US F-35, F-22 ‘add up’ in Capabilities to Russian Su-57 Stealth Fighter

The Su-57 nomenclature for Russia’s fifth-generation stealth fighter was derived from ‘adding up’ the numbers ‘22’ and ‘35’ from the US-made F-22 and F-35 aircraft to indicate that the Russian jet incorporates the capabilities and features of both.

Russia’s Sukhoi Su-57 incorporates the functions of the US F-22 and F-35 fighter planes but outperforms them, Chief designer and Director of the Sukhoi Design Bureau, Mikhail Strelets said on  Zvezda TV on Friday, TASS reported.

"It so turned out and we didn’t choose this specially but if you sum up 22 and 35, you get the figure 57," the Sukhoi chief designer said.

The Russian fighter jet is capable of accomplishing missions to destroy both air and ground targets as compared to the two US aircraft that are focused on either of the specific tasks, the Sukhoi chief designer said.

"The F-22 was initially developed as an aircraft to gain air superiority. But eventually the Americans realized that it was essentially wrong to design the aircraft only for carrying air-to-air missiles and made an attempt to fit air-to-surface weapons into the existing configuration of its compartments. But the configuration of the compartments did not allow placing larger cargoes (weapons)," Strelets said.

The designers of the Su-57, earlier designated PAK FA- (Prospective Airborne Complex of Frontline Aviation) faced the task of developing a multi-functional aircraft, he said adding that the Russian aircraft has a higher power to weight ratio than the American planes.

The Russian PAK FA fighter jet flew for the first time in 2010 and was designated as ‘Su-57’- the serial index number of Russian military aviation- in 2017. That same year-end, it flew with a new engine that gives it vastly improved performance over the engine the experimental aircraft was flying with.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko has said earlier that the first batch for the Russian Armed Forces will comprise 15 fighter planes and will delivered to the Air Force in 2019.

The Su-57 features stealth technology is capable of maintaining supersonic cruising speed and is furnished with a powerful onboard computer (the so-called electronic second pilot), a radar system spread across its body and armaments placed inside its fuselage.