The announcement of the creation of a Russian fighter not only of the sixth, but even of the seventh generation has not yet been supported by specifics. Taking into account a number of objective factors, it looks more like a PR campaign than real intentions. How colossal is the amount of work on such machines can be judged by the example of the United States.
Speaking about the future of Russian fighter aircraft, the commander-in-chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Colonel-General Viktor Bondarev said: “If we stop now, we will stop forever. (They are) works of both the sixth and, probably, the seventh (generation). I have no right to say much. In turn, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that the Sukhoi design bureau had already presented the first developments on the sixth generation fighter. Well, the state's concern for the constant improvement of its military equipment, in particular, air technology, is worthy of only praise.
Currently, there are two clear trends in the world fighter aviation. The first is to bring to perfection the traditional qualities of the aircraft, indicated in Pokryshkin's formula "height-speed-maneuver-fire" - that is, to make the car as high-altitude, high-speed, maneuverable and "fire-carrying" as possible. Russia is developing precisely this direction, and the PAK FA, with some of its "stealth", which is an attribute of the fifth generation fighter, fully fits into its framework.
True, some professionals consider infatuation with at least one of these qualities to be excessive. "The so-called super-maneuverability should be achieved only as much as it is necessary to actually fight, and not at all in order to surprise the crowd at an air show with exotic somersaults, while constantly dragging excess weight along with it to the detriment of the payload," test pilot, Hero of Russia Alexander Garnaev
The second tendency is to create "highly intelligent" fighters and their weapons in order to deal with the enemy at a long distance, regardless of the altitude and speed at which he flies and how he "rolls over" at the same time. This is the path of the United States, which received its still rather crude practical expression in the F-35. This strike fighter is currently considered (though not indisputably) the most "advanced" aircraft of the fifth generation.
The division into generations itself is very conditional and vague. “Declarations like“generation 3, 4, 5 ++, etc.…”have never worried me as a professional, as well as any other professional, - emphasizes Garnaev. "These hallmarks were originally invented for illiterate amateurs." With all this, since the commander-in-chief of the Aerospace Forces Bondarev does not have the right to talk a lot about a promising Russian fighter of the sixth and seventh generations, you will have to turn to the Americans for information about what this kind of machine should be, who are somewhat more talkative on this issue.
Laser, adaptive, upgradeable, unmanned
According to the American Internet resource Nationalinterest.org, a "six-generation" fighter must have at least five qualities. The first is to be armed with high-energy laser weapons.
The second is to have a so-called variable cycle engine with adaptive technology, which can work as a turbofan engine when it will be necessary to make long, including transoceanic flights, and as a turbojet when it is necessary to develop high speed.
Third, the aircraft must have high stealth radar stealth. This, in turn, imposes very strict requirements on the shape of the aircraft. It should be a "flying wing - tailless". While in a bomber with its rather large wings it is quite simple to implement such a scheme from an aerodynamic point of view, in a "short-wing" fighter it is very difficult - the machine turns out to be practically uncontrollable. There is only one way out - to provide a sixth generation fighter with an active stealth system, that is, one that is capable of suppressing the operation of low-frequency radars installed on enemy fighters, which are used to detect enemy invisibility.
Fourth, the "six-generation" fighter should have extremely large capabilities for continuous modernization, including equipping with more modern avionics and weapons.
And, finally, fifth, the new machine will have to be periodically used in an unmanned version, although this quality is not given as much attention as the previous ones.
Not one but two
The promising frontline aviation complex (PAK FA) has a number of features that are unique not only for Russian, but also for world practice.
One of the main problems associated with the creation of the F-35 is that this machine was conceived as a versatile multi-role strike fighter that could solve problems in the interests of all branches of the US armed forces, including the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. According to the RAND Corporation, one of the "brain trusts" of the United States, the Pentagon already in 1994 knew that such an approach to the creation of a new fighter was conceptually wrong.
Lessons must be learned from the mistakes made, so the US military is no longer considering the option of creating a "universal" sixth generation fighter. According to their plans, there will be at least two such fighters. These are different types of aircraft, despite the fact that they will be based on the largest possible number of the same technologies. One of them - for the Air Force - received the symbol NGAD (Next Gen Air Dominance), or "next generation fighter for gaining air superiority." The other, the F / A-XX for the Navy, is a multipurpose strike fighter for which strikes against land and sea targets will be no less, if not more important, than against air targets. Both aircraft will be created to gain air supremacy and only after that they will be given (to a greater or lesser extent) the ability to "process" enemy ground or naval forces. As practice has shown, it is easier to make an attack aircraft or a bomber out of a fighter than vice versa.
Expensive pleasure
Can the USSR create a Mercedes? They say that this is the question Stalin once asked Beria. "If one, then he can," answered the "iron people's commissar." Realistically assessing the culture of production, as well as the economic capabilities of the USSR, Beria did not believe that the country of the Soviets would be able to mass-produce such a high-tech car.
This story involuntarily comes to mind when you recall the statement by Deputy Defense Minister for Armaments Yuri Borisov, which he made a year ago. Then he said that the military could purchase a smaller number of fifth-generation PAK FA T-50 fighters than planned in the State Armament Program until 2020. According to the Kommersant newspaper, the military will contract only 12 fighters, and after putting them into operation, they will determine how many aircraft of this type they can afford, although they had previously firmly hoped to purchase 52 aircraft. “We even prescribed a delivery schedule,” a Defense Ministry source said. “In the period 2016–2018, the Russian Air Force was to receive eight fighters annually, and in 2019–2020, already 14 aircraft of this type.” In his opinion, these plans were quite feasible, if not for the economic difficulties that arose in the country.
A sixth-generation fighter should be technologically much richer, and therefore much more expensive than its "five-generation" counterpart. Consequently, the economic difficulties of Russia, if they are not resolved, will have a more negative impact on the process of creating and building a fighter of the sixth generation than the fifth. In addition, according to the Americans, who "got a bump" with the F-35, you will not be limited to one type of "universal" fighter, and you will have to create at least two. This will further complicate the solution of this task for Russia.
But even without taking into account economic factors, statements about the start of work on the development of a sixth and even seventh generation fighter in the Russian Federation evoke strange feelings. They are akin to those that arise when you hear from television reports about the need to promote Russian products on world markets that “surpass the best world analogues,” while the names of these products are not disclosed. The leaders of the Russian defense complex "have no right to say much" about what Russian sixth and seventh generation fighters will be like, and this fog is only exacerbated by the absence of clear criteria defining not only the sixth and seventh, but even the fifth generation of fighters.
As a result, one gets the impression that the statements about the development of fighters in Russia, following the PAK FA, are intended to reinforce in the Russians the feeling that Russian fighter aircraft is the "most fighter aircraft" in the world, but at the same time these words are as far from reality as the flight of the Baron Munchausen on a cannonball to the moon. Probably, in the foreseeable future, it makes more sense to focus on the full-fledged - both qualitatively and quantitatively - commissioning the PAK FA, in order to avoid a situation where Russia will be armed with "semi-finished" T-50s and their successors.
