Russian Media Claims Su-57 Outperforms F-35 with Double Engagement Distance, Hypersonic Missiles and "Nearly Invisible" Stealth

Russian state-owned media outlet Sputnik recently published a feature article praising the capabilities of the Sukhoi Su-57, Russia's fifth-generation fighter jet. The article, celebrating 15 years of Su-57's first flight, claims the aircraft surpasses its Western counterparts, including the American F-35, in several key areas.

Sputnik describes the Su-57 as a multi-role fighter designed for both air-to-air combat and ground attack missions. It highlights the aircraft's stealth technology, asserting that it is "nearly invisible" to enemy radar.

The Su-57 is also lauded for its maneuverability and impressive performance specifications, including a service ceiling of 20 kilometers, a range of 5,500 kilometers, and a top speed of 2,470 kilometers per hour.

The article emphasizes the Su-57's weapons systems, particularly the R-37M long-range air-to-air missile. Sputnik claims this missile allows the Su-57 to engage enemy aircraft at twice the distance of the F-35.

Additionally, the Su-57 can reportedly carry the Kinzhal hypersonic missile, designed to overcome sophisticated air defence systems.

Sputnik also draws attention to the Su-57's advanced sensor suite, stating that it is equipped with six radars providing superior situational awareness to the pilot. This comprehensive radar coverage enables enhanced battlefield monitoring and threat assessment.

Furthermore, the article highlights the Su-57's unique defensive capabilities. It describes a Directional Infrared Countermeasures System (DIRCM) that uses laser beams to disrupt the guidance systems of incoming missiles.

While Sputnik's claims are certainly bold, it is important to consider them within a broader context. The Su-57 program has faced challenges, with reports of delays and technical issues, particularly concerning its engines and stealth capabilities. Independent assessments of the aircraft's true performance remain limited.

If Sputnik's claims prove accurate, the Su-57 could pose a significant challenge to Western air dominance. Its purported combination of stealth, speed, maneuverability, and advanced weaponry would make it a formidable opponent in any future conflict. However, until more independent data is available, a degree of caution remains warranted in assessing its true capabilities.

 

[saffronsword]

the only choice India has......!!!

 

[sanket]

Su-57 has Good combat Radius, Plus Heavy weapons can b carried, and 360 degree Radar coverage if they have addressed the demends of IAF they sure it might b considered, Instead of MRFA Should purchased 114 Su-57

 

[Instant Karma]

Su 57 has zero crash records. But F 35 has hundreds of crashes. Su 35 is still under development where as SU 57 is a developed fighter and also battle tested.

 

[मित्र]

Su 57 has zero crash records. But F 35 has hundreds of crashes. Su 35 is still under development where as SU 57 is a developed fighter and also battle tested.

Operational number of su57 is very low right now so cant compare in terms of crashes.
But sure f35 is crash prone and even Elon Musk criticized it for this.

 

[Anant]

"Crash prone F-35"? Really? If you want to do a hit job, you'll have to do better than that.

The F-35 production run stands at about 1,100 jets as of date, and these are in service with 13 nations, with atleast another 9 nations with the aircraft on order, with a final production run planned of something deterrence 3,500 and 4,200 aircraft (excluding prototypes and the like). Out of these 1,100 jets, 11 have been lost in 15 incidents (about 1% so far) and the F-35 sees regular service globally.

The Su-57 production run, on the other hand, is about 29 serial aircraft and 10 prototypes. This, mind you, is against a planned production run of a maximum of about 500 jets including export orders (76 firm orders from Russia plus a further plan for another 200-ish jets in Russia to replace the MiG-29/35). Moreover, the type has seen 3 losses (about 7.7% so far), with very limited service in Ukraine and Syria.

Yeah... take that "crash-prone" narrative elsewhere where it actually can't be debunked.

 

[Enforcer]

Cmon now. 12 production SU57 built in total spends more time in Hangars than joining a war where Russians are loosing thousands of lives. That in itself is an testament to SU57 and how great it really is.

 

[Anant]

Operational number of su57 is very low right now so cant compare in terms of crashes.
But sure f35 is crash prone and even Elon Musk criticized it for this.

Boss, can you really consider 11 hull losses out of a ~ 1,100 jet production run as being crash-prone? Sure, it has a higher attrition rate than something like the F-15 and F-16, but both of those platforms had a lot of crashes in their early days too.

