{"id":4755936,"date":"2026-07-10T12:35:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T10:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T16:34:52","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T14:34:52","slug":"sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards\/","title":{"rendered":"Wings On Backwards: The Su-47 Berkut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style><\/p>\r\n<p>The first thing the crowd at Zhukovsky hears is the noise; the second thing it notices is that something is badly wrong with the wings. A dark, whale-nosed fighter comes howling low across the airfield, and its wings \u2014 unmistakably, impossibly \u2014 appear to have been bolted on back to front. The leading edges rake <em>forwards<\/em> rather than back, as though the aeroplane were flying into a stiff headwind and had simply stopped arguing with it. This is the Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut, and for one giddy stretch either side of the millennium it was the strangest and most photogenic machine in the sky.<\/p>\r\n<p>It never fired a shot in anger. It never entered service, never rolled down a production line, never carried a weapon into combat. Exactly one was ever built. And yet the Berkut \u2014 the Russian word for a golden eagle \u2014 remains one of the best-loved airshow performers of its era, a flying thought experiment that thrilled hundreds of thousands of spectators while quietly probing a question Soviet and American engineers had circled for half a century: what happens if you sweep a fighter\u2019s wings the wrong way?<\/p>\r\n<p>The short answer turned out to be \u201ca great deal, most of it inconvenient.\u201d The longer answer is one of the more entertaining cul-de-sacs in modern aviation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f1f3f5; border-radius: 8px; padding: 18px 22px; margin: 22px 0; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.7;\"><strong>Quick Facts<\/strong><br \/>\u2022 Type: single-seat experimental technology demonstrator with a forward-swept wing<br \/>\u2022 Builder: JSC Sukhoi, Russia; NATO reporting name \u201cFirkin\u201d<br \/>\u2022 First flight: 25 September 1997, from Zhukovsky, test pilot Igor Votintsev (then designated S-37)<br \/>\u2022 Renamed Su-47 in 2002; earlier development names S-32 and S-37<br \/>\u2022 Built: one prototype only \u2014 never operational, never armed for combat<br \/>\u2022 Powerplant: two Aviadvigatel (Soloviev) D-30F-series afterburning turbofans<br \/>\u2022 Legacy: testbed for composites and fly-by-wire; technologies fed into the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/su-35-flanker-e\">Su-35<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/su-57-felon\">Su-57<\/a><\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">Wings On Backwards<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img data-opt-id=260111136  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards-1.jpg\" alt=\"Wings On Backwards: The Su-47 Berkut\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">A different pass of the same aircraft (2007), showing the twin tails and Su-27-derived forward fuselage. Photo: Dmitry Pichugin \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<p>To understand why the Berkut looks so wrong, you have to appreciate why it might have been right. On a conventional swept wing, airflow drifts outwards towards the tips, which is precisely where you least want it: stall creeps in from the wingtips, the ailerons lose their bite, and control goes soft at exactly the high angles of attack a dogfighter lives and dies by. Reverse the sweep and you reverse the drift. On a forward-swept wing the air is nudged <em>inboard<\/em>, towards the roots, so the tips and their ailerons keep flying long after a normal wing would have given up. In theory you get a jet that stays crisp and controllable when its rivals are wallowing.<\/p>\r\n<p>The idea was not new. Aerodynamicists at Russia\u2019s TsAGI institute had toyed with forward sweep since the 1940s, poring over the captured German Junkers Ju 287 bomber, whose wings pointed hopefully forwards decades before anyone could make the concept behave. The lure was always the same: a wing that generates its lift efficiently across the inner span, sheds fewer tip vortices, and hands the pilot manoeuvrability that borders on the telepathic.<\/p>\r\n<p>There was, of course, a catch. There is always a catch. And in the case of forward-swept wings the catch was large enough to keep the concept grounded for the better part of forty years.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">A Cold War Idea, Orphaned By History<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FB2hhFIHC3U\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; font-style: italic; margin-top: -12px;\">A long-form documentary on the Su-47 Berkut and why the forward-swept-wing gamble was set aside.<\/p>\r\n<p>The programme was launched in 1983 on an order from the Soviet Air Force, which wanted a demonstrator to explore agile, next-generation fighter technology. Then history intervened in the most Russian way imaginable. The Soviet Union dissolved, state funding froze solid, and the project should by rights have died in a drawer alongside a hundred other Cold War what-ifs.<\/p>\r\n<p>It survived largely on nerve. Sukhoi\u2019s design bureau, driven by its formidable general designer Mikhail Simonov, kept the aeroplane alive with its own money, betting that a spectacular flying demonstrator would attract the funding a spreadsheet never could. On 25 September 1997 the gamble left the ground: test pilot Igor Votintsev lifted the machine \u2014 then still called the S-37 \u2014 off the runway at Zhukovsky for its maiden flight. In 2002 it was formally redesignated the Su-47, the name under which it would become an airshow legend.<\/p>\r\n<p>What the public saw at successive MAKS airshows was pure theatre: a big, muscular fighter that could fling itself around the sky with an ease that seemed to mock physics. What the public did not see was that the Berkut was, first and foremost, a laboratory \u2014 a testbed for composite materials, advanced fly-by-wire control and new airframe structures, wearing the costume of a front-line warplane.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The Physics Always Wins<\/h2>\r\n<p>Here is the reason your local air force does not fly forward-swept fighters. When a normal wing bends under load, it twists in a way that gently reduces its own angle of attack \u2014 a self-correcting shrug. A forward-swept wing does the opposite. Bend it, and it twists to <em>increase<\/em> its angle of attack, which increases the load, which increases the twist, in a runaway loop that ends with the wings departing the aircraft at speeds a conventional design would shrug off. The engineers call it aeroelastic divergence. Everyone else calls it terrifying.