The SU-47 is an amazing looking aircraft, especially while in flight. Nicknamed the Golden Eagle, the SU-47 has a reduced radar signature, thrust vectoring, advanced fly-by-wire technology, and most notably a very unique forward swept wing design. The Sukhoi SU-47 is extremely maneuverable at subsonic speeds and has a maximum speed of mach 1.6. The SU-47 can carry a variety of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions.
Many sources try to compare the SU-47 to the F-22 Raptor. In reality, the F-22 Raptor is in a class of its own. Check out a video of the highly maneuverable Sukhoi SU-47 Berkut below.
21 Responses
WHY ARE BUILDING ARMS TO DESTROY HUMANITY WHEN MILLIONS ARE SUFFERING AND DYING OF HUNGER AND POVERTY IN AFRICA,ASIA AND SOUTH AMERICA. WHY ARE U INTENT ON DESTROYING HUMANITY AND GODS BEAUTIFUL CREATION. REMEMBER GOD IS WATCHING YOU ALL .
Posted on February 4th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Isn’t ‘Berkut’ a beautiful creation too ….
Posted on March 19th, 2008 at 7:16 am
I think that you should compare it with the raptor. i know the berkut isn’t as fast and it doesn’t have the stealthness of the F-22 however many sources say that Russia and not only have developed a radar which could detect it. So maybe in long range combat the berkut or firkin as it is also known could loose, however head to head I think that the raptor is in deep trouble. And if in a dogfight or in real life the Sukhoi manages to get close to the raptor the victory would be guaranteed due to it’s supreme manouverability.
Posted on March 30th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
The US has a plane similar to this once.
Back in the 80’s with the X-31.
Posted on April 19th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
“WHY ARE BUILDING ARMS TO DESTROY HUMANITY WHEN MILLIONS ARE SUFFERING AND DYING OF HUNGER AND POVERTY IN AFRICA,ASIA AND SOUTH AMERICA. WHY ARE U INTENT ON DESTROYING HUMANITY AND GODS BEAUTIFUL CREATION. REMEMBER GOD IS WATCHING YOU ALL .”
I live in Africa, the Culture is that of violence and poverty. Look at the news, Africans don’t want International help and when they get it they blame the rest of the world for their problems. People are generally evil beens and live life purely on their own personal selfish needs. The fact of the matter is A.) the technology has helped millions and millions, yet some still choose violence regardless. B.) And because of that, if you want peace build better weapons!!!
Unless the WHOLE world unites. Yes I do think the best thing for Africa is for the world to listen to Africa, do what the people say and leave them alone, just as they have asked.
Anyway Both SU-37 and F-22 are marvals of engineering. Very interesting to see that both sides have choosen different combat styles. It is very evident in the next generation anti-air tech.
Posted on June 2nd, 2008 at 7:52 pm
SU-37 is truly a unique aircraft. It just looks the part of a fighter. Sleek, aggressive, and not to mentions it’s ability to turn on a dime.
Posted on June 6th, 2008 at 10:15 am
People misunderstand the F22 Raptor. Because it LOOK SIMILAR to 4th generation planes (it’s not a very sexy plane aesthetically) they think it’s not maneoverable. That’s a crock. It’s thrust vectored and ultra maneoverable, but with its high cost and because close-quarters dog fighting is a thing of the past you will not see American pilots pulling the same type of moves at air shows.
The F22’s avionics and sensors are bar-none it’s strongest points. In war games it is taking out 4+ F18 Hornets before the F18’s even sense the F22…
Posted on June 9th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
This is truly an amazing aircraft, i mean finally the american f-22 has a match to fight now.
