SU57

[bergclimber34]

Just watched a fascinating display of a 57 in Dubai recently, and the thing is pulling all kinds of shapes.

One question, during all the insane moves it pulls the burners are ALWAYS on, I notice this with a few planes, especially Russian stuff, is this a prerequisite for doing these crazy flat spin type and Cobra moves? I presume it is to enable recovery?

[16v_paddy]

I think the burners were on for those moves because the engines aren't powerful enough to do them without.
They are supposed to be getting better engines with more power but AFAIK they're not ready yet

[aeropilot]

bergclimber34 said:

Just watched a fascinating display of a 57 in Dubai recently, and the thing is pulling all kinds of shapes.

One question, during all the insane moves it pulls the burners are ALWAYS on, I notice this with a few planes, especially Russian stuff, is this a prerequisite for doing these crazy flat spin type and Cobra moves? I presume it is to enable recovery?

Needs the thrust to keep it in the air at such slow airspeeds, its the only thing keeping it from falling out the sky.

[bergclimber34]

So then, in reality to do this stuff in combat would be unlikely unless it carried huge amounts of fuel!!

[Skii]

bergclimber34 said:

So then, in reality to do this stuff in combat would be unlikely unless it carried huge amounts of fuel!!

Yes, and pointless.

It's all for show, the reality is these kind of maneuvers are only fit for making crowds go "ooh" and "aah"

Modern radar and missile technology means beyond visual range kills with little or no warning and fancy thrust vectoring is not going to make any difference.

[JerseyS2000]

That's not what the recent true life documentary "Top Gun: Maverick" showed! 😉

[IanH755]

bergclimber34 said:

So then, in reality to do this stuff in combat would be unlikely unless it carried huge amounts of fuel!!

Just to address this part, the Su-57 is huge. Its way bigger than an F-35 and slightly bigger than the F-22, which means it has a lot of internal volume for storage of a lot of fuel.

For example, both the F-35A and F-22, according to unclassified data, hold a genuinely massive amount of fuel for single seat fighters, at around 8200kg internally (give or take), and yet the Su-57 is currently estimated to hold at least 25% more fuel than those two.

So for air display purposes, they've plenty of spare fuel to leave it in AB all display long, but IRL it gives them a huge amount of un-refuelled range which, with Russia severely lacking the high number of tankers than NATO/US has (19 vs 600+), is a typically Russian design choice i.e. "bigger = better" etc.

[heisthegaffer]

Beautiful looking thing.