<\/p>\r\n<p>The Su-47\u2019s answer was witchcraft in carbon fibre: composite wing skins painstakingly laid up so that the material twists against the bend, cancelling the divergence before it can build. It is a solution that simply did not exist in affordable form until the late twentieth century, which is why the concept had to wait so long for its moment. America\u2019s parallel experiment, the diminutive Grumman X-29, wrestled the same demon \u2014 and its programme did not mince words about the stakes. <\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7; display: flex; gap: 20px; align-items: flex-start;\">\r\n<div><em>\u201cThe most aerodynamically unstable aircraft ever built.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>DARPA<\/strong> \u2014 on the Grumman X-29 forward-swept-wing programme, darpa.mil<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p><\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img data-opt-id=1705591736  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards-2.jpg\" alt=\"Wings On Backwards: The Su-47 Berkut\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">The Berkut\u2019s American cousin: Grumman\u2019s tiny X-29, the other great forward-swept-wing demonstrator. Photo: U.S. Air Force<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<p>That instability was not a flaw so much as the whole point, and it was tameable only by computers correcting the aircraft dozens of times a second. The men who actually flew these forward-swept machines understood the bargain precisely. <\/p>\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7; display: flex; gap: 20px; align-items: flex-start;\">\r\n<div><em>\u201cIf the aircraft didn\u2019t have that flight control system, that airplane at 250 knots would likely break in half \u2014 that\u2019s how divergent it was, every 0.12 seconds.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Rogers E. Smith<\/strong> \u2014 X-29 research test pilot, New Atlas, 2023<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p><\/p>\r\n<p>And then came the quiet, deflating verdict of the wind tunnel. The forward sweep paid its greatest dividends at transonic speeds, but at the supersonic velocities a modern interceptor really cares about, a conventional aft-swept wing was simply better. The Berkut had answered its question honestly, and the answer was no. The configuration was never pursued for a production fighter.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">One Airframe, Borrowed Parts<\/h2>\r\n<p>For all its exotic wings, much of the Su-47 was reassuringly familiar. To keep costs down, Sukhoi raided its own parts bin: the forward fuselage, the twin vertical tails and the landing gear were lifted more or less wholesale from the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/su-27-flanker\">Su-27<\/a> family. Power came from two Aviadvigatel (Soloviev) D-30F-series afterburning turbofans \u2014 robust, proven engines from the same lineage that pushed the <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/mig-31-foxhound\">MiG-31<\/a> interceptor. Grander plans for a definitive next-generation powerplant such as the AL-41F were discussed for any future fighter, but were never realised on the Berkut itself.<\/p>\r\n<p>It is worth being clear about what this aeroplane was not. It carried an internal bay and space set aside for an advanced radar, but these were provisions and possibilities, not a fighting fit-out. The single Su-47 was never armed for combat, never declared operational, and never came within a postcode of a war. Its battlefield was the display line, its ammunition applause.<\/p>\r\n<p>That, in the end, is the honest measure of the thing: one airframe, endlessly photographed, doing at airshows what it could never do in anger.<\/p>\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">What The Eagle Left Behind<\/h2>\r\n<p>Judged as a weapon, the Berkut is a footnote. Judged as a laboratory, it was a quiet success. The composite construction, the fly-by-wire wizardry and the airframe lessons banked during its flying career did not vanish when the forward-swept wing was set aside. Sukhoi carried that knowledge forward into the Su-35 and, most significantly, into the Su-57 \u2014 Russia\u2019s fifth-generation fighter, whose sensibly aft-swept wings owe a small, unglamorous debt to the eagle that flew the wrong way round.<\/p>\r\n<p>There is a particular kind of romance in an aircraft that exists mainly to prove a point. The Su-47 belongs to the same distinguished club as the X-29, the great forward-swept experiments that thrilled the crowds, advanced the science, and then bowed out before anyone strapped a missile to them.<\/p>\r\n<p>The Berkut managed both. Somewhere in a hangar outside Moscow sits a one-of-a-kind fighter with its wings on backwards, a monument to the moment Russian engineering asked \u201cwhat if?\u201d and, gloriously, went to the trouble of finding out.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; font-style: italic; margin-top: 20px;\">Sources: Wikipedia (Sukhoi Su-47); Airforce Technology; MilitaryFactory; DARPA (X-29 history); NASA; New Atlas.<\/p>\r\n<!-- mf-faq -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}.mf-faq-answer a{color:#5C91FF}<\/style>\r\n<h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2>\r\n<details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>What is the Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut was a single-seat Russian experimental technology demonstrator famous for its forward-swept wings, which appear to be mounted backwards. Built by Sukhoi and given the NATO name Firkin, it first flew in 1997. Only one was ever built; it never entered service or carried weapons into combat.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Why does the Su-47 have forward-swept wings?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Forward-swept wings reverse the airflow behaviour of a conventional swept wing. On a normal wing, air drifts toward the tips where stall begins; sweeping the wing forward keeps airflow moving inboard, improving low-speed handling and manoeuvrability. The trade-off is severe structural stress, which is why such designs stayed experimental \u2014 as with America's <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/grumman-x-29-forward-swept-wing-experimental-jet\/\">Grumman X-29<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>How many Su-47s were built?