Fifth Generation Fighters.pdf

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SECTION 1 GENESIS OF THE BREED
CHAPTER 1 GENESIS OF THE
GENERATIONS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
70
It’s almost as futuristic as you can get
and still retain development status as a radical
test bed for new technology with 3D nozzle
deflection.
CHAPTER 10 MIG 1.44
Author:
David Baker
Design:
Lucy Carnell, atg-media.com
Cover design:
Holly Furness
Reprographics:
Angie Sisestean
Production editor:
Pauline Hawkins
Publisher:
Steve O’Hara
Advertising manager:
Zoe Thurling
Publishing director
Dan Savage
Marketing manager:
Charlotte Park
Commercial director:
Nigel Hole
Published by:
Mortons Media Group Ltd, Media Centre,
Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR.
Tel. 01507 529529
Printed by:
William Gibbons and Sons, Wolverhampton
ISBN:
978-1-911276-58-6
© 2018 Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No
part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval
system without prior permission
The first jet fighters took to the skies during
the Second World War but after 1945 the
development of airframes and engine
accelerated.
Following the first two generations
of fighter aircraft, technology pushed the
boundaries of speed and capability, turning
dogfighters into missile platforms.
78
CHAPTER 11 SUKHOI SU-47 BERKUT
86
CHAPTER 12 SUKHOI T-50/SU-57
96
CHAPTER 13 CHENGDU J-20
The Russian heavyweight fighter
manufacturer developed a radical forward-
swept wing test aircraft and provided a potential
denied only by political vacillation.
This definitive Russian fifth-generation
fighter emerged from a long line of developed
variants originating with the Su-27 family to
exhibit unique capabilities.
Almost out of nowhere, China displayed
breakthroughs in stealth and high performance
in a fighter that may not be all it seems.
Seeking a small fifth-generation fighter
with potential for export, China has produced
an F-35 lookalike with not all of the variability.
15
CHAPTER 2 GENERATION GAP
22
CHAPTER 3 GENERATION RISING
30
As global confrontation threatened in the
height of the Cold War, proxy conflict brought a
surge in technological innovation.
SECTION 2 DESIGNING FOR THE FUTURE
New threats from robust air defences
stimulated a drive toward low observable
combat aircraft and a whole new way of
designing fighters to survive.
102
CHAPTER 14 SHENYANG FC-31
SECTION 4 ASPIRANTS, THREATS
AND FUTURES
FRONT COVER IMAGE:
America’s Lockheed Martin F-22, F-35 and China’s
J-20 provide capabilities defining them as fifth-generation fighters, with several
leading contenders presenting aircraft already flying.
(VIA DAVID BAKER)
CHAPTER 4 THE SEARCH FOR STEALTH
38
When aircraft went stealthy, control
systems had to keep up with unstable aircraft
designed with advanced avionics and advanced
flight control systems.
CHAPTER 5 UNDER THE SKIN
106
CHAPTER 15 NEW ENTRANTS
110
CHAPTER 16 CONTENDERS
Several countries aspire to take a place
at the top table of fifth-generation types, some
might make it but a few never will get that seat.
42
46
New sensors to improve situational awareness
matched advanced radars capable of seeking
out targets beyond visual range for long-
distance defence.
CHAPTER 6 SURVIVAL IN
HARM’S WAY
Existing aircraft, long in the tooth and
honed in war, are receiving upgrades that will
give them capabilities very close to bespoke
fifth-generation types.
With technical challenges to their
survival, the fifth generation are having to
upgrade their capabilities to retain their
unique role in conflict.
SECTION 3 THE FIFTH GENERATION
First of the fifth, this new fighter that emerged
from early work on stealthy aircraft with low
observables became the backbone of the air
dominance threat.
122
CHAPTER 17 FIGHTING THE FIFTH
127
CHAPTER 18 ENTER
THE SIXTH
What can we expect with the
sixth-generation fighter generation
and how will they integrate with
a warfighting scenario so very
different from that of today?
