KOMSOMOLSK ON AMUR, August 16, /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s fifth-generation T-50 jet fighter will end the first round of state tests in 2015 and its supplies to the Armed Forces will begin from 2016, United Aircraft Corporation President Mikhail Pogosyan said on Saturday.
“The first stage of the T-50 state tests will end within the time period announced before. Supplies of the aircraft to the Russian Armed Forces will begin from 2016,” he said, adding that four aircraft were currently undergoing testing and they would be joined by another two next year.
Air Force Commander, Lieutenant General Viktor Bondarev said earlier this month that the plane was being created using stealth technology and “has a bright future”.
Several such planes have already begun testing at the Akhtubinsk range in the southern Astrakhan region.
“We should start getting these aircraft from 2016,” Bondarev said.
The Russian Defence Ministry has worked out a detailed plan up to 2020 for re-equipping the country’s Air Force.
“In 2016 we will start receiving the first T-50 planes,” the commander said, adding that everything was going according to plan and the flight personnel of the 929th Chkalov flight test centre retrained for the T-50 aircraft also knwon as the Prospective Airborne Complexes of Frontline Aviation (PAK FA).
According to Bondarev, the pilots have already started flights on one plane, and the second one is being readied.
The first PAK FA aircraft will perform its first flight in 2019.
“In 2019, the plane is to perform the first flight, and in 2023 its tests will be completed and delivery to the troops will be carried out,” Bondarev said earlier.
PAK FA (T-50) is Russia’s multipurpose fifth-generation fighter jet, created by the Sukhoi design bureau. The plane performed its first flight in 2010. It is a missile-carrying strategic bomber of a new generation, designed by the Tupolev company. The plane will not be a deeply modernised version of Tu-160, but will become a principally new aircraft. In the future, PAK FA is to replace the Tu-95 and Tu-160 planes of long-range (strategic) aviation that are in service in the Russian Air Force.
The aircraft are made by the Komsomolsk on Amur Aircraft Plant. Their production began in 2013. Up to date, the plant has made eight T-50 planes, five of which are already in service.