Su-57 for the poor puts the aviation industry in a risky position, by Nikolay Gulyaev for VZGLYAD, 27.07.2021.
In recent days, the Russian aviation industry has told the smallest details about the new light fighter. Why did the secrecy regime around ultra-modern military equipment turn out to be so soft, who will be its first buyer - and what do the representatives of the Russian Armed Forces think about the new machine?
The project of the new Russian fighter jet LTS (light tactical aircraft) became the main military-technical sensation of the past week. Still - the Russian aviation industry has not shown fundamentally new combat vehicles for more than ten years, since the premiere of the 5th generation Su-57 heavy fighter. And we have not seen such a new aircraft - a single-engine light fighter - since Soviet times. It's a joke that the last Russian-made MiG-27 single-engine fighter-bomber appeared in the USSR back in the 1970s.
Unsurprisingly, the public immediately swallowed the bait superbly made by the PR specialists of Rostec, the fighter's developer. As a reminder, Rostec has recently included the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), which, in turn, has united all the country's leading aviation design bureaus - from Sukhoi to Yakovlev. The teasing videos produced the desired effect - and the car with the mysterious name Checkmate became the highlight of the MAKS air show. A pavilion specially made for the presentation of the new fighter was visited by 30 thousand people. An animated video was sold in a huge circulation, in all its glory in two languages describing the advantages of LTS.
Indeed, the parameters declared by the manufacturer are quite decent. Fifth generation, stealth, range of 1.5 thousand km, combat load 7.4 tons, maximum speed up to 2M, radar with AFAR, new secure communication and control systems. The ability to carry a wide range of weapons, including the "air-to-surface" strike version. Let's make a reservation - these are the calculated characteristics, the real ones must be revealed by flight tests, which are still far away.
Engine? Apparently, judging by the shape of the nozzle, a modernized version of the AL-41F1, which is installed on the Su-35/57, in a word, something tested and with a good resource. It is alleged that at MAKS it was not just a model, not plywood - no, this is a sample made in iron, which should rise into the air. Already in 2023.
The car definitely uses the developments made in the process of creating the Su-57. This is reminded not only by the engine, not only by the canopy and the similar ergonomics of the cab. It seems that the amount of R&D and R&D done during the creation of the Su-57 has left such a colossal backlog that it would be a sin not to dispose of it for something else.
Perhaps we have before us - a kind of designer, aircraft "Lego", a machine, in an original way assembled from the already tested blocks. A kind of "surrender", inherited by the KLA from the gigantic funds allocated by the state for the creation of the Su-57. Fundamentally different, for obvious reasons, only the airframe, the shape of the wing, the layout and, to which many paid attention, the air intake, which is unique for the Russian school of military aircraft construction.
Moreover, as the developers themselves emphasize, the ability to customize the machine for any customer's requests, a variety of applications, any threats. The term "open architecture" is used, implying ease of modernization and modification of the aircraft. Perhaps the emergence of an unmanned and two-seater version, and even a deck. The presentation of the aircraft took place in the "any whim for your money" mode, and this money has already been calculated.
25-30 million dollars - this, according to the head of Rostec Sergei Chemezov, will be the price of the new fighter in the end. The relative cheapness of both the machine itself and its operation and maintenance is emphasized (which is why Checkmate immediately received the nickname "Su-57 for the poor").
“An important advantage of the new aircraft is the low cost of a flight hour ... Our forecast is about seven times less than that of an aircraft such as the F-35, and is comparable to the cost of a flight hour of the Gripen NG. At the same time, the combat capabilities of LTS Checkmate are significantly higher than the latter, ”says the head of the UAC, Yuri Slyusar. According to the UAC, based on the situation on the world market, one can expect to sell up to 300 LTS. We multiply the number of cars by its price - we get $ 8-9 billion. Even half, or even a third of this amount is worth seriously competing for.
But who will give this money, where will it come from? Who will pay for the creation of the newest Russian fighter, which is currently being created "on an initiative basis" with the money of Rostec itself? “The idea was born from the economy. In our opinion, on the market now ... there is no fifth-generation single-engine aircraft at an acceptable, economically justified price, which would be within the power of most customers of military multifunctional aircraft, ”the head of the United Aircraft Corporation Yuri Slyusar explains the reason for the appearance of the machine. In other words, the customer will be abroad.