 

[मित्र]

Okay, let me do a comparative analysis of crash rate here:

MiG-21 (60-year-old platform): After late 2000s: 0.27 crashes per 10,000 flight hours. Resulting in 2.7 per 100,000 flight hours (known as flying coffin)

F-35: 3.82 crashes per 100,000 flight hours (31 crashes so far and it's the most advanced fighter jet with advanced control and anti-crash features)

F-16: Approximately 3.5 crashes per 100,000 flight hours

F-22: Around 4.1 crashes per 100,000 flight hours

Su-30MKI: Approximately 3 crashes per 100,000 flight hours (no official figures but considered as with the least crashes per flight hour)

#reason for considering MiG-21 crashes after 2000 only is that, other fighters are operating during this timeline only (mostly)

 

[Harsh]

Let us look at reality. India does not need a deep penetration aircraft against China. China's value targets are all fairly beyond Tibet, making deep penetration capability less valuable. India needs a capable 5th gen fighter with precision BVRMs, and boat-loads of them. Additionally, for defence of the Motherland, stealth characteristics are less relevant. If the Su-57 fits the bill without sacrificing strategic autonomy, India should go for it.

 

[मित्र]

Boss, can you really consider 11 hull losses out of a ~ 1,100 jet production run as being crash-prone? Sure, it has a higher attrition rate than something like the F-15 and F-16, but both of those platforms had a lot of crashes in their early days too.

Why considering only hull loss? Total crashes are 31.

Also f35 have most advance control safety features that f16 and others do not have. Still it have highest crash rate.

 

[मित्र]

Cmon now. 12 production SU57 built in total spends more time in Hangars than joining a war where Russians are loosing thousands of lives. That in itself is an testament to SU57 and how great it really is.

Dude thats the reality of war, everyone loses even if they gain land.
Its Russia vs whole west in terms of weapon. Still ukraine losing 5 for every 1 russian. Now west forcing ukraine to reduce mobilization age as they lost too many.

 

[Anant]

Okay, let me do a comparative analysis of crash rate here:

MiG-21 (60-year-old platform): After late 2000s: 0.27 crashes per 10,000 flight hours. Resulting in 2.7 per 100,000 flight hours (known as flying coffin)

F-35: 3.82 crashes per 100,000 flight hours (31 crashes so far and it's the most advanced fighter jet with advanced control and anti-crash features)

F-16: Approximately 3.5 crashes per 100,000 flight hours

F-22: Around 4.1 crashes per 100,000 flight hours

Su-30MKI: Approximately 3 crashes per 100,000 flight hours (no official figures but considered as with the least crashes per flight hour)

#reason for considering MiG-21 crashes after 2000 only is that, other fighters are operating during this timeline only (mostly)

Um, the F-35 has suffered 15 accidents and incidents to date, resulting in 11 hull losses. Not sure where you got that 31 number from. The cumulative flight hours have been around 9 lakh hours to date. That translates to an accident rate of 1.66 crashes per lakh flying hours, or an attrition rate of one airframe per 1.22 lakh flying hours.

Secondly, the F-16 has been operating from far before 2000, so you may want to take that into consideration too.

 

[abhinav srivastava]

SU57 may or may not be as advanced in stealth compared to F35. Buying critical US platforms will be a big risk. You never know when they armtwist you. It will be much more steadier than Rafales. AMCA is atleast 15 years away from induction.
Cancel MRFA. Buy 2-3 squadrons each of Rafales and SU57.

 

[मित्र]

"Crash prone F-35"? Really? If you want to do a hit job, you'll have to do better than that.

The F-35 production run stands at about 1,100 jets as of date, and these are in service with 13 nations, with atleast another 9 nations with the aircraft on order, with a final production run planned of something deterrence 3,500 and 4,200 aircraft (excluding prototypes and the like). Out of these 1,100 jets, 11 have been lost in 15 incidents (about 1% so far) and the F-35 sees regular service globally.

The Su-57 production run, on the other hand, is about 29 serial aircraft and 10 prototypes. This, mind you, is against a planned production run of a maximum of about 500 jets including export orders (76 firm orders from Russia plus a further plan for another 200-ish jets in Russia to replace the MiG-29/35). Moreover, the type has seen 3 losses (about 7.7% so far), with very limited service in Ukraine and Syria.

