Development work on creating new versions of the Russian fifth-generation fighter Su-57 will begin this year, said Yuri Slyusar, general director of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Our task is to be technologically ready for this, including taking into account the new tasks that the customer has set for this machine,” he said. The beginning of the development of several versions of aircraft is expected this year, he added.
The UAC had chosen the Su-57 platform as the base vehicle for solving a wide range of tasks.
Earlier, Slyusar has already expressed the hope that this aircraft would become the basis for a whole family of aircraft, like the Su-27 developed in the Soviet Union at one time.
The order for the Su-57 will be in hundreds as newer variants are created he said. “Now there is an order for 76 aircraft,” said Yuri Slyusar.
On June 16, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, who oversees the defense industry complex, announced that it was planned to develop a two-seater version of the Su-57 fighter in the export version. “The plans of the Ministry of Defense and the Sukhoi Design Bureau are to manufacture a two-pilot cockpit, which will expand the export demand for this model, it can create additional demand,” Borisov said at the time.
Su-57
The Su-57 was developed by the Sukhoi company (part of the UAC) and is produced at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aviation Plant (KnAAZ). The fifth generation multirole fighter is designed for air dominance, ground attack, and overcoming air defense systems. The maiden flight took place on January 29, 2010.
By the end of 2020, the Russian Armed Forces received the first serial Su-57. By 2028, the Russian military is scheduled to receive 76 Su-57 fighters to re-equip three aviation regiments.
Earlier it was reported that the first Su-57s will be produced serially, but with engines of the previous generation. The “second stage” engine (product 30 produced by the United Engine Corporation, UEC), which will provide the Su-57 with supersonic cruising speed, began flight tests in December 2017.
According to Sergei Chemezov, the head of Rostec, “sometime in 2022 the engines will be ready,” put on the (air testing) wing “, and within a few years we will launch their serial production.”
Distinctive features of the fifth generation fighters are supersonic cruising speed and in-body placement of weapons.