T50 Stealth Fighter aborted take-off at Maks Airshow.

[willedoo]

Watched this on live streaming last night & apparently it was an aborted take-off after all. There was quite a big flash out the engine exhaust, followed by a smaller one, so it's possibly blown the starboard engine by the look of it. It taxied back ok after deploying the chutes.

 

Interesting last night to watch it taxi past the Su35 & Su34 & see the size difference between them; even though the T50 is still a large plane, it's overshadowed in size by the other two.

 

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110821/166002069.html

 

This video takes a few seconds to load:

 

http://en.rian.ru/video/20110821/166006652.html

 

 

[willedoo]

It looks like the word from the engine's manufacturer, Saturn, is that the engine is ok & didn't malfunction. Supposedly, the flame out was caused by a faulty sensor, part of the digital engine control system, feeding incorrect data to the flight control system.

 

Seems an age old problem where initial good design & engineering of prototypes is constrained for a certain length of time due to component failures. It will be interesting in the future to find out the cause of the sensor malfunction; with so few prototypes built, it's possibly not related to contractor supplying.

 

Looking at a photo of the drag chute deployment, it seems to pop up out of the top of the rear radome. As far I know, the original Su27 Flankers got rid of the parachute pod to incorporate the rear facing radar between the two engines. I'd imagine the T50 prototype would have chutes as a precaution & would not be used in production models.

 

This aeroplane, along with the F35 & to a lessor degree, the F22, will be the main front line air superiority/ strike aircraft for the next thirty years or so; it should be an interesting story unfolding for those who follow military aviation development. Just hope I live long enough to see if plasma stealth comes to anything, & if so, if it can be retro-fitted to existing aircraft. Always did think it would be a waste of some of mankind's greatest aviation design achievements, in the Su Flankers & the F15 Eagle, just because of their radar detectability.

 

Cheers, Willedoo.

 

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