Yeah... take that "crash-prone" narrative elsewhere where it actually can't be debunked.

You are factually wrong and trying to mislead here.
Su57 have only 1 crash till now (in 2019).
Additionally 2 are damaged by Ukrainian drone attack remaining on ground (not crashed).

Are f35 involved in any war: no

West uses these to attack countries without air defense and then do chest thumping. Only mild exception is Israel's attack on Iran (meek air defense) which was also by using standoff weapons using safe distance.

In comparison Ukraine have advansed western air defense systems.

 

[मित्र]

Um, the F-35 has suffered 15 accidents and incidents to date, resulting in 11 hull losses. Not sure where you got that 31 number from. The cumulative flight hours have been around 9 lakh hours to date. That translates to an accident rate of 1.66 crashes per lakh flying hours, or an attrition rate of one airframe per 1.22 lakh flying hours.

Secondly, the F-16 has been operating from far before 2000, so you may want to take that into consideration too.

You are right about flight hours but lying about crashes.

According to the latest data as of January 2025, the F-35 has:
Total Flight Hours: 811,000
Total Crashes: 31
Crash Rate: 3.82 crashes per 100,000 flight hours

There are lot of propaganda articles giving misleading reports on no of crashes to show us its better in terms of crashes.

 

[मित्र]

SU57 may or may not be as advanced in stealth compared to F35. Buying critical US platforms will be a big risk. You never know when they armtwist you. It will be much more steadier than Rafales. AMCA is atleast 15 years away from induction.
Cancel MRFA. Buy 2-3 squadrons each of Rafales and SU57.

Correct, i believe su57 shouldn't cost more than rafale 😂

 

[मित्र]

Um, the F-35 has suffered 15 accidents and incidents to date, resulting in 11 hull losses. Not sure where you got that 31 number from. The cumulative flight hours have been around 9 lakh hours to date. That translates to an accident rate of 1.66 crashes per lakh flying hours, or an attrition rate of one airframe per 1.22 lakh flying hours.

Secondly, the F-16 has been operating from far before 2000, so you may want to take that into consideration too.

As per official USAF numbers for fy12 to fy 21

5 class A accidents per 100000 fh
6 class B accidents per 100000 fh

thats total whopping 11 crashes per 100000 flight hours (USAF)

total fh: 225449 flight hours.

This data is from official document "F-35 FLIGHT MISHAP HISTORY" released by USAF IN 2022.

Now f35 fanboys can cry 😭

 

[मित्र]

A 2024 report highlighted that F-35 aircraft are:
Ready for missions only 51% of the time
Falling short of the 65% operational readiness target
The crashes have raised concerns about the aircraft's reliability and maintainability, with critics like Elon Musk calling it the "worst military value for money in history".

 

[Anant]

As per official USAF numbers for fy12 to fy 21

5 class A accidents per 100000 fh
6 class B accidents per 100000 fh

thats total whopping 11 crashes per 100000 flight hours (USAF)

total fh: 225449 flight hours.

This data is from official document "F-35 FLIGHT MISHAP HISTORY" released by USAF IN 2022.

Now f35 fanboys can cry 😭

That 2.25 lakh flying hours is a statistic of the USAF service only. Other operators of the type have also flown the jet, and as per Simple Flying, the F-35 fleet had clocked some 8,71,000 flying hours across all operators (including training flights for new operators) by November 2024.

If you are counting all 11 crashes, you have to also consider all flying hours across all operators since some of those crashes were for non-USAF aircraft.

So, there you go. Your numbers debunked.

 

[Anant]

You are factually wrong and trying to mislead here.
Su57 have only 1 crash till now (in 2019).
Additionally 2 are damaged by Ukrainian drone attack remaining on ground (not crashed).

Are f35 involved in any war: no

West uses these to attack countries without air defense and then do chest thumping. Only mild exception is Israel's attack on Iran (meek air defense) which was also by using standoff weapons using safe distance.

In comparison Ukraine have advansed western air defense systems.

Um, nope. The Su-57 has had two crashes thus far. One was of the fifth prototype , and the second was of the first production aircraft. On top of that, you have the two Su-57s damaged in Ukrainian attacks, with the general consensus being that one of them was damaged beyond economical repair.

