— Ростех (@RostecRussia) July 15, 2021
I love a good fighter rollout
After cancelling the 2020 show due to Covid-19, the 2021 MAKS airshow in Russia will be held on July 20-25.
They tend to be used to reveal new products, and in the case of MAKS, the new
products tend to be Russian.
This year it appears that UAC will be Revealing a single engine lightweight 5th generation fighter aircraft that will serve as part of a high/low mix with the Su-57 much in the same way that the F-15/F-16 or Su-27/MiG-29 do.
At this point, all that we have seen is long range photographs of the heavily shrouded aircraft, though it does appear to be designed with low observability characteristics in mind.
The tail arrangement looks to be rather similar to that of the Boeing X-32 production version, and we can be reasonably sure that there will NOT be a STO/VL version, which means that it won't be carrying the 500 kg or so that the non-STO/VL versions of the F-35 does.
As to the front of the fuselage, it may have canards, leading edge extensions, perhaps with leading edge flaps as the Su-57 does, or it may have side mounted inlets.
I would also guess that it would have larger bays than the F-35, if simply because Russian long range AAMs and ASMs would be a big part of its appeal.
AW&ST correspondent Stephen Trimble has noted that the bulk of the display appears to be in English, which might indicate that they see the UAC sees this as primarily targeting the export market.
We should have an unveiling in a couple of days.
According to this article, (Google Translate) it will have a weight of, "Up to 18 Tons," which would put it in the same weight class as the F-18, and far less than the F-35.
In any case, waiting for the unveiling.
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