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The Russian Ministry of Defense has released its first official video showing a
pair of Su-57 stealth fighters during their bizarrely short deployment to Syria
earlier in 2018. It's as unclear as ever what the planes actually did in the two
days or so that that they were there and whether they flew any actual strikes,
but the threat of attacks on Russia's Khmeimim Air Base may have cut the entire
affair short.
Russia’s Defense Ministry posted the video montage online on Nov. 19, 2018. The
clips show the Su-57s landing and taking off from Khmeimim in Syria’s western
Latakia governorate, as well as in mid-air against solid blue skies with no
discernible landmarks. The jets arrived in the country on or about Feb. 23,
2018, and were officially only there for two days, but we don't know if this
means approximately 48 hours in total, two nights, or some other exact length of
time. Russia now says the aircraft together flew “more than 10 sorties” in that
time, which would average out to more than 2.5 sorties per plane, per day if the
deployment period is accurate.
The sorties allowed the Russian Air Force to evaluate the Su-57’s basic flight
performance, as well as the operation of its flight control, communications, and
other mission systems, in a real combat environment and under extremely hot
conditions, according to a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense. The
jets also reportedly got a chance to test their weapon systems, but it remains
unclear if this means they engaged actual targets in Syria.
The video does not show either of the aircraft carrying bombs or missiles
externally and there is no strike footage included among the clips. It is, of
course, possible that the jets exclusively used weapons carried internally to
strike rebel positions.
In May 2018, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu publicly showed video of a
Su-57 launching what appeared to be a Kh-59MK2 cruise missile from its internal
bay. He added that this test had occurred in February 2018, but did not clearly
indicate whether or not it had occurred in Syria.
If the main objective of the deployment was to evaluate the capabilities of the
Su-57 employing the Kh-59MK2 against real targets, it could help explain its
brevity. Otherwise, it remains as difficult as ever to see how the Russians
could have garnered any meaningful amount of data on the aircraft’s broader
performance and other attributes in just two days.
https://youtu.be/JJ7V78zz7c0
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http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone...-trip-to-Syria
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