As for the Su-57's use in combat regions, well, I am fairly certain rebel factions in Syria didn't exactly have air defence systems you could consider modern even in the 2000s. Oh, and in Ukraine, as admitted by Russia themselves, the Su-57 has been used to sling missiles at stand-off ranges, well beyond the range of Ukrainian air defence systems and well inside the Russian air defence envelope.

On the other hand, the F-35 has actually been used in places with air defence systems that were supposed to be able to intercept it. Remember Israel's strike on Iran late last year? The Israelis used their F-35s and some older aircraft, flew all the way into Iran, and destroyed practically all of Iran's modern air defence systems, and came out of it without a single scratch. The Russians have claimed systems like the S-300 can detect and shoot down the F-35, and we instead saw the F-35s move in and wipe out Iran's modern air defence systems instead.

Do yourself a favour and take your false claims elsewhere.

 

[Nvs rao]

Operational number of su57 is very low right now so cant compare in terms of crashes.
But sure f35 is crash prone and even Elon Musk criticized it for this.

That is not reality. The number of planes equating to the number of accidents is foolish.

If it were reliable, the rate of accidents would be very minimal at whatever their number.

F-35, highly campaigned by media, but it has a very bad record from its first flight.

 

[Nvs rao]

"Crash prone F-35"? Really? If you want to do a hit job, you'll have to do better than that.

The F-35 production run stands at about 1,100 jets as of date, and these are in service with 13 nations, with atleast another 9 nations with the aircraft on order, with a final production run planned of something deterrence 3,500 and 4,200 aircraft (excluding prototypes and the like). Out of these 1,100 jets, 11 have been lost in 15 incidents (about 1% so far) and the F-35 sees regular service globally.

It is exposed your psychofancy about U S. Tech than nothing

 

[मित्र]

Um, nope. The Su-57 has had two crashes thus far. One was of the fifth prototype , and the second was of the first production aircraft. On top of that, you have the two Su-57s damaged in Ukrainian attacks, with the general consensus being that one of them was damaged beyond economical repair.

As for the Su-57's use in combat regions, well, I am fairly certain rebel factions in Syria didn't exactly have air defence systems you could consider modern even in the 2000s. Oh, and in Ukraine, as admitted by Russia themselves, the Su-57 has been used to sling missiles at stand-off ranges, well beyond the range of Ukrainian air defence systems and well inside the Russian air defence envelope.

On the other hand, the F-35 has actually been used in places with air defence systems that were supposed to be able to intercept it. Remember Israel's strike on Iran late last year? The Israelis used their F-35s and some older aircraft, flew all the way into Iran, and destroyed practically all of Iran's modern air defence systems, and came out of it without a single scratch. The Russians have claimed systems like the S-300 can detect and shoot down the F-35, and we instead saw the F-35s move in and wipe out Iran's modern air defence systems instead.

Do yourself a favour and take your false claims elsewhere.

"S-300 can detect f35" - question is detection range 10km or 20km ? LoL (max engagement range is 75 km when target detected)

"Iran's modern air defense" - so s300 is modern, it developed in 1970s?

"F35 moved in"? Really, they used f35 from standoff distanse against s300 and after jamming s300 radars.

You label others as false claim but yourself provide nothing else but just lies mixing with little truth.

You believe f35 against 1970s s300 as an achievement, lol

Ukraine using Patriot, NASAMS, iris-t, and other best of the western air defense system. And you are comparing it with Iran's s300 system. (On lighter note, Well could be true how these are performing in Ukraine 😂).

"Wipes out Iran's air defense", so jamming radars equivalent to destroying these?
What about su30 jamming f35 radar? Will it be counted as wiping out f35 by su30?

Practically we shouldnt compare su57 and f35, but su30 and f35, where su30 won by detecting and blinding f35 and engaging in vwr. F35 didnt knew what happened when su30 suddenly appeared in front of it.
Su30: 1
F35: 0

 

[मित्र]

That 2.25 lakh flying hours is a statistic of the USAF service only. Other operators of the type have also flown the jet, and as per Simple Flying, the F-35 fleet had clocked some 8,71,000 flying hours across all operators (including training flights for new operators) by November 2024.

If you are counting all 11 crashes, you have to also consider all flying hours across all operators since some of those crashes were for non-USAF aircraft.

So, there you go. Your numbers debunked.

We are considering 11 crashes till 2021 in 2.25 lakh fh till then by USAF citing USAF official docs. Dont mislead again by changing facts.

Overall 31 crashes in 8.5 lakh fh.