Russia's new stealth fighter jet made its public debut Tuesday, according to state-run news source RIA Novosti.
The Sukhoi T-50, developed collaboratively by Russia and India, appeared at the MAKS 2011 air show in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow.
Gen. Alexander Zelin, head of the Russian air force, told RIA Novosti he expects the T-50 prototype to be ready in 2013, with "mass-produced aircraft" arriving in 2014 or 2015.
The aircraft is expected to become a staple of airborne defense for both Russia and India, Mikhail Pogosyan, head of Russia's United Aircraft Corp., told RIA Novosti.
"The T-50 will be the newest main plane both for the Russian and the Indian air force," Pogosyan said.
The article from the state-run media source says the Sukhoi T-50 cost the two governments about $6 billion to develop, with India shouldering about 35% of the cost. It is intended to match the U.S. F-22 raptor.
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This plane will be developed in concert with the technical people in India. It will include an voice interface. The only problem is no one will be able to understand what they are saying.
You don't need to understand what we say. You just need to get this is your head that whatever you use, is made by us.
the plane looks like an F-22 due to convergent evolution. Both aircaft are intended for the same mission and use similar technology.
Its why sharks and dolphins look the same.
That being said, you can tell from the jet exhaust and panel joints that the plane is less stealthy than the F-22, and the damn thing is HUGE! Going to be hard to hide something that big from either radars or eyeballs...
have you seen the size of an F-22?
Google the PAK FA. It's more stealthy than you think.
The F-22 is about the same size as the F-15, which it replaces. The T-50 is about 10% to 15% larger in all dimensions, which does unpleasant things to its weight and surface area...
This is 30 year old technology. The newer technology are hyper sonic's and drones. It will take Russia and china At least 20 years to catch up with us. The U.S< didn't reveal the first stealth plane, the F-117, until 1989, over 10 years since it's first flight in 1977. If the government is just revealing hyper sonic and drone aircraft now, they've had them for 10 years before. Imagine what they still have not told the public yet.
They will catch up anyways. Dont kid yourself. No good thing lasts forever.
sp...the russian finally came out with something stealth...tech that was stolen...and this is all they could come up with. This isnt a real threat, its just to show the russian ppl that they arent completely helpless and it more of a morale boost than anything
Good thing Obama discontinued funding for new F-22's........
Obama didn't discontinue funding, the U.S. military did. They're putting more into their F-35 joint strike program...
Balance in Asia is a good thing.
Being an American and having lived in Russia for over three years, I have heard plenty of nationalistic statements on both sides. Most are usually knee jerk reactions full of pride and flag waving. Unfortunately the Americans side is usually even less capable than the Russian side of admitting when they've been outdone. Some of the comments in the thread here bore witness to that. The simple fact is, despite some theft in technological ideas here an there, which has happened between all "great powers" (Americans, British, Russian and others), the Russians have developed some incredible technology ON THEIR OWN. Their submarines and torpedoes were faster, rifles more reliable and jets in some areas superior. The Sukhoi 37 fighter, as an air to air combat jet, was the most maneuverable plane in the sky. So better to be honest in our appraisals of each other's capabilities.
Obama was in India to get jobs for Americans. India started off with $10 billion and 8000 jobs.
Majority of American people are not qualified for high tech jobs. Most of them will work at Burger King and blame their Government for jobs and medicare, but would never pick up a book and study.
"Majority of the Americans" huh?! You don't know sh!t to be generalizing like that. It's like them saying that "majority of the Indians are living in slums and would even sell their kidneys if only to get a sniff at Bollywood stars' a$$es!"
Very well said.
While we in North America sit and scratch our butts and complain and blame everyone in the world and pretend like we are the best thing that's ever happened in the world and how we are the greatest nation, the world is improving. I think we have forgotten through the years that the middle east and the east is where civilization came from. They have high number of educated people and actually quite smart. So while we sit here and make fun of everyone else out there, they create jobs.
That is true. Most just want to start earning $$ ASAP.
Very true and then people blame Indians for stealing their jobs. Morons
Take MTV and E! off the air and watch the national intelligence level rise...
