Various Obstacles Confront Russia’s T-50 Project

There is no shortage of uncertainty about the future of Sukhoi PAK-FA T-50 fifth-generation fighter project. These doubts are driven by problems with major subsystems, delays with the aircraft’s introduction into service, and plans to defray some of the R&D cost by making India a developmental partner on the aircraft.
Russia’s NIIP radar design bureau, the traditional supplier for Sukhoi-design aircraft, has developed prototype models of the N050 active electronically scanning array (AESA) radar set with impressive results. However, the N050 is a hand-assembled product and currently the industrial base capacity to series produce the N050 does not exist. Furthermore, the PPMs [transmit/receive modules] are produced at the Istok military electronics enterprise on a limited scale, which has made the radar’s cost prohibitive.
In the same vein, the T-50’s composite panels are also handmade using the same basic technology as the well known Sukhoi range of all-composite aerobatic sports aircraft.
The fifth-generation engine that is to power later versions of the T-50 is still mostly on paper. The flight-test aircraft are powered by the same Saturn 117S engine that is installed in the Su-35, and this will also be the engine for the initial production batches of the T-50.
Above all, without changes to the aircraft it is questionable whether or not the T-50 will actually be a low-observable design. Several aspects of the aircraft as currently configured will produce unacceptably high RCS, as well as IR, signatures, according to U.S. industry experts.
Another factor is that the T-50 program was considered to be economically viable only if India stepped up to purchase at least 250 of the aircraft, and also would share in the R&D effort. But India is planning to procure only around half that number of fifth-generation fighter aircraft. Sources in the Indian MoD state they cannot afford both the T-50 and the Dassault Rafale that was selected as the winner in the MRCA competition. If the situation becomes an “either or” proposition the T-50 may be jettisoned in favor of the French fighter.
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