Russia Today makes the once proud Sukhoi Design Bureau look like a bit of a joke
In an apparent effort not to be left out, or not to appear to be too far behind the times, the Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti made efforts to convey the message that Russia was pushing ahead with its own sixth-generation fighter development. Thus while the US has its NGAD programme, and the Anglo-Italian-Japanese consortium has GCAP, and following the Boxing Day ‘reveal’ of two Chinese ‘sixth generation’ fighter prototypes, Russia Today (a Novosti outlet) made its own announcement on Twitter on 5 January.
Under the headline “Russia advances sixth-generation fighter development — Sukhoi”, Russia Today ran the apparent quote: “It must have a power plant with significantly improved characteristics: very low specific consumption and high thrust,” the head of Sukhoi’s Design Bureau told TASS.” This was presumably meant to be a quote from Mikhail Pogosyan, the CEO of Sukhoi.
The Tweet was accompanied by a CGI image purporting to show such a fighter. Unfortunately, it was a very poorly executed, obviously AI-generated render produced by X’s own Grok AI engine, and included a Grok trademark in the bottom right hand corner.
Rather than using a CGI image supplied by Sukhoi, or something that looked like some kind of credible ‘sixth generation’ aircraft, Russia Today’s illustration showed something that looked like a three-engined, mildly streamlined Su-27, without LO features of any kind.
That funny rumbling, grinding noise you can hear? Why, that’s Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi turning in his grave.
