"Let's make like Americans": The Russian Federation is tested by SU-57 with technology that is almost 40 years old (photo)

The event is notable in that this technology is an important improvement for fifth generation aircraft. The advantage of flat nozzle engines is to improve the secretary by reducing the radar section (RCS) and the infrared signature. Traditional round nozzles create strong radar reflections, while flat scattering radar waves, complicating the detection and tracking.

From a aerodynamic point of view, this design can reduce the resistance and increase the fuel efficiency of the Su-57 aircraft, maintaining the thrust vector, which allows to maintain a high maneuverability characteristic of Russian fighters. About the tests of this technology on the Russian machine, Defense Express observers noted that "new development" is reminiscent of long -term technologies.

The F119 engine with a flat nozzle was developed by the American Pratt & Whitney in 1986, it was applied to the F-22 Raptor. The tests began in 1988 at the F-15, and the first flight of the F-22 prototype took place in 1990.

On the basis of F119, the F135 engine was created for the F-35, but the flat nozzle was abandoned there in favor of the symmetrical nozzle, which, on the one hand, makes it possible to reduce the visibility of the plume in the infrared spectrum, on the other-cheaper in production and maintenance. Experts also said that from the very beginning of the Su-57 program it was planned to install a new engine with a flat nozzle.

However, the serial aircraft uses the first stage engines-AL-41F1, a modernized version of AL-31F, designed for the Su-27. The development of the type "Type 30", which was to provide SU-57, has been ongoing since 2020, but it has not come to mass production. Therefore, while the Russian industry is limited to testing new technologies, serial SO-57 continues to be supplied to troops with engines created on the basis of technologies of the 1970s.