KOMSOMOLSK ON AMUR, December 25. /ITAR-TASS/. The Sukhoi aircraft company’s plant in Komsomolsk on Amur (KnAAPO), Russian Far East, has supplied 12 Su-35 jet fighters to the Russian Air Force in 2013.

“The Air Force ordered 48 Su-35 planes. We received 12 planes this year and nine were delivered before,” Air Force Commander, Lieutenant-General Viktor Bondarev said on Wednesday, December 25.

He noted that the Air Force should get 12 Su-35 aircraft in 2014 and 14 in 2015.

The Defense Ministry said earlier it planned to make the Su-35S the main fighter plane for the Air Force and buy as many as 90 of them by 2020.

In October 2010, Sukhoi announced that the general assembly of the first Su-35S had been completed and the first aircraft would be delivered to the Russian Ministry of Defense by the end of that year. In May 2011, the first production model Su-35S flew for the first time. In 2009, Sukhoi estimated that the Su-35 would be manufactured at a rate of 24 to 30 aircraft each year from 2010 to 2020.Russia is to receive 48 Su-35S aircraft from 2011 to 2015.

By February 2012, four series Su-35S aircraft had been completed. In April 2012, the Su-35 fleet completed its 500th test flight. In December 2012, Sukhoi officially delivered the first six Su-35S fighters to the Russian Air Force. Defense Ministry officials accepted the aircraft at KnAAPO’s manufacturing plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.

The Su-35S is a heavily upgraded highly manoeuvrable 4++ multirole fighter jet using fifth generation technologies that gives it the upper hand over fighter planes of the same class.