Russian (PAK FA) is Ready to Execute a Complete Program of Flight Trials

Sukhoi Company has completed the preliminary on-land and in-flight activities which involved all three engineering prototypes of the Frontline Aviation Advanced Airborne Complex (PAK FA) – the 5th-generation aircraft.

These prototypes were used for test-bed strength tests, on-land optimization of fuel systems and other work towards flight trials. The flying prototype has made 16 flights. Today, the optimization of aircraft and its safety systems enables execution of a complete program of flight trials, announced the Director General of Sukhoi Mikhail Pogosyan today at the press conference at the Farnborough International Airshow-2010 Press Center.

The PAK FA took to the air on January 29 in Komsomolsk-na-Amure. The acceptance trials of the flying prototype were fully completed in late March. In April the first flying prototype of the fighter and the avionics testbed used for systems optimization before flight trials were delivered to the flying test center of the OKB Sukhoi Experimental Design Bureau in Zhukov sky near Moscow

Russian First Deputy Defense Minister, in his interview to the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper, estimated the Russian Air Force’s demand for the 5th-generation fighters at 50 to 100 units. It is planned to complete all tests of the PAK FA airframe in 2011-2012, and to sign a contract in 2013 for a pilot lot of ten aircraft for testing the model’s entire weapons suite.

Posted in: Russian Fighter Jet