Russia’s Su-47 Berkut stealth fighter platform 

With the induction of the Su-57 next generation air superiority fighter into frontline service in 2020, Russia became the third country in the world to induct a domestically developed next generation combat jet into service;

Following the United States in 2005 with the F-22 Raptor and China in 2017 with the J-20 ‘Mighty Dragon.’

The Su-57 saw its first flight in 2010, and the program appears to be aimed primarily at developing an aircraft with sixth generation capabilities – with orders for future derivatives of the jet expected to be much larger than those for the existing fifth generation variant.

The fighter is set to integrate a range of next generation technologies, including hyper-sonic ballistic missiles, stealth coatings, laser defenses, laser weapons, artificially intelligence and more, and saw its first combat tests in February 2018 when advanced combat capable prototypes were deployed to Syria.

Although the Su-57 program appears to have a great deal of potential, it represents only the latest of many Russian next generation fighter programs intended to supersede the fourth generation Su-27 Flanker – although the Su-57 is the only one to have gone beyond the early prototype stages and into serial production.\

One notable program to develop a fifth generation fighter, which saw its first flight thirteen years before the Su-57 in the same month as America’s F-22 Raptor, was the Su-47 Berkut stealth platform.

Whether the Su-47 was ever intended to enter active service in the Russian Air Force remains uncertain, though there are indications that the Western Bloc did consider it a possibility and saw the platform contending with the F-22 Raptor for air superiority in future conflicts.

A single prototype of the Su-47 was built and saw its first flight in September 1997, and the platform served as an invaluable test-bed for a number of sophisticated technologies including advanced composite materials and fly by wire technologies.

These would later also benefit both the ‘4++ generation’ Su-35 and the Su-57 programs.

The aircraft began development in the 1980″s under the Sukhoi design bureau, in parallel to the Mikoyan Buraeu’s MiG 1.44 fifth generation fighter and to programs for an enhanced Su-27 which would later become the Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35.

Recently released images of the Su-47 indicate that the fighter was to be built around a far stealthier air-frame that was indicated by the prototype, while budget cuts following the Soviet Union’s collapse forcing Russia to use the non stealthy fuselage from the Su-27 on its prototype.

What was most notable about the Su-47, and has distinguished it from all other fifth generation fighter designs, was its forward swept wing design.

These wings made the fighter extremely maneuverable with a near unmatched turn rate, and combined with thrust vectoring systems they set the Su-47 up to be a world leading dog-fighter.

The wing design gave the fighter a higher lift/drag ratio, superior stability at high angles of attack, a lower minimum flight speed, an improved stall resistance and anti-spin characteristics.

The wing design also gave the fighter a considerably greater range when flying at subsonic speeds, and allowed it to operate from far shorter runways due to the greater lift generated.

While formidable for visual range engagements, the downside of the forward swept wing design was that it restricted the fighter’s speed to just Mach 1.6, the same speed of the much lighter American F-35A fifth generation platform, which would have made it the slowest Russian fighter in service.

This alone was not the cause for the program’s cancellation however, and could have been seen as a cost worth paying for considerable flight performance advantages.

However, onboard lift as a result of the forward swept wing design also produced wing twisting, bending wings under the load of the aircraft and thus putting them under considerable strain.

Nearly 90% of the materials used for the fighter’s wing panels had to be strong composite materials as a result – but even this would become fatigued much more quickly than the wings of regular aircraft.

The Su-47 made use of the MiG-31 interceptor’s DF-30 engines, and alongside the forward fuselage the prototype borrowed vertical tails and landing gear from the Su-27 to reduce development costs.

With the fighter having similar dimensions to the Su-27, Russia’s prime air superiority fighter at the time, reapplication of several design aspects was feasible.

While primarily designed for its performance in visual range combat, the Su-47 was also able to deploy advanced long range air to air missiles which combined with modern radar systems could have made it an effective beyond visual range combat platform.

It remains uncertain if, had the Soviet Union not collapsed, the design would have gone into production in the 2000’s – with funding having been far more readily available in the Soviet era to solve performance issues and the defense sector having been much healthier than its Russian successor.

Military Watch Magazine / ABC Flash Point Blog News 2025.