The Su-35 has twelve to fourteen weapons hardpoints, giving it an
excellent loadout compared to the eight hardpoints on the F-15C and
F-22, or the four internally stowed missiles on the F-35.
The
Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker-E is the top Russian air-superiority fighter in
service today, and represents the pinnacle of fourth-generation jet
fighter design. It will remain so until Russia succeeds in bringing its
fifth-generation PAK-FA stealth fighter into production.
Distinguished
by its unrivaled maneuverability, most of the Su-35’s electronics and
weapons capabilities have caught up with those of Western equivalents,
like the F-15 Eagle. But while it may be a deadly adversary to F-15s,
Eurofighters and Rafales, the big question mark remains how effectively
it can contend with fifth-generation stealth fighters such as the F-22
and F-35.
The
Su-35 is an evolution of the Su-27 Flanker, a late Cold War design
intended to match the F-15 in concept: a heavy twin-engine multirole
fighter combining excellent speed and weapons loadout with dogfighting
agility.
An Su-27 stunned the audience of the Paris Air Show in
1989 when it demonstrated Pugachev’s Cobra, a maneuver in which the
fighter rears its nose up to 120-degree vertical—but continues to soar
forward along the plane’s original attitude.
Widely exported, the
Flanker has yet to clash with Western fighters, but did see air-to-air
combat in Ethiopian service during a border war with Eritrea, scoring
four kills against MiG-29s for no loss. It has also been employed on
ground attack missions.
The development history of the Su-35 is a
bit complicated. An upgraded Flanker with canards (additional small
wings on the forward fuselage) called the Su-35 first appeared way back
in 1989, but is not the same plane as the current model; only fifteen
were produced. Another upgraded Flanker, the two-seat Su-30, has been
produced in significant quantities, and its variants exported to nearly a
dozen countries.
The current model in question, without canards,
is properly called the Su-35S and is the most advanced type of the
Flanker family. It began development in 2003 under the
Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association (KnAAPO), a
subcontractor of Sukhoi. The first prototypes rolled out in 2007 and
production began in 2009.
Airframe and Engines
The
Flanker family of aircraft is supermaneuverable—meaning it is engineered
to perform controlled maneuvers that are impossible through regular
aerodynamic mechanisms. In the Su-35, this is in part achieved through
use of thrust-vectoring engines: the nozzles of its Saturn AL-41F1S
turbofans can independently point in different directions in flight to
assist the aircraft in rolling and yawing. Only one operational Western
fighter, the F-22 Raptor, has similar technology.
This also
allows the Su-35 to achieve very high angles-of-attack—in other words,
the plane can be moving in one direction while its nose is pointed in
another. A high angle of attack allows an aircraft to more easily train
its weapons on an evading target and execute tight maneuvers.
Such
maneuvers may be useful for evading missiles or dogfighting at close
ranges—though they leave any aircraft in a low-energy state.
The
Flanker-E can achieve a maximum speed of Mach 2.25 at high altitude
(equal to the F-22 and faster than the F-35 or F-16) and has excellent
acceleration. However, contrary to initial reports, it appears it may
not be able to supercruise—perform sustained supersonic flight without
using afterburners—while loaded for combat. Its service ceiling is sixty
thousand feet, on par with F-15s and F-22s, and ten thousand feet
higher than Super Hornets, Rafales and F-35s.
The Su-35 has
expanded fuel capacity, giving it a range of 2,200 miles on internal
fuel, or 2,800 miles with two external fuel tanks. Both the lighter
titanium airframe and the engines have significantly longer life
expectancies than their predecessors, at six thousand and 4,500 flight
hours, respectively. (For comparison, the F-22 and F-35 are rated at
eight thousand hours).
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The Flanker
airframe is not particularly stealthy. However, adjustments to the
engine inlets and canopy, and the use of radar-absorbent material,
supposedly halve the Su-35’s radar cross-section; one article claims it
may be down to between one and three meters. This could reduce the range
it can be detected and targeted, but the Su-35 is still not a “stealth
fighter.”
Weaponry
The Su-35 has twelve to fourteen
weapons hardpoints, giving it an excellent loadout compared to the eight
hardpoints on the F-15C and F-22, or the four internally stowed
missiles on the F-35.
At long range, the Su-35 can use K-77M
radar-guided missiles (known by NATO as the AA-12 Adder), which are
claimed to have range of over 120 miles.
For shorter-range
engagements, the R-74 (NATO designation: AA-11 Archer) infrared-guided
missile is capable of targeting “off boresight”—simply by looking
through a helmet-mounted optical sight, the pilot can target an enemy
plane up sixty degrees away from where his plane is pointed. The R-74
has a range of over twenty-five miles, and also uses thrust-vectoring
technology.