Posted on July 2nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm
The F-22 Raptor does have vector thrusting meaning it is highly manueverable, but the Berkut is still superior in the mobilty of dog fighting. The SU-47 utilizes thrust vectoring, its swept forward wing design allows for greater lift-to-drag ratio making it easier to turn, however this is where it loses some of its engines potential thrust. One thing about the F-22 raptor is that while it can take longer for radar to detect it, the misslies it launches are instantly detected, so that range the Raptor would have to get to before the missile would be effective would be within the operational area of the berkut to take out the Raptor. Heads up the berkut wins, if they develop a stealth missile (which is hard concept due to its compact size, its hard to manipulate angles) the Raptor will then have a legitimate chance. Im not dogging the F-22 Raptor at all, but the Berkut is operationally a more practical aircraft.
Posted on January 12th, 2009 at 2:47 am
I like your biased posts, but this is foolish. Check some performance statistics. Everyone knows that Russians produce in quality, while Americans in quantity.
Comparing 2 F-22s to 1 S-37 might be the way to go with your posts.
Posted on February 21st, 2009 at 8:35 pm
i like su-47 coz of its attractive design but indias TEZAS is really fifth generation fighter plane. it can easily destroyed both su-47 n F-22. so i must say india is much much superior than russia n america.
Posted on February 22nd, 2009 at 12:00 pm
“Ivan Said,
I like your biased posts, but this is foolish. Check some performance statistics. Everyone knows that Russians produce in quality, while Americans in quantity.
Comparing 2 F-22s to 1 S-37 might be the way to go with your posts.”
Ridiculous. Everybody knows the contrary. Dont look at the situation now, you (the rus) have fewer just because you dont have money, not because you focus on quality. Look back the cold war, it reflected exactly the doctrine of the two powers. CCCP always had LOTS of platform as well as personnels.
Posted on April 4th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
saberhagen and Wingless are the ones to listen to here. All you have to do is look at the spec of the 2 and know that the F-22 is in a league of it’s own, and would dominate even multiple of any other existing aircraft made to date, including the Sukhoi. The Sukhoi is a 4th generation Aircraft, the F-22 is a technological marvel in it’s own class, the one who posted the video even agrees.
I say merge their technologies. A more advanced Sukhoi(and I mean WAY more advanced) or an F-22 with a perfected inverted wing design. It’d shut everyone up atleast =)
Posted on April 30th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Ivan, I used to teach English to folks at Dassault (or “AMDBA” as it is known in the trade). When we spoke of design philosophies, they said (in the 1970s!) the Soviets realized that, whatever the technologies at play, you had to count on saturating your enemy’s defenses. Moreover, there was an imperative to keep it simple because the quality of draftees was low, so the aircraft had to be easy to maintain. For their part, the French opted for high survivability and high technology that forced its clients to employ French technicians, which gave Paris control over them: usually buyers of French military aircraft were only sold one month’s worth of spare parts. And without French technicians, a client’s air force might fly for even less long. When I asked about the Americans, the answer was that they were halfway between the French and Soviet design philosophies.
These comments, as noted, are now almost 40 years old and I know not what changes of attitude have intervened.
That said, the most artful, visually pleasing lines are “Made in Russia”. And this tells me something about performance.
Posted on May 9th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Philonetic: The spelling in your posting is “its” NOT “it’s”.
It’s = It is
“Its” matches “his” — you wouldn’t write “hi’s” as in “hi’s book and he’r pen” now would you?
(Sorry, I’m a teacher and I get upset over silly little details like this one all the time)
Posted on May 9th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Saberhagen, your reasoning is as nonlinear as the mindsets that made birds like the Sukhoi Flanker possible, but in this particular argument, your argumentation is a total nosedive.
Why shouldn’t we look at the situation now where Russia is the second largest arms exporter — albeit a modest second to the currently almighty USA?
Yes, Russia has “fewer” somethings which you don’t name, but who except the USA can account for half of the world’s entire arms spending all by itself? If this is an example of greatness, well, i would sooner lean towards some adjective to describe a particular pathological condition.
