India may soon acquire the Su-57 fighter jet to keep pace with Pakistan’s growing air capabilities particularly the Chinese supplied J-35A. But how do these two modern jets really compare? Let’s take an objective look at their stealth, sensors, range, and more to understand which aircraft has the upper hand.
From edge alignment to detail treatment, the J-35A is leagues ahead of Su-57, which has many bums and inconsistent surface treatment that are detrimental to radar stealth.
The main Issues such as right angled seams, rounded engine protrusions, and the noticeable “pimple” of an EOTS at the front, will all contribute to radar reflections.
The J-35A has advanced EODAS (electro-optical distributed aperture system), this gives the J-35A pilots true 5th gen situational awareness. And of course Chinese radar technology are the best in the world.
Surprisingly the J-35A has a longer combat radius of ~1500km, due to the better engine fuel efficiency of the WS-19, and the unexpectedly large internal fuel tanks for its size, with over 8 tons of capacity.
But if Russia were able to integrate the Su-57 with the AL-51F-1 engine, then it may catch up to the J-35A. Which is still incredible for the J-35A considering it’s a medium fighter and the Su-57 is a heavy fighter.
Although less important or outright useless in most situations for beyond visual range combat. It could be useful in situations where the incoming missile is at the extreme range, and you could to do some fancy moves to dodge it. But it’s mostly super maneuverability is reserved for air show performances.
So how come the J-35A is so good? The secret is that the J-35, the base model is a carrier based fighter. It needed to be over engineered to withstand the stresses of landing on the aircraft carrier.
So to meet the demanding requirements, the engineers at SAC used additive manufacturing (3D printing) extensively for the J-35. The J-35A, is the air force variant, which didn’t need the strengthened airframe, so they could make it much lighter, hence the great range.
The Su-57 is a good fighter and it is a 5th gen fighter, despite some detractors, although as mentioned, there are issues with its stealth. But it has made a lot of improvements since the porotype as compared to the production model.
That’s being said. Indian Su-57 going up against Pakistani J-35A will perform worse than their Rafales against Pakistani J-10CEs. The J-10CE in most cases are on-par with the Rafales. But the J-35A in critical areas for 5th gen fighters, is a lot better than the Su-57.
Pakistan is also getting the KJ-500 AWACS, on top of that, they have much better network-centric capabilities and electronic warfare capabilities. However, it’s not good to copy the Indians and boast yourself into complacency. Prepare well and next time make sure it’s 70 to 0.
