MOSCOW, August 11. /TASS/. Russia’s T-50 (PAK FA) fifth-generation fighter jet has received the serial index of Su-57, Aerospace Force Commander-in-Chief Colonel General Viktor Bondarev said in an interview with the website of Zvezda TV Channel on Friday.
"The decision has been made and the plane has got its name like a child after the birth. Su-57 is how we now call it," Bondarev said.
Media reports earlier said citing sources in the aircraft-building industry that the T-50 fighter would be named as the Su-57.
The PAK FA (Perspective Aviation Complex of Frontline Aviation) took to the skies for the first time in 2010. As was reported earlier, the experimental design work on the cutting-edge fighter jet should be completed in 2019 and its deliveries to the troops should begin at that time. As United Aircraft Corporation CEO Yuri Slyusar said, the pre-production batch will consist of 12 such planes.
It was reported that the T-50 with the advanced (main) engine would perform its debut flight in the fourth quarter of 2017.
Currently, the so-called first stage engine 117S is mounted on the Russian fighter. A new engine has not yet received its name and is conventionally designated as the second stage engine.