Su-57 Fighter’s Arrival in India Leads U.S. to Cancel F-35 Flight Demonstration Plans – Reports

Amid rising speculation regarding plans by the Indian Defence Ministry to procure Russian Su-57 fifth generation fighters, the aircraft has made its debut at India’s largest air show, Aero India, which has seen it make its first encounter with its American rival the F-35. The fighters are the only ones of their generation in production anywhere in the world outside China, where the J-20 and FC-31 are both being produced. The Su-57’s presence at Aero India was reported by Russian sources to have led the United States Air Force to cancel plans for a flight demonstration of the F-35 and the F-16, with cancellation occurring just days before the air show. Russian ambassador to India Denis Alipov commented on this development: “As practice shows, our competitors are not ready for fair competition.” The United States has sought to export the F-16 to India, with officials having indicated that the F-35 could also be supplied to the South Asian state, while Russia has continued to offer the Su-57 to the country. The cancellation of flight demonstrations of the American fighter has been widely speculated to be intended to avoid unfavourable comparisons with the Su-57, the flight performance of which is considered overwhelmingly superior particularly at low speeds.

Although the F-35’s avionics are considered significantly more sophisticated than those of the Su-57, its flight performance is by far the least impressive of a fighter in its generation, while the Russian fighter’s low speed manoeuvrability is the greatest of any in the world. The Su-57 uses three dimensional thrust vectoring engines to achieve a high flight performance, while its AL-41F1 engines, unlike those of the F-35, are reportedly capable of allowing the fighter to sustain supersonic speeds without using afterburners. Su-57s produced from 2025 will reportedly replace these with the more powerful and maintenance friendly AL-51F.

American fighters have faced highly unfavourable comparisons at air shows in the past when compared to their Soviet and Russian counterparts, with this beginning in the 1980s when the USSR began to demonstrate the Su-27 and MiG-29 at multiple international shows. Their flight performances were at the time by far the most impressive in the world, with the aircraft capable of pulling manoeuvres which non-Soviet rivals could not come close to matching. The discrepancy would grow over the following decade as Russia introduced Su-27 derivatives with thrust vectoring engines, including the Su-35 and Su-37. More recently, a 2019 a performance of the Su-35S at the Ataturk International Airport led Turkish observes to widely criticise the competing American F-16 as “junk” in comparison.

The Su-57’s air show performance would leave the F-35 and F-16 in a highly unfavourable position, which could increase public support in India for a Su-57 procurement. Although air shows remain a notable strength of the Su-57, however, the F-35’s strengths lie in its cutting edge avionics including cutting edge data links, passive electronic sensors, and a distributed aperture system among others. While these features have consistently made strong impressions on F-35 pilots, their demonstration at air shows is not considered possible. The F-35’s avionics, armament, and stealth features are considered more sophisticated than those of the Su-57, with the Russian fighter prioritising a high endurance, deployment of a much larger sensor array, and ease of maintenance allowing it to sustain high availability rates. Although the Indian Air Force previously had concerns regarding the Su-57’s serious delays, the fighter has since been put through the most intensive combat testing of any combat jet of its generation in the Ukrainian theatre, with operations including air defence suppression, air to air combat, and operations in heavily defended enemy airspace, as well as a range of precision strike missions.

For the Indian Air Force, procurement of the F-35 is not thought to be under consideration due to the extensive controls the United States imposes on how its fighters are utilised. As observed shortly before the air show by former Air Marshal Anil Chopra, Delhi “remains cautious about the U.S. tendency to exert pressure and abandon allies when its own interests diverge with theirs, as well as potential U.S. expectations for India to distance itself from Russia.” He stressed that “choosing a reliable partner country that won’t impose undue pressure is crucial,” which he strongly implied ruled out the United States and the F-35, and thus left the Su-57 as the country’s only option to procure fifth generation fighters within the next decade. With Washington having gone to considerable lengths to press India to avoid procuring advanced armaments from Russia, including threatening to impose economic sanctions, allowing Indian observers to contrast the Su-57’s tremendous flight performance advantages over the F-35 would be far from conducive to American objectives of preventing a Su-57 sale.