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LearningTranscript
00:00Hi Artis, what's up?
00:07May I have a word, sir?
00:09Sure, sure, sure.
00:10The result of my analysis of comments and interactions with the community clearly shows
00:15that the first non-Indian request for a plane coverage is the Russian Su-57, sir.
00:20The Sukhoi 57?
00:22Well, if they want the Sukhoi 57, they need to be prepared for a big surprise.
00:35Welcome to Millennium Seven Star, the channel that helps you make sense of military history
00:41and military technology.
00:42Please stay with me till the end, because the stuff that we're going to cover about
00:46the Sukhoi 57, as usual, is not easily found anywhere else on YouTube.
00:51The Sukhoi 57 is considered by many the Russian reply to the F-22.
00:58Well, if it is a reply to the F-22, it's coming way late, because the F-22 retirement
01:06has been already planned.
01:08However, there are declarations from the Russian chief designer, Alexander Davydenko, that
01:15they do consider the F-22 while designing the Sukhoi 57, but they try to do better.
01:24And, indeed, they succeeded, but they succeeded in the Russian way.
01:34The Su-57 program has been long and plagued by delays, but this shouldn't come as a
01:40surprise.
01:41The development of all modern combat jets suffers from the same disease.
01:46That's just the nature of the beast.
01:50The roots of the Su-57 program are deep within Soviet territory.
01:55In 1979, despite the fact that the Sukhoi-27 and the MiG-29 were still practically brand
02:12new, the program for the successor for the 90s was actually set up.
02:19The Mikoyan bureau developed the MiG-1.44, while Sukhoi developed the Sukhoi-37, later
02:27renamed Sukhoi-47.
02:30The fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 brought all these efforts to a halt.
02:36That was a terrible time for all the countries that originated from the dissolution of the
02:45Soviet Union.
02:47So, a project like a new fifth generation fighter, yeah, was not really the priority.
02:55And they were not restarted till April 2001, when the PAK FA program was launched.
03:03In April 2002, the Sukhoi's proposal for a large heavy fighter was chosen, and it had
03:10to be built drawing from the experience gained with the Sukhoi-27 family.
03:16After the usual problems and delays of different nature, the first prototype flew the 29th
03:23of January 2010, piloted by the famous Sergei Bogdan.
03:29Sukhoi quite cleverly proceeded with a classic program, no pre-production, but just 10 prototypes
03:37for the flight tests and 3 prototypes for the ground testing.
03:42And the tests led to various updates, including a structural redesign.
03:47And mind, this is not surprising at all, considering how peculiar the plane is.
03:53From 2007 to 2018, in parallel with the PAK FA program, an Indian version called FGFA
04:03was developed.
04:05It was expected to be quite different from a standard PAK FA.
04:09However, the rising costs and the divergence of requirements and specifications ultimately
04:18led India to abandon the program.
04:21The first Sukhoi-57 was delivered to the Russian Air Force on the 25th of December 2020,
04:28and it joined a test and experimentation unit.
04:33It was no Christmas present.
04:35Christmas is the 7th of January in Russia.
04:3976 Sukhoi-57 are on order, but the initial delivery rate is very slow.
04:45The reason behind this is that the final engine is not ready yet, and the current planes are
04:51delivered with the AL-41F1 engine.
04:55More on this later.
04:57So with 76 planes, we may expect that within a few years from now, the Russian Air Force
05:03will have 3 regiments operational with the Sukhoi-57.
05:39The Sukhoi-57 is...
05:42beautiful.
05:43Marsalda Salt used to say,
05:46if it looks good, it will fly well.
05:50Personally, I believe it is a urban legend.
05:53However, it is really an aircraft featuring very sophisticated aerodynamics.
05:59The general configuration is the classic one, wing plus tail planes.
06:04At first sight, it may seem to be a lifting body, but from the pictures available, it
06:11actually seems to have three separate bodies, a central fuselage and two nacelles hosting
06:17the engines on the side, all connected together by the central portion of the wing.
