MOSCOW, October 26. /TASS/. A flying laboratory for Russia’s advanced long-range radar detection and control aircraft A-100 Premier has taken to the skies for the first time, a spokesman for the United Instrument-Making Corporation told TASS on Wednesday.

"An A-100LL [flying laboratory] has performed its first flight as part of flight tests. The flight proceeded in a normal regime," the spokesman said.

Vladimir Verba, the CEO of Vega Group, the aircraft manufacturer and part of the United Instrument-Making Corporation, said earlier that the airborne radar system was being developed under state defense order to replace A-50 and A-50U long-range radar detection and control aircraft.

The flying laboratory A-100LL has been developed on the basis of the A-50 aircraft (on the basis of the Ilyushin Il-76 military and transport plane) for ground and flight tests of elements of the perspective radio-technical complex, checks of electromagnetic compatibility of its systems, information exchange protocols and regimes and for other designing purposes.

In a perspective, the A-100 equipment will be mounted on the upgraded Il-76MD-90A plane that will be used as the basis for serially producing Premier airborne complexes.