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by crowdpleaser 2623 days ago
Probably not at any scale beyond serial production, even then, there isn't a Russian powerplant that would offer the thrust/weight performance required for the plane to perform.

I'm sure some of the materials on the F-35 would be very difficult for other countries to make at scale, figuring out how to fabricate parts out of those unusual materials at tolerances required for low-observability would be really tricky. I'm sure there are machinists anywhere who could figure it out, but at that point we're talking about bespoke part production using 98th+ percentile operators. Although skilled labor is cheap is China and Russia, it's pretty untenable to use it to produce a knock-off that'll eventually hold an inferior Chinese/Russian engine.

1 comments

While Russian doesn't have a powerful engine as the F-35, their newer planes have twin engine with a combined output larger than the single engine of the F-35.
Yeah, but thrust to weight really matters too. I'd be floored if two Russian engines had anywhere near the power to weight ratio of the F-35 engine.

But the Russian engineers are very good, they've done a great job of designing competitive planes with those constraints. I wouldn't cast stones at the prototype Sukhois or MiGs.