06:25The wing section outboard the engine nacelles seems like a delta wing, but overall I believe
06:32that it is such a complex contraption that probably escapes any specific classification.
06:41While seen from above, the wing has at least three different sweep angles.
06:47It seems to me to be quite a complex lifting device with various systems of vortices producing
06:56non-linear lift.
06:57The outer section of the wing seems more normal even because the presence of manoeuvrable
07:02slats hints to a normal attached flow, and the same wing section hosts the flapperons
07:09and the ailerons.
07:10The tail planes, both vertical and horizontal, are entirely mobile, with the vertical tails
07:17doubling as aerobrakes.
07:19A real innovation, at least on a serially produced aircraft, is the use of levcons
07:24in the anterior part of the inner section of the wing.
07:28Please, please, please, they don't behave like canards.
07:34They are not four planes and they are not even oversized slats.
07:39They behave totally differently.
07:42They are there to control the flow at the leading edge and govern the strength and the
07:48generation of the lifting vortices.
07:51They can move differentially and the flight control system uses them, together obviously
07:57with the thrust vectoring and the tail planes, to make the airplane tremendously resistant
08:04to spin departures.
08:06The Su-57 is probably the most manoeuvrable aircraft ever built.
08:14It can fly at angles of attack well beyond 90 degrees.
08:18It can fly sideways at high yaw angles.
08:21It can translate laterally without pointing the nose in the direction of motion.
08:27It can even perform flat spins without losing height and with no loss of control.
08:36The nose pointing authority for a plane of that size and that performance is simply amazing.
08:44Some say that all these capabilities are not relevant in combat.
08:48Well, obviously the Russians beg to differ and we will come to this.
08:52In the meanwhile, please have a look at the specification and please be aware that no
08:58official numbers have ever been released.
09:01So what you see are just estimates.
09:05Should I present the specs, sir?
09:07No, this is not really necessary.
09:09People can read from themselves.
09:11There's a nice music also.
09:13What am I doing in this video, sir?
09:16You had the idea.
09:17That's an important contribution, no?
09:20If I were human, I would be proud of it, sir.
09:25The Su-57 is another plastic plane whose structure is largely built with composite materials.
09:33About 25% of its weight is composites.
09:36In particular, the external surface is entirely built in composites,
09:41apart from those areas where the metal was actually necessary.
09:47Some have speculated that this is the result of the Indian partnership,
09:50because the Indian DRDO has developed a state-of-the-art composite material modeling technology.
09:57The stealth design is quite evident.
09:59It is very difficult to find the right angle,
10:02and the frontal section has the classic edge found in all stealth aircraft.
10:08We will get back to stealth,
10:09but from a structural and aerodynamic point of view,
10:12it doesn't seem that the Su-57 sacrifices as much as other aircraft to the low radar cross section.
10:22Unfortunately, there is no view that I know of the internal structure of the Su-57,
10:27just to understand the interlocking between the three bodies and the wing.
10:32If you have any, please let me know in the comments below.
10:35Yeah, but why should we be concerned about the internal structure?
10:38Yes, because with thrust vectoring,
10:41levicons,
10:42and fully mobile vertical tide planes,
10:45well, the loads that the structure is going to bear are probably quite unusual,
10:51and it would be really interesting to understand how this problem was actually tackled by the Soviets.
11:01Oops!
11:02The Russian designers.
11:06So, is everything hunky-dory?
11:09Well, obviously not.
11:10For example, propulsion is still a serious problem,
11:15but this will be the subject of the next video in the series.
11:18Stay tuned.
11:20So, if you liked this video, I'm sure you will love the videos that are going to appear beside me.
11:26In the meanwhile, please like, dislike, subscribe and hit the bell,
11:30so you won't miss anything.
11:32And if you could support the channel on Subscribestar or Patreon,
11:36well, I will be grateful forever.
11:39In the meanwhile, thank you very much for watching,
11:42and see you next time.
11:43And now, let's watch some serious YouTube.