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Yes, I've started to wonder about the wings as well - they aren't actually as big as one might think on the Su-57, much of the area comes from the truly enormous centroplane. So, as jeffb mentions, we could potentially have commonality in forward fuselage & cockpit (including equipment & avionics), wings, fins, main weapons bay, landing gear and engine. It's stunning to contemplate that such a high proportion of primary structure from an aircraft *twice* the size could come together into a coherent and even fairly elegant design! I can't think of a recent example that would quite match this feat - even the F-35 squaring of the circle would begin to look downright plain in comparison. Of course, this approach must inevitably lead to a certain weight penalty (a purpose-designed landing gear for a 20 ton aircraft is going to be lighter than something optimized for a 40 ton aircraft). The more I think about it, the more things start to make sense, though in some instances it apparently led to superfluous complexity being also carried over. Going for a single trailing edge flaperon as I've thought about for the Su-57 would give a similar degree of simplification to the Pelikan tail I considered earlier while retaining commonality.Like the F-16? There's no indication in close-up photos that they are split into upper/lower halves in the same way, and given the generally very detailed representation of other moving parts I doubt that's something which would have been simplified. They may play a role in airbraking though to counter any pitch-up or pitch-down tendency when the other control surfaces are splayed out differentially to create drag.
Yes, I've started to wonder about the wings as well - they aren't actually as big as one might think on the Su-57, much of the area comes from the truly enormous centroplane. So, as jeffb mentions, we could potentially have commonality in forward fuselage & cockpit (including equipment & avionics), wings, fins, main weapons bay, landing gear and engine. It's stunning to contemplate that such a high proportion of primary structure from an aircraft *twice* the size could come together into a coherent and even fairly elegant design! I can't think of a recent example that would quite match this feat - even the F-35 squaring of the circle would begin to look downright plain in comparison. Of course, this approach must inevitably lead to a certain weight penalty (a purpose-designed landing gear for a 20 ton aircraft is going to be lighter than something optimized for a 40 ton aircraft).
The more I think about it, the more things start to make sense, though in some instances it apparently led to superfluous complexity being also carried over. Going for a single trailing edge flaperon as I've thought about for the Su-57 would give a similar degree of simplification to the Pelikan tail I considered earlier while retaining commonality.
Like the F-16? There's no indication in close-up photos that they are split into upper/lower halves in the same way, and given the generally very detailed representation of other moving parts I doubt that's something which would have been simplified. They may play a role in airbraking though to counter any pitch-up or pitch-down tendency when the other control surfaces are splayed out differentially to create drag.
