F-35 and F-22 V/S T-50 PAKFA

            

 The T-50 PAK-FA bests the F-35 in several categories, including fuel load —19,624 lbs internally for the F-35 vs. 25,000 lbs for the T-50. And the Sukhoi fighter also boasts something called “extreme plus agility.”While the T-50 lacks the “critical all-aspect stealth performance” of the F-22, its “extreme plus agility” could make the PAK-FA the “most lethal and survivable fighter ever built for air combat engagements.”The F-35 and T-50 have similar RCS behavior. But the T-50’s unusual shape could actually prove advantageous — in a separate analysis, American radars have an exceedingly hard time detecting the PAK-FA, while Chinese “counter-VLO radars” spot the T-50 best — bad news on all fronts. The T-50 prototype is still in the early stages of development, and the PAK-FA won’t enter service until at least 2016 (and even then, probably not in large quantities). As it stands, the T-50 wouldn’t satisfy the requirements of a very low observable (VLO) design, crucial to modern fifth-gen aerial warfare and considering America’s difficulty in detecting the T-50 — to say nothing of successfully engaging it — the skies could get a lot less friendly for the Joint Strike Fighter in the next decade.

F-35

The United States Air Force undertook the Advance Tactical Fighter program in the mid 1980’s. Two air superiority fighters to replace F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon have since then been developed. In 2005 the first fifth generation fighter jet the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor was introduced by the USAF. It is an air superiority, supersonic, highly maneuverable stealth-featuring fighter equipped with state of the art weapons and electronics. It has supercruise at Mach 1.8, which means fly at Mach 1.8 without the use of afterburners. The F-22 has never been sold to a foreign country. Even though it was expensive, the US let Lockheed Martin built another fifth generation fighter – The F-35 Lighning II. The aircraft is similar to the F-22 in terms of stealth and having top modern weapons, but it was built in three different variants because it was planned to be used by both the Marines, Air Force and Navy and therefore needed to have STOVL and Vertical Take off and Landing features. The equipment and performance can be changed depending on the mission, for example, if the objective does not require stealth technology the external pylons for weapons or fuel can be loaded (which increases the not only the weapons load but also the radar-visibility). This fighter got extremely expensive because to build a fifth generation aircraft capable of doing vertical takeoffs and landings proved itself to be extremely complex. The project has currently cost the US tax payers over 1 trillion dollars, and is by that the most expensive aircraft program ever.

T-50 PAK FA

The Sukhoi PAK FA “Perspektivny aviatsionny kompleks frontovoy aviatsii”, which means “Prospective Airborne Complex of Frontline Aviation” is a twin-engine, multirole fighter jet developed by Sukhoi. It is planned to be introduced by 2016. The aircraft is equipped – just like the Raptor – with  top modern weapons, stealth technology and has supercruise at mach 1.6. Since it has not yet been revealed there is very much speculations about it and there is a lot of propaganda involved. For instance Vladimir Putin claimed that: “This machine will be superior to our main competitor, the F-22, in terms of maneuverability, weaponry and range” which you can choose to interpret in any way you want. But it is by many considered to be the best fighter in the world when it enters service with the Russian air force. The main points that are considered by many to be better with the PAK FA than with the raptor is its IRST, its engines and its 3D Thrust vectoring system (the Raptor does not feature IRST and only has 2D TV). The engine that is currently being developed by Saturn and is said to be the “fifth generation fighter engine” will be delivered in the coming years and just like any other tremendously expensive project there has been a lot of speculations about it. India is also currently developing a fifth generation fighter projected to be introduced in 2022, namely the HAL FGFA, which is an upgraded version of the PAK FA. It is claimed that it is supposed to have 43 improvements compared to the PAK FA, among others stealth, supercruise, advanced sensors, networking and combat avionics.