Because, frankly, if you inform yourself about the F-22 you will discover it is a maintenance nightmare : Its operational availability rate is low and it requires a lot of work after each hour of flight. The PAK-FA is built in a sturdier way (it can operate from primitive strips or sea ice) and is more cautious or conservative in the design of its components. For example, it uses a standard two-piece canopy, while the F-22 uses an ambitious first-of-its-kind specially treated one-piece canopy. Which is very expensive and prone to youth problems such as not opening and keeping the pilot inside once landed. May require cutting through the canopy itself (initial value : $120,000, total replacement cost : $180,000) to let the pilot free.(http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=20396) Under normal usage, the canopy has to be replaced after only ~300 hours of flight time. Let me quote this extract from Air Power Australia analyses, entitled 'Assessing the Sukhoi PAK-FA', which summarizes very well my thoughts on the subject : <<No less importantly, the PAK-FA is by Western standards a low risk design, following the Russian philosophy of “evolutionary” design, rather than the “Big Bang” approach currently favoured in the West, of trying to start from scratch with most or every key portion of the design. It is important to note that the Russian approach to development more than often differs from the Western approach, particularly that of the United States industry, with a much stronger Russian focus on risk management and risk minimisation. A powerful approach evident in the development of the Flanker family of aircraft has been, firstly, to plan long term, then to spread developmental risks across the series of planned new aircraft types and variants as well as parallel design/development activities. The benefits of such an approach are clearly obvious. (...) If the objective is to produce a design on-time and on-cost without unpleasant surprises, there is much to be said for the Russian approach to systems development. Russian sources indicate that the prototypes will be fitted with a derivative of the existing Su-35S avionic suite to reduce risk and cost. It is likely that this strategy of risk reduction by the use of existing production hardware will apply to other key internal components.>> Full article at : http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2010-01.html#mozTocId950119
Nicely put Saffaya. In more plain English, the Russians are using parts from a '72 Vega and trying to make a car to compete with a Ferrari Dino. Not sure that is going to happen. hehhe. However, this has been a hallmark of Russian/Soviet design for decades. Like I said before it allows parts to be made in just about any manufacturing facility anywhere in the world, even third world sweatshops. This gives the Russians a great opportunity to take advantage of smaller nations and their typically power hungry, 'small man complex' leaders. It provides a great source of cash flow to the Putin family and his mafia connections while also serving to destabilize hotspots all over the world, a win/win for Putin!!! Of course when the powderkegs do erupt and it falls to the US' shoulders to try to correct the situation, Vlad will opt out in a strong show of 'neutrality' and get a laugh as French elitists protest US global 'expansionism' all the while knowing that his sorry ass caused the whole thing...... O wait, did I just say all that?? sorry. As for the reliability of the F-22: my classmate and good friend is the commander of an F-22 unit, he thinks it is a great plane and works just fine. Reliability statistics are often skewed anyway (to work in either a pro or con direction) so I'd take anything you read with a grain of salt. The one thing you need to remember is this: F-22 units have never missed a combat or alert rotation due to maintenance.
its more like comparing them to taking that '72 vega and using it to make a '09 of it, then taking it in '10 to the Ferrari level. "fucking russians copied the _____" with ___ being F-15, B-1, F-22, etc. well, that's pretty fucking smart of them imo. I think if you want to look at big bang at its best, I'd look toward the C-17.
I have written an article in the members section that explains my point of view on today's russia. You may read it here --> http://www.xoohq.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14081