New Sukhoi ‘Checkmate’ single-seat lightweight fighter from Russia’s Rostec could be the jet of the future (if it didn’t have a pilot in it). But is this really the F-22 killer, or are there crucial ingredients missing from that recipe? Bill Whittle, Stephen Green and Zo Rachel examine the case.
Right Angle is a production of our Members. You can join them now.
Special thanks to Alfonzo Rachel for sitting in for Scott Ott.
Video below hosted at Rumble.
12 replies on “F-22 Killer: New Lightweight Russian ‘Checkmate’ Fighter Could Be Jet of the Future”
Um, Sukhoi – you do realize that under the NATO classification system, a two-syllable name beginning with C is a jet-powered cargo plane, yes?
Nice little homage to the Boeing X-32 on the intake; in fact, it kinda looks like what the X-32 might have looked like without the requirement for vertical landing.
Will be interesting to see how it does once it flies; as the guys say, the Russians do know how to build a dogfighter (“superagile”, as they describe it). But an F-22 killer? Not even slightly.
The difference between building military kit and building a military culture are nicely illustrated by a quote from the Second World War.
In May 1941,during the German invasion of Crete, without air cover, the Royal Navy was suffering severe losses while evacuating troops. When senior Army officers expressed concerns to Admiral Andrew Cunningham that the Navy was losing too many ships and should withdraw Cunningham replied.
“It takes the Navy three years to build a ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue.”
Bill is quite correct, wars are won and lost in the mind as much as in the air land and sea. To see our senior officers utterly hamstrung by Wokeist concerns (it’s as bad this side of the Pond), is truly scary.
Looks vaguely like the YF-23, but smaller, not quite as nicely designed on the engines, and without the diamond shaped wings. I think I’d take a YF-23 over it, and probably an F-22 as well. If only we could still build YF-23’s and F-22’s and didn’t completely blow our supply chain.
Good discussion, gents!
The world’s most expensive Air Force is one that comes out second in combat. Likewise any part of the military.
The main danger the “Checkmate” represents is the availability of a capable fighter available at a so small cost that there can be an overwhelming number of them facing our FEW extremely expensive fighters and their extremely well trained pilots.
Not really a fan of the opera winfree form of discussion — What happened to the old FireWall and Presentation Bill Whittle?
A few things to bear in mind about the Su-75 “Checkmate” …
It’s not flying yet. The only public hands-on viewing of it was a mock-up model. That was a ground display at an air show. The Su-75 unveiled there did not fly in, it got to the airport on a truck. If there are no delays the Su-75 isn’t scheduled to actually fly for two more years, in 2023 sometime. It’s not supposed to be available for combat operations until 2027. Again, if there are no delays and that’s a mighty big “IF”.
It’s not designed nor promoted as a F-22 Raptor killer. It’s intended mission is to counter the F-35’s being currently produced and deployed by the U.S. Which puts their inception, production and deployment well behind American air superiority capacity.
The Su-75, from what I can find on it so far, is a “monkey model”. The Russians produce two types of armaments. Those meant for the Russian military and those to be sold to everyone else for hard currency. The weaponry made for global sale is generally inferior to what the Russians reserve for their own use. In this case the airframes and engines will likely be the same but the avionic, stealth, weapons and sensor packages will be cheaper, dumber, less effective versions.
Bearing in mind that Moscow has not even claimed that this aircraft will be deployed in their own military there is some question about whether or not the Su-75 is solely intended as a monkey model to boost arms sales and bring in some needed cash for the Russian government. If that’s the case you can bet that if this aircraft were so damn superior to American planes the Russians would be building and deploying them inside Russia as fast as they could.
Russia is touting the Su-75 as an answer to the American F-35. Because many client states are not buying Russian war planes. They’re not buying Russian aircraft because when a Russian jet has gone up against an American jet, with an American (or Israeli) flying it, anytime in the last two decades or more … The Russian jet ends up as falling scrap metal. So the Su-75 may be nothing more than a marketing ploy.
Producing something capable of going toe-to-toe with an F-35 is expensive. The F-35 suffered from cost issues itself and it’s still the top in its class and mission in the world even so. Without spending more to get an equivalent or superior aircraft all you get is a sales gimmick. As per the previous paragraph. A Russian car salesman might claim that his UAZ Patriot pickup truck is every bit as good as a Ford F-150 but … it is not and never will be.
The expensive part of the equation is important. Russia’s economy is ranked 11th in the world. For comparison California with all it’s woes and economic problems is still ranked the 5th largest economy in the world. For the Russians to develop and send to market something that is significantly superior to the F-35 as to provide an air superiority edge is only half as likely as California doing the same on its own without Federal assistance.
Russia is notorious for “overstating” things. Meaning they lie a lot and count on a short public attention span, plus the fact that they just don’t care if they’re caught in a lie. There’s probably no reason to think this situation is any different. I just don’t see the Russian government, whatever form it happens to be in at the moment, having a sudden terminal outbreak of truthfulness.
There’s more but this has gotten long enough. Anyone interested in this topic should be able to get the idea by now. I’m not saying we can ignore Russian weapons tech development, we cannot. I’m saying we need to keep that kind of tech coming out of Russian and China in perspective.
And now our air training is being phased out in favor of Critical Race Theory. I’m sure that the Russians are spying on us to mimic that crucial knowledge that all pilots need
We are SO SCREWED and the problem is i am afraid alot of us Do NOT know it!
So what do you think about the technology we left behind in Afghanistan that China, the king of copying our technology, will almost surely get their hands on?
The reason all that weaponry was left behind in Afghanistan was that it was originally intended to supply the Afghan Army. You know, the Afghan Army that collapsed in about a week.
We didn’t leave any top-secret tech for the Afghans to lose, sell or misplace. It’s all pretty much standard stuff that the Russians and Chinese have known about and no doubt had in their hands anyway.
The problem with what was left in Afghanistan isn’t that other peer powers will learn something game-changing from it. It’s that now the Taliban has a full blown, well equipped, serious military capacity that they never had before.
Never discount the bean-counters’ consumption mindset that sees all that equipment, not as our hard-earned wealth dedicated to serving our best interests, but as an already spent appropriation with nothing budgeted for retrieval, maintenance, and storage.