Dear all,
I have, on my hard drive, an image of what appears to be a VLO variant of the Su-47 Berkut, as a desktop model lying in Pogosyan's office (which I am attaching here for reference).
As per my computer's image properties, the image is dated 2009. I saved it from some obscure Russian website (don't have the URL now) which was conducting an interview of Pogosyan (I guess in his office) and the image appears from there.
It certainly does not appear in any google image search (Just of out curiosity, I tried to see if this image could be located from the standard google image search but I could never locate it).
Its certainly not a fake (coz in 2009, I don't think AI slop/CGI/Chinese fanboy art existed on the web).
You can definitely see all the standard VLO features which are not there in original SU-47 Berkut (chined nose (from the differential shading below the cockpit), what appears to be a serrated radome, f-22 style diamond intakes, flat nozzles, wing body blending and I guess aligned edges (though I suppose from that angle, its difficult to
see if the edges are aligned).
So the question I have is:-
a) Is this just a one-off 'what if' model for Pogosyan's viewing pleasure
OR
b) It was created in the 1990's when the Russian's realized that the 'stealth-by-shaping' approach was the way to go and the Berkut had to be 'vlo stealtified' in order to be competitive in any future fighter contest
OR
c) Its actually the final stealthified version of Sukhoi's FSW proposal for the original MFI requirement in the 1980's.
regards,
Sanjeev