India In American F-35 Vs Russian Su-57 Fighter Quandry

(MENAFN- Asia Times) Only NATO countries, Japan, South Korea and Israel have the top fighter aircraft in the US arsenal, the F-35. The plane, which features advanced electronics and sensors, is billed as a multirole platform that can be used to achieve air superiority and conduct strike missions. It is competing in India against Russia's 5th-generation stealth-like jet, the Su-57.

While both the Su-57 and the F-35 are competing against one another to fill India's need for a significant number of new jets, the reality is the aircraft are considerably different.

The F-35 is optimized for stealth, although it falls short of the stealth protection of its big brother, the F-22. Congress decided years ago that the F-22 could not be exported, leaving the Japanese in the lurch as they sought the fighter to fend off China. Compared to the F-35, the F-22 is a heavier aircraft with two engines, greater range and supercruise.

Supercruise is defined as an aircraft's ability to fly at supersonic speed without afterburner. In practice, this means that any platform that lacks supercruise will need to burn much more fuel to sustain supersonic speeds. An aircraft without supercruise will generally take longer to get to its target and return or be restricted to nearer targets or require air-to-air refueling.

Russia's Su-57 is more like the F-22 than the F-35. It does have supercruise and technically better range and better dash capability than the F-35.

While India has been trending toward its own home-built fighter planes, it will be several years before it can meet its needs domestically. And even then India will have to import vital components or co-produce them with foreign companies.

It is probably fair to say that the F-35's electronics and sensors are more advanced than the Su-57's. Lockheed Martin, the US defense contractor that builds the F-35, guards the“black boxes” in the F-35, including even the built-in logistics system that connects to Lockheed for spare parts and software updates.

Buyers of the F-35 must, therefore, depend on Lockheed. The only country to demand greater autonomy from Lockheed dependence was Israel. Apparently, Lockheed and the US Defense Department considered the Israeli demand reasonable mainly because Israel can troubleshoot and improve F-35 capabilities and operations.

It is also the only country that has used the F-35 in combat, over Syria, Lebanon and possibly Yemen and Iran. Nonetheless, Israel needs the entire F-35 supply chain for spare parts and it almost lost access to some of that during the Gaza war.

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