Russia’s Sukhoi Co. sees a market potential for 200 copies of its new Su-35 multi-role fighter, which the company describes as a 4++ generation aircraft serving as the “transfer model” to a fifth-generation fighter.
Development of a fifth-generation fighter is expected to be a 7- to 10-year program that is a “top priority [and] on schedule,” Mikhail A. Pogosyan, Sukhoi Holding director general, told a Farnborough Airshow press briefing July 14. Filling the gap is the Su-35, which first flew Feb. 19, and is scheduled for serial production in 2011.
Speaking through a translator, Pogsyan said the Su-35 and Superjet 100 regional airliner are key projects as Sukhoi transitions from a primarily military aircraft manufacturer to a more diversified company. The Superjet first flew May 19, and type certification to Western standards is expected in mid-2009.
While Lockheed Martin’s fifth-generation F-22 Raptor delighted the airshow crowd, however, the Su-35 was absent from the flight line. The fighter was demonstrated July 7 at the M.M. Gromov Flight Research Institute in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, and was not available for the trip to England, Sukhoi said.
The Su-35 features an information management system integrating “functional, logical, informational and software subsystems into a single complex.” It has a new, X-waveband multi-role radar with a passive, phased antenna array mounted on a two-step hydraulic drive unit, in azimuth and roll. The Irbis-E radar control system detects and tracks up to 30 air targets, engaging up to eight. The system detects, chooses and tracks up to four ground targets in several map-making modes with various resolution at a range of up to 400 km, Sukhoi said.