Su-30 for Russian Air Force

Russian Air Force to Get Su-30SM Fighter Jets in Bulk

MOSCOW, July 4 (RIA Novosti) – Sukhoi Su-30SM multirole fighter jets will be delivered to the Russian Air Force as fully equipped squadrons, rather than “piecemeal,” deputy commander Colonel Sergei Kobylash said Thursday.

The Su-30SM is the latest development of the twin-seat Su-30 jet fighter family, a derivative of the long-serving single-seat Sukhoi Su-27, one of the air force's most important warplanes.

The new aircraft has better radar and communications capabilities, an improved friend-or-foe system, a new ejection seat and new weapons. It also has thrust-vectoring engine nozzles, providing super-maneuverability at low airspeeds.

The first contract between the Defense Ministry and Irkut Corporation for 30 Su-30SMs was signed in March last year. The Russian Air Force received the first two Su-30SM aircraft in November. In mid-December, a new contract was signed for an additional 30 jets by 2016.

There was a period (and by the sounds of Su-35S sale to RuAF), that single seater jets are still important. Well, two seater makes sense for an advanced multiroll aircraft or interceptor but for an air superiority fighter like the Su-30MKI is, I can see that roll still being done effectively and efficiently without the need of the second seater. Why has Irkutsk not offered a single seater? They could easily turn the second seat into an avionics package to fill its space, the jet could be very successful and could have maybe been bought and used instead of Su-35S from KnAAPO. Su-35S is advanced and all, but it seems that Su-30 series have much better turn out rate in the international market than the Su-35S and with the more investments that Irkutsk seems to get, especially with both sales of Su-30MKI and variants, as well as Yak-130, they could pull resources to push even further development of it. As well, seeing as how Irkutsk is pushing for a further development of Su-30MKI into Super Sukhoi which is supposed to field an AESA radar and have further sensor fusions, as well as reduce RCS significantly. Those alone, could be suitable for an advanced variant of Su-30SM and would prove maybe just as good if not better than Su-35S as it would have newer technology and fund these industries as well as push for newer technology. Yes, I understand that the Irbis-E PESA radar holds a lot of advance technology to be close to comparable to the AESA technologies out their, but still, this drive would be very important and could possibly be even a larger boost to Su-30 sales as other countries who are obviously sold on the concept of newer technologies, could very well be interested in having an advanced Su-30 with 5th gen technologies.

What I am getting at is, if they had a single seater variant, Russia would have possibly ordered more of this variant than the 60. As there would be even more money in Irkutsk and potential for even more in terms of upgrades and new orders, they would be enticed to create new technologies and or upgrade it further with current technologies and it would already be fielded rather than awaiting other countries to cooperate (India as an example), and with the new technologies already being fielded, it would entice other countries to buy. Su-35S sounds like a great jet and all, but it is becoming a failure in the international market, thus even with limited sales to Russian MoD, it will continue to be expensive, as well as spare parts for it.

Oh, and a single seater variant would also be a great sale to countries whom may not be interested in a dual seater.

I would say that Irbis is a great radar in the sense that its long detection and tracking range.  But it has less in terms of the amount of targets it can track at once, as well, as being some hybrid ESA, there is very little info regarding its capabilities in LPI and EW/ECM/ECCM capabilities.

Having a two seater to one seater from what I heard was not very hard and is far from impossible for Irkutsk.  They can convert one of the seats into a avionics system.  I remember reading about this about the Su-25 for Russia (Since they made dual seaters and Georgia made single seaters).  I think there was other aircrafts that were given the option.

It was a question and I thought it may have been interesting to say the least.

Kinda hard to say that Su-35 is a failure because of previous Flanker success no? Because if it is better than previous flankers, then it should sell better than these previous flankers. It is a great fighter imo, but it just seems odd about its failure in the international market. Yet, Su-30 still sells quite well, even with its lack capabilities compared to Su-35. Seems odd, since it is supposed to be the better plane.

It is no secret that Irbis has a 350-400km track range against a tanker sized aircraft and around 300+ km for a fighter sized aircraft, making it have significantly large track range compared to any other fighter based radar (I read that APG-79 had something like 200+ km track range for fighter sized targets).  But in order to have such a large track range, it produces a lot of power output, which can be spotted quite early by enemy aircraft sensors.  Maybe quicker than the Irbis radar would be able to spot it, as with most of these jets with such sensors, have LO RCS.

It would have been interesting to see Irkutsk offer Russia a comparable jet to the Su-35S for less, as the airframe already used in high production would allow costs to be down for production, so Russia could have afforded to purchase more of these jets in order to keep numbers up and have a good work around until PAK FA comes in numbers.

Like guy above me said, due to Su-30 being already in numbers, it is cheaper to upgrade them than purchase Su-35. As well, newer Su-30's would be cheaper than Su-35 and upgrading them to newer standard with newer radar would probably be equally cheaper and just as good.

TR1 wrote:If Irkut made a single seat Su-30, it would NOT have cost less, since they would have needed to make a new production line, new tooling, a whole new testing and trials period, etc etc, entirely defeating the purpose.
Buying Su-30SM can be defended, but a single seat Irkut Flanker is counterproductive.


Irkut is phasing out Flanker production by the end of the decade in any case, making a new airframe does not make sense.

So besides Yak-130, they are dropping out of the fighter market? That would suck. Would be interesting to see what they could come up with.

TR1 wrote:They are moving on to big, lucrative commercial contracts (MS-21 in particular) but Yak-130 will remain in production due to large demand until at least 2020. The line was moved from Sokol already, they won't be moving it again.
Irkut already moved Be-200 production to focus on the bigger fish.

Yak-130 has huge potential on export and so far, it does look pretty good, and same with domestic as well. They just need to push it out more, as I bet many african countries would be quite happy to have it. And then there is Brazil with the potential of getting it as well, especially if Brazil is part of the deal in using their own radar for it. I cannot see them shutting down or moving production of Yak-130 after 2020.

MS-21 has lots of potential, but the civil market is flooded with foreign jets and Russian commercial jets seem to get bad wrap, even though they are good (Tu-204 has lots of potential but rarely sold), so Irkutsk shouldn't put all their eggs into one basket, especially since that the military market is still very lucrative.

medo wrote:

TR1 wrote:http://bmpd.livejournal.com/583726.html

Unexpected. In December 2012 a contract was signed with Sukhoi for delivery of 16 Su-30M2 to the RuAF, in 2013-2015.

I think 16 Su-30M2 will be enough for 96 Su-35 fleet to serve as trainers (2 per squadron). This could just confirm, that Su-30SM will form independent squadrons. Are all those 4 existing Su-30M2 serve in Far East?

can we assure this from some other source?