MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/. Russia’s Air Forces will receive 55 T-50 PAK FA stealth fighters by 2020, Vladislav Goncharenko, a deputy head of the military aviation programmes department at Russia’s United Aircraft-building Corporation /UAC/, said on Monday.

“By 2020, a total of 55 fighters of the fifth generation are expected to be supplied to the Russian Air Force,” he told the Ekho Moskvy radio station. In his words, the army would receive first such aircraft in 2016.

“Now, we are building prototypes, conducting tests. Works proceed in line with the schedule,” he said.

PAK FA, which stands for Perspektivnyi Aviacionnyi Kompleks Frontovoi Aviacii, or Advanced Frontline Aircraft System, is a product of the Sukhoi Bureau, where its name is T-50. Five T-50 fighters have already been built and made their maiden flights, three more are under construction.

New-type unmanned fighting and reconnaissance vehicles will be developed in Russia by 2018.

“It is the order from the Russian defence ministry. I think is will be executed in 2018,” Goncharenko told, adding that his corporation was conducting large-scale development works in this area.

“We already have ne flying drones. They are not vehicles that could be used to survey a battlefield, they are big reconnaissance fighter systems on the drone platform,” he said.