Current aircraft are not prototypes

Published: 3/22/2000

The Chairman of Russian Air Force's scientific committee, Major General Sergei Kolyadin, says that the country's current success in addressing the development of a fifth generation fighter could result in such an aircraft in service between 2008-2010. He did emphasise, however, that the Mikoyan Article 1.44 and Sukhoi S-37 were "experimental examples and not prototypes for mass production". Kolyadin views the MFI project as a test bed for examining the core technologies that might drive the future programme and added that the S-37 programme, while providing invaluable data, had yet to yield answers for what he saw as the main questions for a fifth generation fighter. Aleksei Malygin, First Deputy General Director of RSK MiG, said that MiG was committed to the development of the fifth generation fighter and had funded much of the Article 1.44 MFI development from its own resources due to "General Designer Nikolai Nikitin's conviction that many of the innovations tested on the Article 1.44 may prove useful in development of a fifth generation fighter". Malygin claims that Mikoyan designers know what the capabilities of the new fighter should be and how to make it "affordable in the current economic realities". He admitted that the Article 1.44 would not be a prototype for the future joint fighter for the Russian Air Force and air defence units. In the intervening period, while fifth generation aircraft are being developed, Kolyadin said that the Russian Air Force should put a premium on the modernization through upgrade of avionics on existing aircraft and aim to expand the aircraft's capabilities, such as the recent improvements to the MiG-31's radar, which will give the aircraft a significantly enhanced observation role.

Article ID: 1721