In the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie Firefox, the Soviet Union develops a stealth jet capable of hypersonic speeds and completely invisible to radar — so advanced that the U.S. and U.K. have to infiltrate the country and steal it. Well, Clint Eastwood may want to put his flight suit on. Because the way the Russians are hyping their latest jet, the T-50, you’d think it was Firefox come to life. Russia tested the second prototype for its T-50 (a.k.a. the PAK FA) fifth generation fighter jet yesterday. The plane took off from the Sukhoi’s Komsomolsk-on-Amur airfield and flew for 44 minutes.
Much like the movie’s fictional stealth MiG 31 had weapons that could be controlled by human thought, Russia’s General Nikolay Makarov last year claimed that the T-50 is so advanced that it has “almost human intelligence.” Now, the Russian media is echoing the talking points, heralding the jet as “a real revolution in aircraft construction” and “both cheaper and better than its American still unborn analogue [the F-22 Raptor].”
But while the T-50 does represent a more advanced design than Russia’s current jets, it’s not quite thebleeding edge thoughtmobile it’s made out to be.
At an estimated $100 million a pop, it is cheaper than its F-22 rival, whose unit cost is about $150 million. But the lower price comes with lesser capability, including stealth. As Ares’ Bill Sweetman commented on the first prototype T-50’s “not-very-stealthy-looking” aspects, “Apparently the designers and systems analysts have looked at the thorny question of ‘how much stealth do we want to pay for?’ and have come up with a different answer than the F-22 designers.”
That hasn’t stopped some here in the United States from looking at fifth generation fighter attempts around the world and getting a little status anxiety. F-22 proponents have pointed to the T-50 as a reason to crank out more F-22s. And just recently, Pictures of China’s new J-20 stealth fighter surfaced, causing some hand-wringing over Chinese military might. There, too, the fretting seemed a bit premature, with the Director of Naval Intelligence raising doubts about when the jet would become operational.
In the meantime, Russia’s Defense Ministry also said yesterday that it won’t be able to make a new strategic bomber until at least 2025. By that time, we hope, Clint will have made another flick about Moscow’s latest aerospace advancements.
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