Su-57 was designed so that it could almost always sit inside the turn circle of an opponent, and couple that with high off-boresight IR missiles, a ratefight would be ill-advised. The F-22 will have a much better chance in a one circle, though it still comes down to fuel load and skill of the pilot.
Actual WVR fights are rare nowadays. But with the prevalence of HOBS IR missiles, nose-pointing ability is beginning to take a priority over energy retention. You only really force rate now if it is guns only.
I mean a low speed (like stall speed where the nose is only in the air due to the TVC) rate fight, like when both are virtually falling out of the air trying to get nose on, in such an instance 2d vs 3d TVC will make virtually no difference as its all happening in the 2d plane, in which case my assumption is that the F-22’s higher T/W will generate a larger moment and I’m not 100% sure that the SU-57’s Levcons will be able to compensate for that.
Proper flaring techniques and pyrophoric flares could mitigate that going forwards but I do agree to some extend, I think its more valid against the F-22 than the Su-57 because the F-22 currently has no HMS and whilst the radar is AESA and has good margins i suspect there is a reality where once you’re out of the danger zone, its more valid to rate fight (thats assuming there is a merge at all)…
This discussion is part of the reason i have absolutely no interest in them adding 5th generation aircraft whatsoever or adding them without a hard-lock matchmaking.
My poor chaparral which can’t lock a Heli beyond 2km (and can’t hit IRCM Heli’s at all), or jets beyond 2-4km, being spawned a further 5km away from where it’s needed sounds awful ngl lol.
Btw the cockpit of the strike eagle is that of a very late version
The variant of the upfront control pannel under the hud was introduced with the Slam Eagle iirc and was later retrofitted to US Strike Eagles.
So the F-15E we have has the wrong radar if you take cockpit and weapon selection into account.
lol i started playing this game 9 years ago on a laptop running ULQ on intel integrated graphics ran at like 12-25 fps depending on what i was doing. total potato moment