The medium-range R-27 missile and the extra
long-range R-37 (aka the AA-13 Arrow, for use against AWACs, EW and
tanker aircraft) complete the Su-35’s air-to-air missile selection.
Additionally, the Su-35 is armed with a thirty-millimeter cannon with 150 rounds for strafing or dogfighting.
The
Flanker-E can also carry up to seventeen thousand pounds of
air-to-ground munitions. Historically, Russia has made only limited use
of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) compared to Western air forces.
However, the capability for large-scale use of such weapons is there, if
doctrine and munition stocks accommodate it.
Sensors and Avionics
The
Su-35’s most critical improvements over its predecessors may be in
hardware. It is equipped with a powerful L175M Khibiny electronic
countermeasure system intended to distort radar waves and misdirect
hostile missiles. This could significantly degrade attempts to target
and hit the Flanker-E.
The Su-35’s IRBIS-E passive electronically
scanned array (PESA) radar is hoped to provide better performance
against stealth aircraft. It is claimed to able to track up to thirty
airborne targets with a Radar-cross section of three meters up to 250
miles away—and targets with cross-sections as small 0.1 meters over
fifty miles away. However, PESA radars are easier to detect and to jam
than the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars now used by
Western fighters. The IRBIS also has an air-to ground mode that can
designate up to four surface targets at time for PGMs.
Supplementing
the radar is an OLS-35 targeting system that includes an Infra-Red
Search and Track (IRST) system said to have a fifty-mile
range—potentially a significant threat to stealth fighters.
More
mundane but vital systems—such as pilot multi-function displays and
fly-by-wire avionics—have also been significantly updated.
Operational Units and Future Customers
Currently,
the Russian Air Force operates only forty-eight Su-35s. Another fifty
were ordered in January 2016, and will be produced at a rate of ten per
year. Four Su-35s were deployed to Syria this January after a Russian
Su-24 was shot down by a Turkish F-16. Prominently armed with air-to-air
missiles, the Su-35s were intended to send a message that the Russians
could pose an aerial threat if attacked.
China has ordered
twenty-four Su-35s at a cost of $2 billion, but is thought unlikely to
purchase more. Beijing’s interest is believed to lie mostly in copying
the Su-35’s thrust-vector engines for use in its own designs. The
Chinese PLAAF already operates the Shenyang J-11, a copy of the Su-27.
Attempts
to market the Su-35 abroad, especially to India and Brazil, have mostly
foundered. Recently, however, Indonesia has indicated it wishes to
purchase eight this year, though the contract signing has been
repeatedly delayed. Algeria is reportedly considering acquiring ten for
$900 million. Egypt, Venezuela and Vietnam are also potential customers.
Cost
estimates for the Su-35 have run between $40 million and $65 million;
however, the exports contracts have been at prices above $80 million per
unit.
Against the Fifth Generation
The Su-35 is at
least equal—if not superior—to the very best Western fourth-generation
fighters. The big question, is how well can it perform against a
fifth-generation stealth plane such as the F-22 or F-35?
The
maneuverability of the Su-35 makes it an unsurpassed dogfighter.
However, future aerial clashes using the latest missiles (R-77s,
Meteors, AIM-120s) could potentially take place over enormous ranges,
while even short-range combat may involve all-aspect missiles like the
AIM-9X and R-74 that don’t require pointing the aircraft at the target.
Nonetheless, the Su-35’s speed (which contributes to a missile’s
velocity) and large load-carrying abilities mean it can hold its own in
beyond-visual-range combat. Meanwhile, the Flanker-E’s agility and
electronic countermeasures may help it evade opposing missiles.
The
more serious issue, though, is that we don’t know how effective stealth
technology will be against a high-tech opponent. An F-35 stealth
fighter that gets in a short-range duel with a Flanker-E will be in big
trouble—but how good a chance does the faster, more-maneuverable Russian
fighter have of detecting that F-35 and getting close to it in the
first place?
As the U.S. Air Force would have it, stealth
fighters will be able to unleash a hail of missiles up to one hundred
miles away without the enemy having any way to return fire until they
close to a (short) distance, where visual and IR scanning come into
play. Proponents of the Russian fighter argue that it will be able to
rely upon ground-based low-bandwidth radars, and on-board IRST sensors
and PESA radar, to detect stealth planes. Keep in mind, however, that
the former two technologies are imprecise and can’t be used to target
weapons in most cases.
Both parties obviously have huge economic
and political incentives to advance their claims. While it is worthwhile
examining the technical merits of these schools of thought in detail,
the question will likely only be resolved by testing under combat
conditions. Furthermore, other factors such as supporting assets,
mission profile, pilot training and numbers play a large a role in
determining the outcomes of aerial engagements.
The Su-35 may be
the best jet-age dogfighter ever made and a capable missile delivery
platform—but whether that will suffice for an air-superiority fighter in
the era of stealth technology remains to be seen.
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