CHAPTER 7 LOCKHEED MARTIN
F-22A RAPTOR
54
CHAPTER 8 LOCKHEED MARTIN F-35
LIGHTNING II
62
CHAPTER 9 MIG-35
Whereas the F-22A was built in limited numbers
for special incursions, the first mass production
fighter of the fifth generation offered three
variants for different services.
Some say this Russian fighter is not of the
fifth generation but its capabilities are growing
and it is closer than most other types to the
golden accolade.
FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS
3
INTRODUCTION
Introduct
4
FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS
ABOVE:
Russia’s new fifth generation, represented by the Sukhoi Su-57.
(VIA DAVID BAKER)
T
tion
A US Air Force pilot from
the 58th Fighter Squadron,
33rd Fighter Wing from
Eglin AFB guides a Lockheed
Martin F-35A into position
for a photo
-shoot.
(USAF)
s
he story of the fifth-generation fighter
is a product of several evolving steps,
advanced forward by technology,
engineering, science and investment – from
politicians, military services and industry. But to
understand how the fifth has evolved it helps to
see from whence it came and how 40 years of
engineering and science helped build a bridge
from the piston-engine fighters of the Second
World War to the stealthy fighters of today,
agile and equipped for electronic warfare as
an integral part of their design. It is all about
the never-ending quest for air superiority.
In the air combat arena of the 21st
century, air superiority has stretched toward
air dominance – a goal sought but hardly
ever likely to be achieved completely. Air
superiority, as defined in fighter terminology,
requires total control of the skies and that
has already been achieved in some recent
conflicts, usually employing highly trained, skilled
and experienced fighter pilots pitted against
lower levels of efficiency and effectiveness,
either through poor training or an absence
of experience. Air dominance, on the other
hand, is about eliminating the ground threats
too. And that is more difficult to achieve.
Over the last 80 years, jet aircraft have
evolved from sluggish contemporaries of
prop-driven fighters, hardly keeping up with the
performance of piston-engine powered combat
planes, to supersonic, highly agile, electronic
platforms launching weapons to targets in the air
or on the ground beyond visual range. A dynamic
in that line of progress has been the extraordinary
advances in the science of flight added to
outstanding breakthroughs in exotic technology.
Joined together, it has been a powerful stimulus
to successive generations of combat aircraft.
It is quite common to refer to jet fighter
aircraft within successive generations of
increasingly sophisticated capabilities, beginning
with the first fighters and progressing to the very
latest air dominance, fifth generation, types.
But in reality there is no definitive agreement
on just what those generations represent and
where each generation starts or by what criteria
it ends. Each source consulted has its own
interpretation of what constitutes a specific
generation, broadly defined as sequential
steps from the first jet fighters introduced to
operational service to the present and beyond.
What follows in the opening chapters after
this introduction is merely one sequence of
categorisation defined by steps in technology, in
aircraft design and within the evolving changes
that have characterised steps from first to fifth
in a succession of generational types framed
by performance and capability. But there is no
binding agreement as to where to draw the
divisions between generations of fighter type,
this being only one interpretation open to
debate and redefinition. Yet, for all the boundary
uncertainties, it is helpful to begin with a basic
understanding of how the generations matured.
SMALL BEGINNINGS
Discounting experimental, conceptual
development aircraft and prototypes which
never saw operational service, logically the first
generation has to begin with the Messerschmitt
Me 262, the world’s first operational jet fighter,
and the Gloster Meteor, its contemporary and
in many ways a superior fighter. Where the
Germans excelled in aerodynamics and planform
design, the British had more reliable and,
arguably, better engines. Pilots who flew both
Me 262 and Meteor concluded that a German
jet fighter with British engines would have been
an unbeatable combination, a view expressed
to this author by General der Jagdflieger Adolph
Galland, an arch exponent of the Schwalbe.
British and German superiority was not to
last, however, as the vastly superior financial
resources of the United States quickly gained on
the lead of European manufacturers. Frequently
it came with the help of those assets – willingly
offered up by the UK and ‘liberated’ from
FIFTH GENERATION FIGHTERS
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