Finally, in a socialist economy, it was cheaper to get some jobs done manually than to automate or computerize them. Now Russia has a market economy, but still, with USD 8 billion in 2008 arm sales, it is very hard to claim they don’t have the money.*
*See: english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/17-07-2008/105807-arms-sales
Posted on May 9th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
Great opinions so far, unfortunatelly most of them are subjective (like mine below). The truth is that:
1. we don’t have the whole picture of neither Russia’s nor USA’s military strategy (we can only make assumptions more or less accurate);
2. nether SU nor F22 are “battle-ready” (SU is a little closer to that);
3. There are no tests/war game/real fights involving both planes (only analysis on paper);
4. The SU does not benefit of the propaganda F-22 has - just look to Discovery Channel and search for “The Future Weapons”, “The Joint Striker Program” etc, that praise F22/35 as the ultimate fighting machines - no mention whatsoever about SAAB Griphen, Eurofigher, Rafale, etc.
5. On the other side: there are little sights of the alleged high-maneuvrability from F22/35 (I sow only one a cobra done by F22).
The bottom line, as I see it (Arthur Borges said it also): the LOOK - which is most important for most of the readers let’s face it - is in Russian aviation.
The future may decide about the performance - I hope (like AIKPO and John mentioned) that we will never find it through a bloody war.
Posted on May 27th, 2009 at 8:10 am
My country had recently joined NATO (Eastern Europe) and there is pressure to buy USA aircrafts. However, the Air Force in my country consder USA fighters the last in their preferences, after Sukhoi, Grippen and Europhighter - we will buy tough F’s, as the politics rules unfortnatelly.
I am a retired air force navigator, so I heard these opinions a lot.
Posted on May 27th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Now I see where everyones coming from and just wanted to post my own thing. One mentioned the X31, we abandoned the forward swept wing design because we did not do it right and so it was deemed a flawed design. I appreciate the Russian ingenuity in making a working fighter using this design. I honestly believe that Russia made itself a Superior Fighter, while our F22 is a Superior Fighter in it’s own right. If one could come up with an idea of combining the best qualities of the two jets it would be a scary sight. For one the Su47 is actually a bit more maneuverable due the canards located just behind the cockpit those operating in tandem with the pitch and yaw of the engines grants an amazing maneuverability, Plus the fact of the engines actually do move side to side slightly, not a whole lot but enough to enhance its ability The one flaw I see with the F-22 is the wings. Delta style wings ARE more stable but in lacking forward canards, at the same time it takes a touch longer for it to come down and pull up, i.e. what I call the caress. I am partial to both, but myself enjoy the F-16, the Thunderbirds are amazing, but I digress. I believe if we can just not neccessarily duplicate but manage to achieve the forward swept wings like the Berkut, I do believe that our jets would be nigh unstoppable. This is my belief, the forward swept wing design is an exceptional idea and if put in right, including the canards or something else that vectors will help alot with the stability issue.
Posted on May 28th, 2009 at 3:08 am
I’m certain this aircraft could put on some impressive air show displays and would be very maneuverable (and hence a more than capable dogfighter). But while is the Su-47 is a very nice design, forward swept wings have been done before (see the Grumman X-29). And while it has been abandoned by the U.S. (at least for now) for high subsonic drag, cost, and not enough advantages over swept or delta designs - my main problem with the Su-47 being a “F-22 killer” is it’s lack of stealth! Even if the airframe has some stealth features built into it (which I don’t see judging by the intakes and tail alone) the external carriage of weapons completely NEGATES any stealth features. A problem shared by the U.S. Navy’s F-18E&F’s as well.
Posted on June 21st, 2009 at 10:26 am
I like this aircraft. Also believe that this type of aircraft maybe capable of vertical landing, not take off, but landing. Use of the this type of technology can obsolete the F-35 if use of the vector thrust and airframe structure is match to allow vertical takeoff. The unfortuate truth here is that SU designers are doing more advancements then US is. In this design, the aircraft is very basic. If they perfect the vertical landing and takeoff, they may have the capability to eliminate the complexity of the landing gear system and simplify base requirements.
Think we are headed for a rude awakening….
Posted on June 21st, 2009 at 3:24 pm
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