A certain “anchor customer” for the car “already exists, and we are doing it for him,” confirms Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov.
In the videos of Rostec, beating the name Checkmate, the pilots of the Indian, Vietnamese and Argentine air forces appear. And India looks like the most promising client for a variety of reasons. Not only because it is traditionally the largest customer of the Russian military aviation, but also because it has long been looking for a replacement for the Soviet single-engine MiG-21. Of course, the Indians are negotiating with all the leading manufacturers of military aircraft and are actively developing their own aircraft. However, both tradition and reputation may well influence their choice in favor of a Russian fighter.
But whoever this mysterious "anchor customer" is, it is highly likely that they will not be. And this, unfortunately, is the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Yes, the first guest of the Checkmate pavilion was Vladimir Putin, but neither Sergei Shoigu, nor the head of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, nor even the commander-in-chief of the Aerospace Forces Sergei Surovikin were seen next to the LTS. Against the background of the grandiose hype arranged by Rostec around the new car, the silence of the Russian Ministry of Defense sounds especially deafening. There are only assurances from Yuri Slyusar that "LTS can ... find its place in the system of Russian videoconferencing of the future." In the VKS themselves, they do not say anything at all about their vision of the place of the LTS. The Russian military department behaves as if the LTS project does not exist in nature.
Nobody argues that the Ministry of Defense has the right and even is obliged to independently decide which military equipment it needs and which is completely redundant. Even such a powerful corporation as Rostec can only offer, but in no case impose.
However, in expert circles, and even within the Aerospace Forces themselves, the opinion has long been heard that the Su-27/30/35/57 is, of course, very good, but extremely expensive. That the MiG-29 is outdated, and the MiG-35 does not exist in production form. And those tasks for the solution of which the Ministry of Defense purchases heavy fighters can be fully solved with much more modest and cheaper means. For example, single-engine fighters with the ability to strike at ground targets. And that the reasons why many years ago the Ministry of Defense refused to purchase such machines - the unreliability and low power of the engines - are no longer relevant. Maybe if the Ministry of Defense had previously paid attention to the Su-75 (the alleged Russian designation Checkmate) - would there have been several regiments of these machines in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces, and not a single copy, as in the case of the Su-57?
We are facing a unique situation. For decades, the domestic aviation industry performed tasks exclusively for one customer - its own Ministry of Defense.
Yes, there were sometimes proactive developments, but they also always had in mind, first of all, internal needs. The tastes of their own generals for the Russian (Soviet) design bureaus were immeasurably more important than the tastes of foreign generals. Never before in Russia have they started from scratch the development of a new combat aircraft, mainly for the foreign market. This calculation is so straightforward that the developers built the entire advertising campaign on the foreign name of the new car.
The very fact of this grandiose advertising campaign is a hidden admission of the developers that the Russian military leadership - and therefore the Russian military budget - is unlikely to support their bold undertaking with money. A striking contrast compared to the Su-57, the birth of which had a fundamentally lower level of publicity, and precisely because the state order was guaranteed. The lack of such a guarantee is the most important risk for such an impressive project as the Checkmate Su-75 wants to create.
It is impossible (well, almost impossible) to sell a sample of weapons abroad, especially as complex as a supersonic fighter, without first selling it to our own Armed Forces. This is the order, the old tradition of the world arms market. There are exceptions to this order (for example, the sale of the Su-30MKI to India), but very rare.
This is understandable. Who else will buy a product abroad, the effectiveness and necessity of which is not believed even at home? Which has not passed at least a trial operation in the domestic Air Force? Which foreigner is ready for his own - and considerable - money to spend many years and thorough work to identify and eliminate childhood diseases of the most complex military equipment? Who is ready to give such impressive advances to the Russian military-industrial complex and under what conditions?
Let's hope that both Rostec and UAC know the answers to all these by no means rhetorical questions. Because if these answers are not found, then "three hundred single-engine fighters" will remain only in the memory of visitors to the luxurious pavilion at the MAKS-2021 air show.
https://m.vz.ru/society/2021/7/27/1110927.html
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