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To: John Valentine

Not stealthy. The Russians themselves say this. They “chose” not to have stealth (it was too expensive).

These are not designed to go up against Raptors.


24 posted on 06/18/2010 3:18:19 PM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: Born to Conserve
These are not designed to go up against Raptors.

from http://warfare.ru

Designed to compete against the F-22 in traditional Beyond Visual Range (BVR) and Within Visual Range (WVR) air combat, the PAK-FA shares all of the key fifth generation attributes until now unique to the F-22 - stealth, supersonic cruise, thrust vectoring, highly integrated avionics and a powerful suite of active and passive sensors. While the PAK-FA firmly qualifies as a fifth generation design, it has two further attributes absent in the extant F-22 design. The first is extreme agility, resulting from advanced aerodynamic design, exceptional thrust/weight ratio performance and three dimensional thrust vectoring integrated with an advanced digital flight control system. The second attribute is exceptional combat persistence, the result of a 25,000 lb internal fuel load. The internal and external weapon payload are likely to be somewhat larger, though comparable to those of the F-22A.

[..]

While the basic shaping observed on this first prototype of the PAK-FA will deny it the critical all-aspect stealth performance of the F-22 in BVR air combat and deep penetration, its extreme manoeuvrability/controllability design features, which result in extreme agility, give it the potential to become the most lethal and survivable fighter ever built for air combat engagements.

[..]

The tactical impact of a mature production PAK-FA is therefore a loss of the overwhelming advantage provided until now by the F-22A Raptor. Flown against the PAK-FA, a decisive outcome can only be guaranteed by numerical superiority of the F-22A force in theatre.

For what it's worth. And, you can bet there would be a LOT more of these babys in theatre than there would be F-22s, given the direction toward gutting US military capability from inside.

26 posted on 06/18/2010 3:32:01 PM PDT by John Valentine
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