Su-57 - Russia's 5th Gen Fighter

Video from the channel Australian Military Aviation History about Sukhoi Su-57, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 17:53. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Episode in a series on fifth-generation fighters devoted to the Su-57 Felon. It covers its genesis, Russia's design debate, its estimated performance, its sensors and its use in Ukraine.

Since 1979 the USSR had sought a fifth-generation fighter, the MFI programme, to replace the MiG-29 and the Flanker. It produced the MiG 1.44 and the Sukhoi S-32, later the Su-47, and the post-Soviet crisis brought it to a halt. In 2001 Russia opened the PAK FA programme, in which Sukhoi prevailed over MiG. The T-50 flew in 2010, received the designation Su-57 in 2017 and the NATO name Felon, and entered service on 25 December 2020, despite the sanctions imposed after 2014.

Using unofficial figures, the video credits it with supercruise at Mach 1.3, a range of 3,500 km on internal fuel and 4,500 km with two external tanks, a ceiling of 66,000 feet and six internal and six external hardpoints. It highlights the Byelka AESA radar, the X-band side radars that allow it to keep lock while turning away from the target, the LEVCONs and the DIRCM laser countermeasures. Just under forty have been built, against the 200 projected for 2028. In Ukraine it would have operated mainly from Russian airspace, with the R-37 missile.