Russia’s Sukhoi Su-57 is among the most controversial aircraft in the sky today, with a small but ardent group of supporters hailing the platform as a revolution in Russian airpower, and most others dismissing the aircraft as little more than a failed experiment in stealth. In today’s attention-driven digital economy, it can be easy to fall into this false dichotomy, sorting all topics into simple upvote/downvote categories that fail to reflect the complex and nuanced reality of Defense technology. So let’s try to cut through the hyperbole to get at the truth of Russia’s first foray into low-observable aviation, to learn not just about the aircraft itself, but about Russia’s approach to advanced military technology as a whole.