Recently, the Russian military released a short promotional video for the Su-57 fighter plane with a fairly good production level. It showed the various powerful performances of the Su-57 fighter, including rare images of air-launched missiles. This is also an external demonstration that the Su-57 fighter has the service requirements.
Russia not only hopes that the Su-57 fighter jet can be installed in its own air force, but also hopes to be able to sell it to the outside world. On the one hand, it makes up for the large amount of investment in the development of the Su-57 fighter, and on the other, it offsets the exclusive monopoly of the fifth-generation fighter by the United States in the international fighter market. The launch of this promotional video is to allow the outside world to have an intuitive understanding of the Su-57 fighter in order to obtain orders from potential users.
However, in addition to the exciting and exciting high-level maneuvering demonstrations in the Su-57 promotional video. There are also some minor accidents. For example, some of the pictures in the video show bubbles appearing on the cockpit cover of the Su-57. Some people think that this is a problem with the cockpit cover quality, and there will be great safety risks?
However, in fact, after analysis, it will be found that if such bubbles appear on the cockpit cover that has just left the factory, it must be a quality problem. In this case, the Russian army will not receive equipment, after all, the consequences will be serious. Therefore, this bubble is likely to appear during use. However, it is still unacceptable even if bubbles appear during use. That will only mean that the product is not good enough, but in fact the Russian army not only has received the equipment, but even ignored this situation in use. It also means that this kind of bubble does not have a hidden quality risk, so some professionals analyze that this bubble should appear between the cockpit cover and the invisible coating it covers. It does not appear in the body of the cockpit cover, so it does not affect the structural safety of the cockpit cover.
Su-57 fighter jets in order to achieve the effect of stealth, the body of the cockpit cover will be repeatedly plated with various nano-thickness absorbing materials. The difficulty of this technique lies in how to make the plated absorbing material firmly adhere to the hatch cover. The bubbles appearing on the canopy in the video may be caused by coating process problems and damage to the coating caused by long-term use, but the coating itself has no effect on the strength of the canopy, so the Russian army does not care about this. Even film it in promotional videos.
According to professionals, the early hatch cover material of Su-57 was made of silicate glass, but there was a problem of adhesion between the silicate glass and the concealed coating, and there would be problems with the adhesion, and it would also appear during the manufacturing process. Toxic substances, even the yield is poor. It was not reported until May 2019 that the Russian military industry had replaced the plexiglass material used in the Su-57 cockpit cover with polycarbonate. This new material is lighter in weight, better in stealth, and has a higher yield. Compared with the previous materials, the cockpit cover made of polycarbonate material can directly attach the stealth coating to the surface of the cockpit, even if it is exposed to the atmosphere, it will not affect the use, effectively increasing the stealth ability. But the stealth coating of the silicate glass canopy can only be attached to the inside of the cockpit.
According to Russian media reports, until 2016, it was shown that the Su-57 fighter aircraft was using silicate glass cockpit covers, and the cockpit using new materials was not mentioned after 2019, so the existing prototypes used The cockpit cover material is also different, and the prototype with bubbles is likely to use the old cockpit cover.
