Streamlining of Russian combat aircraft types in future sights (498 words)

Published: 3/13/2001

Specification for the fifth generation fighter (known as the LFI/“Light Front-Line Fighter”) has been completed and will receive final approval within two weeks, according to Anatoly Kornukov, the Russian Air Force (RusAF) commander. He added that the aircraft should be available in the 2005-2008 timeframe, in order to offset any threat posed by the next generation combat aircraft being developed in the West, both in terms of defence and export business. Kornukov said of the Sukhoi S-37 Berkut programme, that the aircraft was “merely an experimental vehicle” not intended for service and that he did not see the aircraft as meeting the Air Force's core requirements. Earlier, Sukhoi senior managers appeared ever hopeful of salvaging something from the ill-fated fifth generation programme and at a press briefing attended by Kornukov on 6th March, Mikhail Pogosyan, AVPK Sukhoi's General Director, said that, “The Berkut is an experimental programme. We shall take all the best from the Berkut and Mikoyan's Article 1.42 for shaping a next generation fighter”. Touching on the F-22 Raptor, Kornukov and Yuri Klishin said that Russia already had aircraft comparable to the Raptor in “if not all, then in many areas”, namely the Su-30MKI featuring thrust-vectoring engines and an advanced phased-array radar. General Kharchevsky, chief of the RusAF Flight Test and Evaluation Centre added, “The Su-30MKI does not lose much to the Raptor. The majority of the critical systems on both aircraft give similar performances. These aircraft have comparable satellite-based navigation and communications systems, accuracy of weapons delivery, data display and management technologies employed in the design of the crew station.” Although declining to specify when it happened, Kornukov claimed that “The Weapons Programme Until 2010” had been recently put into force. All necessary decisions at the highest political level had been made on both tactical and strategic aviation. In particular, the Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers would be armed with a new long-range cruise missile, which had successfully passed fire trials and been accepted into service. Kornukov admitted that, currently, the RusAF inventory is made up of too many types of combat aircraft. In the future there should be only three major combat aircraft types: a lightweight all-weather attack aircraft that can also be used as a trainer; a medium-weight front-line fighter featuring extended multi-functionality when acting against aerial and ground targets. The third type is a heavyweight aircraft for a variety of tasks including those of long-range aviation. Answering a question on how RusAF sees a fighter of the distant future, well beyond the LFI, Kornukov said, “we see it as a high-speed long-range low-observable (stealth) aircraft, capable of hypersonic flying and solving numerous combat tasks, including those in close space. It would most likely be a twin-seat aircraft enabling the crew to effectively solve tasks of target acquisition, identification and destruction”. He added that some elements of the required technologies are already under development, such as hypersonic propulsion technologies.

Article ID: 2414