Disputes about whether the Russian Su-57 is a fifth-generation fighter are already fading away, military expert Alexei Leonkov assures in the publication of the weekly Zvezda.
According to the author, the Su-57, unlike the American F-35 Lightning II, satisfies the network-centric criterion, since the Russian “fifth-generation aircraft began to take its wings when the National Defense Control Center [of the Russian Ministry of Defense] had already taken up round-the-clock combat duty.”
The expert does not disclose how the current Russian satellite constellation ensures the implementation of network centricity in relation to the Su-57, which has not yet been put into service, but assures that the latter received a “fundamentally new complex of on-board equipment” that acts as a “co-pilot”.
The author writes that such an electronic “co-pilot” provides the function of “hypothetical processing of information from surveillance and targeting systems, provides intelligent support for the pilot in solving combat missions in the critically difficult conditions of modern air combat.”
In July, the publication of the Chinese portal Global Times named the American F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, as well as the Chinese J-20, but not the Russian Su-57, as fifth generation fighters. The internationally oriented publication, which is overseen by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, citing a publication in Acta Aeronautica et Astronautica Sinica, cited the opinion of the deputy director of science and technology of Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), J-20 general designer Yang Wei …
In November 2019, Breaking Defense reported that in December 2018, the Pentagon, as part of the Defense Experimentation Using the Commercial Space Internet program, conducted several experiments with the Starlink system of near-earth satellites of the American company SpaceX.
At the same time, American General David Kumashir said that the fifth generation fighters F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II will be able to exchange information with the reusable unmanned spacecraft X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV).
