Air International — September 2017

MILITARY SUKHOI Su-57

suffered by the early T-50 prototypes during

testing. T-50-1 was taken out of the flying

schedule for overhaul for over a year between

August 2011 and September 2012 after

structural damage caused during a display

at MAKS 2011. The airframe now carries

various external signs of strengthening. Engine

problems have resulted in several single-

engine emergency landings. MAKS 2011 was

a bad time for the type, with T-50-2 suffering a

compressor stall of the starboard engine during

its take-off roll; a flame several metres long

shot out of the exhaust nozzle and the pilot

abandoned his take-off. Embarrassingly the

fifth aircraft, T-50-5, caught fire on the runway

after landing during a presentation for an Indian

delegation on June 10, 2014. Its subsequent

overhaul at Komsomolsk-on-Amur lasted 16

months. It is now designated T-50-5R and

resumed flight tests after the repair on October

16, 2015.

As well as the industry test centre in

Zhukovsky, since February 2014 the T-50

prototypes have been under evaluation by

military pilots at the MoD’s test centre at

Akhtubinsk. Vladimir Mikhailov, the former

commander-in-chief of the Russian Air Force,

told Russian television in March 2016 that the

T-50 had launched a weapon from its internal

armament compartment for the first time.

T-50-9 509 was supposed to be shown to Vladimir Putin in a separate, closed pavilion, painted in similar large pixels. The type’s new Su-57 designation was

supposed to be officially announced there, but the ceremony did not take place.

T-50-2 landing at Zhukovsky showing some of the modifications made to the aircraft during the first stage of testing. The main undercarriage doors
are re-shaped and the fairing of the electronic countermeasures antenna located between the engines nozzles is new.