• Military Aviation

The photo in this post features Su-57 Felon as you’ve never seen it before.

The photo in this post features the Su-57 Felon as you’ve never seen it before.

As part of the Felon flight test program in fact the Su-57 bort number 058 blue took off without its canopy for a test sortie.

The test is called “cockpit habitability trial’ and is aimed to test the emergency escape procedure.

According to Scramble Magazine this Su-57 is part of Russian Air and Space Force (RuASF) 929th V.P. Chkalova State Flight Test Centre at Akhtubinsk air base (Russia).

As we have already explained here, in 1988 British Aerospace (BAe) Test Pilot Keith Hartley  too conducted the ‘cockpit habitability trial’ in his open top Tornado XZ630.

30 years later BAE Systems told on Twitter:

“In 1988, our test pilot Keith Hartley flew at 500 knots in a Tornado aircraft with the canopy off, testing the emergency escape procedures of the jet; just one example of the lengths we go to test the safety of the planes we build for the RAF.”

Photo credit: Glass