upper hand on us.

Hopefully it'll never come dowb to a shooting war and loss of life to prove it once and for all.

But such things are indeed what's needed to quell the naysayers.

 

Theory alone (in US superiority) is never a solution for success.

Too often, it takes field experience, experience that reveals those unforeseen variables we didn't anticipate (like the considerable Russian involvement against us during Korea and Viet Nam).

 Look at how many years later now in Iraq and Afghanistan has shown us that it isn't always technical superiority that's a deciding factor.

Even man-to-man firefights have shown us that those with the superior assets (small arms firepower) can win a scenario even when the other side supposedly has some considerably massive technical superiority in a ton of other fields