LMFS
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Seems a legit source, even when it is still unspecific about the nature of the "set speed" they refer to. Nevertheless, the statement in its full context has not aged very well, judge for yourself:The change was directed in 2006 by the head of the Russian Air Force at the time, Viktor Mikhaylov. I would consider that to be rather official.
V. Mikhailov said that the fifth-generation aircraft of front-line aviation will make its first flight no later than 2007. According to him, all work on this aircraft is strictly on schedule, its airframe has been developed, its characteristics have been determined and approved.
Mikhailov also said that he instructed the developers of the car to reduce the set speed from 2.15 M to 2M, in order to ensure a gain in other characteristics due to this.
According to him, in parallel with the development of this aircraft, its lightweight modification will be designed with the same avionics and the same engine, but with less powerful weapons.
The last paragraph in particular is interesting, either they announced LTS back in 2006 (and from the VKS no less), or they just talk about a plan that went nowhere. By what UAC says, LTS was only started very recently.
You can find more information about Russian military plans, the more into the past you go. As of recently, they publish basically nothing technical. In any case we know there have been reviews of the design goals throughout the whole program, like with the decision to go for the second stage engine.Has it changed then? Who knows, as there haven’t been any announcements to the contrary. It would be of rather limited tactical value.
The tactical value again is your personal assessment and does not consider the stated role of the plane as an interceptor.
Even less, but they are just versions of 2+ M planes and so it would make sense to use an already developed solution rather than to develop and test the new intake solution from scratch. Besides the data we have are always for export versions, remember that. But Su-57 is not a version of a previous design, and having more powerful engines, even with an inferior pressure recovery, it should be able to reach 2 M with fixed intakes as the F-22 or F-16 does. With the Su-35's example you are not even talking about a <2 M plane. So I don't think you have managed to explain why to equip the Su-57 with variable intakes if its max speed is 2 M.Even the Su-30SM and MiG-35 with variable inlet ramps have a maximum speed of Mach 2