Ok, I'm callin BS on that
As a senior IT manager, I saw people with college degrees, 15 years of experience, and outstanding performance reviews get fired and replaced by an $10/hr offshore resources with a joke of a degree and zero experience every day.
People are flippin burgers in the US because the corporations haven't figured out how to offshore burger flipping yet. At the rate we are going, the medical and service industries will be the only places left for US jobs. I'd say home-building, but you need a decent job to buy a home, so...
You assessment is totally baseless. US has plenty of Techi workers the issue is not that they don’t have them but the fact that India is a nation of over a billion people Thus naturally producing more techi’s then they need. They have an access supply which US companies are more than willing to use as they are good and much cheaper. Plus in USA you can make money by going into any career you pick. Its not like India where the choice is very limited.
Americans are not stupid. If they were stupid they won’t have the world’s richest economy even after all the so called economic slowdown. They are a giant.
That new jet looks cute, but lets see a T-50 take on 100,000,000 microcontroller UAVs all tracking and shooting at it in parallel Appears the Russians are fighting yesterday's wars but that's good news...
Keep in mind once all those machines kill off USA enemies those same weapons will be used to kill USA citizens.
Where are you getting a hundred million UAVs? Pickng them from the UAV tree? Unmanned doesn't mean uncontrolled – where are you getting enough people to man the ground control stations for those hundred million UAVs that you don't have?
Randy you are wrong. UAV’s today have a very limited role and can easily be shot down if the opponent has a superior AirForec and ground tracking capabilities.
I am sure in 20-30 plus years UAV’s will replace fighter jets all together but they are not there yet.
These fighter jets will still have a big role for the next 20 to 30 years. Now I will agree with you if you said this is the last generation of manned aircrafts. That statement is very likely true.
Look at the performance of 32 bit microcontrollers now that cost less than a cheeseburger, incredible low cost SAR/phased array radars that weigh a couple of lbs and most importantly the emergence of massively parallel, self organizing systems to control UAVs. Tanks in WW1 weren't coordinated but they were by WWII – the same thing is happening right before our eyes with UAVs. I hope you're right and its not there yet as I'd like to make a few bucks providing it.
Whenever you see news that the Russians or Chinese have caught up to the U.S. in weapons technology, that just means we have something that they don't know about yet....and trust me, we do.
Really George?? What is it and how do you know??? USA is going to be broke soon cause of the wars it is causing??? USA has got jack!!!
The American greedy fat cats fault, they just sit on their big yachts and resort golf courses swimming pools burped and Fart they get what they want they don't care that United States is going down the toilet.
Hey man are you doing reefer again, what the hell does that have to do with this article?
@ HPNIII...**poot**
Hey look! The russians copied the f22!
I worked on the F-22 and that doesn't look like the F-22.
I'm not an expert, but it looks like a F-16 with 2 engines. I believe the F-22 is a single engine plane. The down side of 2 engines is that it is slower to rotate due to more mass further from the center axis.
The F-22 is has 2 Pratt & Whitney F119 engines.
the F-22 raptor has twin engines, your thinking of the F-35 which has a single engine.
Brian, you are right, you're not an expert. This looks nothing like an F-16, the F-22 has 2 engines, and roll rate (not rotation) is dependent upon center of gravity and wing-loading. Please refrain from commenting about anything aviation-related for the forseeable future.
Brian I think you are thinking of the F-35? The F-22 is a dual jet thrust vectoring aircraft!
No actually the F-22 Raptor has two engines. Its the F-16 that is a single engine aircraft. Also this T-50 looks nothing like the F-16. You should google them or whatever before you post next time.
Zeus you are intellectually incompetent, immature, and an idiot!!!! Stay out of adults conversation. Could you have replied with some better?
Waste of money. Nobody's a fighter now-a-days, all are lovers.
General Zelin says prototype by 2013 and production even later, so are we looking at an artist's rendering or a plywood model?
$6B seems like a bargain for a development program of this nature, at least relative to what we would spend on something similar.
Even if you say this is 20 or 30 year old technology, and it may very well be, $6B for development, adjusted for inflation, is still a bargain compared to what we were spending in the 1980's for this sort of thing...