The Su-57 fighter will need a lot of big changes, if it is to become a future aircraft carrier-based fighter
In the event that Moscow still wants to put the Su-57 to serve on the aircraft carrier, first, these fighters will have to modify the landing gear. Taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier requires extremely fast acceleration, causing the landing system to suffer a huge impact force. In order to operate on an aircraft carrier, the landing gear of the fighter will have a special structure, much more solid than a conventional landing gear.
In addition to the landing gear system, the Su-57 fifth-generation fighters will need a brake cable hook, usually located at the tail of the aircraft when landing. The difficulty of the brake cable is that it will also suffer a very strong impact to hold the entire fighter when it lands, requiring the fuselage structure to be properly designed from the beginning.
In the event that the airframe of the Su-57 is not designed to put traction in the rear, it will be difficult to overcome this shortcoming. It will affect the entire structure of the aircraft, related to the stealth function and aerodynamic design of the fighter.
In a good case, if the landing gear system and the brake hook are simply modified, the next problem would be the wings, which would have to be folded. Wing folding is a basic requirement of all aircraft carrier-based fighters, helping to store more aircraft and use the floor space more efficiently.
In short, it is very difficult to put a ground-based aircraft in service on a carrier. However, according to experts and observers, it is possible that the Su-57 was planned to operate on an aircraft carrier from the very beginning. It will only take a few tweaks to make the Su-57 a carrier-based fighter.
At the moment, the only fifth-generation fighters in the world that can operate on aircraft carriers are the US F-35 fighters. Among them, the F-35B version is designed for short take-off and landing, while the F-35C version is designed for catapult take-off and landing with a brake cable.