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Only one Su-47 Berkut prototype was ever built. It never became operational, was never armed for combat, and never entered production. Instead it served as a flying testbed and a hugely popular airshow performer either side of the millennium, thrilling hundreds of thousands of spectators.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>When did the Su-47 first fly?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The aircraft first flew on 25 September 1997 from Zhukovsky, with test pilot Igor Votintsev at the controls. It was originally designated S-37 and had earlier development names S-32 and S-37, before being renamed Su-47 in 2002.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>What does \"Berkut\" mean?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>\"Berkut\" is the Russian word for a golden eagle. The name suited the aircraft's raptor-like appearance and its role as a bold experiment, even though the Su-47 never fired a shot in anger and existed only as a single prototype.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Did the Su-47 enter service, and what was its legacy?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>No \u2014 the Su-47 never entered service. Its value was as a testbed for composite materials and advanced fly-by-wire flight control, technologies that fed into later Sukhoi fighters such as the Su-35 and the fifth-generation Su-57. In that sense the lone Berkut helped shape <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/su-30-vs-mig-29-flanker-fulcrum-soviet-hi-lo\/\">Russia's modern Flanker-family fighters<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><\/div>\r\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What is the Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut was a single-seat Russian experimental technology demonstrator famous for its forward-swept wings, which appear to be mounted backwards. Built by Sukhoi and given the NATO name Firkin, it first flew in 1997. Only one was ever built; it never entered service or carried weapons into combat.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why does the Su-47 have forward-swept wings?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Forward-swept wings reverse the airflow behaviour of a conventional swept wing. On a normal wing, air drifts toward the tips where stall begins; sweeping the wing forward keeps airflow moving inboard, improving low-speed handling and manoeuvrability. The trade-off is severe structural stress, which is why such designs stayed experimental \u2014 as with America's <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/grumman-x-29-forward-swept-wing-experimental-jet\/\\\">Grumman X-29<\/a>.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"How many Su-47s were built?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Only one Su-47 Berkut prototype was ever built. It never became operational, was never armed for combat, and never entered production. Instead it served as a flying testbed and a hugely popular airshow performer either side of the millennium, thrilling hundreds of thousands of spectators.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"When did the Su-47 first fly?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The aircraft first flew on 25 September 1997 from Zhukovsky, with test pilot Igor Votintsev at the controls. It was originally designated S-37 and had earlier development names S-32 and S-37, before being renamed Su-47 in 2002.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What does \\\"Berkut\\\" mean?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"\\\"Berkut\\\" is the Russian word for a golden eagle. The name suited the aircraft's raptor-like appearance and its role as a bold experiment, even though the Su-47 never fired a shot in anger and existed only as a single prototype.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Did the Su-47 enter service, and what was its legacy?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"No \u2014 the Su-47 never entered service. Its value was as a testbed for composite materials and advanced fly-by-wire flight control, technologies that fed into later Sukhoi fighters such as the Su-35 and the fifth-generation Su-57. In that sense the lone Berkut helped shape <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/su-30-vs-mig-29-flanker-fulcrum-soviet-hi-lo\/\\\">Russia's modern Flanker-family fighters<\/a>.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first thing the crowd at Zhukovsky hears is the noise; the second thing it notices is that something is badly wrong with the wings. A dark, whale-nosed fighter comes howling low across the airfield, and its wings \u2014 unmistakably, impossibly \u2014 appear to have been bolted on back to front. The leading edges rake [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":4755896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4755936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut: The Jet With Backward Wings<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut flew on forward-swept wings, a striking Russian experiment in agility that never entered frontline service.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut: The Jet With Backward Wings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut flew on forward-swept wings, a striking Russian experiment in agility that never entered frontline service.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Afterburner - MiGFlug&#039;s Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MiGFlug\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-10T10:35:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-07-20T14:34:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards-featured.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Connor Kerr\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@migflug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@migflug\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Connor Kerr\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Connor Kerr\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/bc7f2d09b1d7111c45fdb1335b8f2cf9\"},\"headline\":\"Wings On Backwards: The Su-47 Berkut\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-10T10:35:52+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-20T14:34:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1798,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/migflug.com\\\/jetflights\\\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\/\\/migflug.com\\/jetflights\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/sites\\/4\\/2026\\/07\\/sukhoi-su-47-berkut-wings-on-backwards-featured.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"History &amp; 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