Vinayak Barot & Aditya Hore
Ahmedabad: Russia, to remain in the league of the super power nation had recently conducted an experiment to shatter American deadliest fighter plane F-35, says a report of Russian news agency.
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is member of an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both air superiority and strike missions.
It is also able to provide electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. Lockheed Martin is the prime F-35 contractor, with principal partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems.
The aircraft has three main variants: the conventional take-off and landing F-35A (CTOL), the short take-off and vertical-landing F-35B (STOVL), and the carrier-based F-35C (CV/CATOBAR).
To shatter this American deadliest fighter plane, Russia has conducted an experiment. The Russian news agency reported that Russia conducted an experiment on the use of a “swarm” of SU-35 fighters under the control of the 5th generation SU-57 aircraft.
According to media sources, the experiment was carried out in real combat conditions and the group of SU-35 fighters was involved in the flock. The role of the command-staff aircraft was played by Su-57.
The Sukhoi SU-57 is a stealth, single-seat, twin-engine multirole fifth-generation jet fighter being developed since 2002 for air superiority and attack operations. The aircraft is the product of the PAK FA, a fifth-generation fighter programme of the Russian Air Force.
Sukhoi’s internal name for the aircraft is T-50. The SU-57 is planned to be the first aircraft in Russian military service to use stealth technology. Its maiden flight took place on 29 January 2010 and the first production aircraft are planned to be delivered in 2020.
The Russian military expert, Chief Editor of Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine Viktor Murakhovsky said “work on interaction in defense battle order is important.”
Further sourced clarify “the use of a ‘swarm’ operating in a single information space, significantly increases the efficiency of combat missions. In the future, information from all aircraft sensors, as well as from air defense systems, from satellites, from ground-based equipment should come into a single operation that will create a single information field for land, air and space.”
Russia plans to experiment the exchange of information between fighter jets in real time.
Moreover, it wants the information control system of each aircraft automatically processes data from its own sensors and the sensors of other aircraft giving a complete battle space picture. The command and control aircraft then should guide the course of the battle.
Russia believes that with the support of Artificial Intelligence (AI), the distribution of combat work including for aviation will take place.
Last year, Russia deployed pairs of SU-57s to Syria for what it claimed were combat trials. However, there’s no evidence to prove that the fighters actually participated in front-line missions.
Russia has two military bases in Syria and a sizable military presence where it often conducts live experiments. In addition, foreign reconnaissance and fighter aircraft commonly fly in or near Syrian airspace giving ‘target aircraft’ for a swarm experiment.
Earlier European media had reported, the SU-57 fighter jet is designed to have super-cruise, stealth, and advanced avionics to overcome the prior generation fighter aircraft as well as ground and naval defenses.
The SU-57 is intended to succeed the MiG-29 and SU-27 in the Russian Air Force.
The media sources did not specify the place and date of the experiment but Murakhovsky stated that the US is carrying out similar work for its F-35 line of fighters.
However, Murakhovsky added “neither Russia nor the US has been able to develop such a single information system that would control all types of troops “due to difficulties in creating a single data format for different types and branches of the armed forces.”