Russian new generation 5 Sukhoj aircraft finally revealed (Video)
Finally Russia reveals 5th generation aircraft. Sukhoj aircraft company yesterday (29.01.2010) finally made a first flight test of new aircraft. The codename for the aircraft at the moment is Т-50 or product number 701. Photo of new Sukhoj aircraft’s prototype:
Interesting that till 29.01.2010 the visual body of new aircraft was a secret. It was believed that the aircraft will be similar to the US F-22 Raptor.
New aircraft will have traction vector control engines but unlike the Raptor Russian aircraft’s engines will have this option in both directions – vertical and horizontal. I must say that there are already existing Russian aircrafts with this ability – Sukhoj Su-30, Sukhoj-35 and prototype of Sukhoj-37.
There will be wide range of weapons:
- twin 30mm high speed guns (Raptor has only one such gun and only 20mm)
- Air to air loadout
- Air to ground loadout
Sukhoj aircraft will have up to 10 hardpoints for weapons when Raptor has only 5. Sukhoj will be able to carry these weapons same as Raptor inside the body for the Stealth mode and additional 2 suspension points on the wings. This is 3x times more than the Raptor.
The aircraft max speed will be about 2600 km/h (~1600 mph) with fflight range of 5500km. That’s better than the only one existing 5gen aircraft F22 Raptor characteristics – 2,960 km range with 2 external fuel tanks and 2410km/h max speed. I must say that F-22 Raptor’s first flight was 20 years ago on September 29th, 1990 as YF-22 prototype and 7th September, 1997 as final F-22 Raptor. Russians are planning to put this aircraft on production till 2015.
Russian fifth generation aircraft will need only 300-400m long airstrip to take off. It is believed that Sukhoj was developping this aircraft since the 1990s.
Video of the first flight:
