Farnborough Show News - July 14, 2008 - (Page 92)

FA R N B O R O U G H 2 0 0 8 Sukhoi’s Pogosyan Talks Technology The Bill Boeing Theatre at London’s Royal Aeronautical Society headquarters was filled to capacity Thursday night. The crowd had come to hear Mikhail Pogosyan, general director of Sukhoi Aviation Holding Company, give this year’s keynote Sir Thomas Sopwith lecture in the run-up to Farnborough. Pogosyan spoke enthusiastically about Pavel Sukhoi and his Design Bureau, under the heading, “From a Premier Engineering School to a Global Business.” Taking his lead from Sir Thomas’s reputation as a test pilot and innovator, Pogosyan shone a light on some of the technology development now underway at Sukhoi. The centerpiece of that effort is the enhanced Su-35 (Su-35BM) that recently completed its first phase of test flying. “The Su-35 will be the core of our product line before our fifth-generation fighters enter service,” said Pogosyan. That fifthgeneration fighter is the Russian air force’s PAK-FA program, a closely guarded secret project of Sukhoi’s. Pogosyan confirmed that the PAK-FA prototype would fly next year. Two new capabilities now under development for the Su-35 include a 60° angle-of-attack approach capability, allowing very short landings of about 984 ft. Sukhoi is also developing an with ‘black aluminium’ and move on to the new future materials instead.” Pogosyan cited Sukhoi’s supersonic business jet (SSBJ) designs as one area where that technology could be applied. He added that Sukhoi’s SSBJ concepts are all optimized for supersonic flight over land, and the company has done extensive research on sonic boom mitigation. Sukhoi is now entering the commercial market with the aim of rebalancing its military-dominated business into a 50:50 split between defense and civil sales by 2015. Great hopes are invested in the Superjet program, described as “the first product that will take Sukhoi to this new strategic level.” “After World War II the Soviet and Western production and design model diverged to such a degree that a Soviet civil aircraft had no chance of achieving success in the mainstream commercial market. Given this, we decided to produce an international aircraft, designed, built and supported as part of a global aerospace industry.” Pogosyan credits Boeing with playing a valuable role in the Superjet, thanks to its guidance in matters of project management, team discipline, and airworthiness issues. “The non-Russian content in the Superjet has now reached an unprecedented level of 50%,” says Pogosyan. “It’s no secret that sales and after-sales support was no good in Russia, but now we have managed to build an aircraft that meets the market’s most advanced expectations.” —Robert Hewson Sukhoi chief Mikhail Pogosyan. automated low-altitude recovery system for combat jets. Sukhoi is doing intensive research on low-observability design says Pogosyan, “reducing the radar cross-section through airframe shaping and surface design, [the use of] absorbent coatings and lowering [electronic and infra-red] emissions.” “Our top priorities,” he continues, “are high-performance small signature aircraft, integrated airframe and engine designs, laminar flow techniques, lower heat transfer and hypersonic technology.” He admits that “Sukhoi and the whole Russian aviation industry lags in composite materials technology, and we can’t hope to compete with the rest of the world. We should skip the current phase of working Sukhoi’s Excellent Exports It is not often that you’ll see a company highlight North Korea as one of its export successes, but Sukhoi General Director Mikhail Pogosyan lists the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea on a Sukhoi customer index that also includes Angola, China, Ethiopia, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Venezuela—among many others. “We were a company capable of building 500 combat aircraft a year, but by the early 1990s there were no new orders coming in. Then we suffered the GDP crash of 1993. Our choice was to sit and wait for more government money or independently go and search for new business.” Taking a dig at arch-rival MiG, Pogosyan added that “some of our colleagues are still waiting.” “We opened new markets for the Su-27 family, selling 600 aircraft—an unprecedented Russian record. We also licensed the aircraft for production abroad. In some years 70% of Russia’s overall military exports were Sukhoi aircraft. Today we have a 10% share of the market with sales to 37 countries. The Su-30, Su-32, Su-35 and the next generation will maintain and consolidate that position.” Discussing Sukhoi’s crucial sales to China, Pogosyan said, “We have a strong tradition of cooperation with Chinese industry and the air force. We have sold over 300 Su-27s and Su-30s there, and we have licensed our production, too. We succeeded in creating a fourth-generation aircraft with our Chinese colleagues. We are aware of their own efforts to develop their product lines, but we do not sit idle either. Sukhoi has lots of experience and our Chinese colleagues will have to spend very many years catching up with us.” Asked by Show News about Shenyang’s J-11 project, an unlicensed version of the Su-27SK, Pogosyan was gentle in his criticism noting only that “You will find that a copy is never as good as what you are trying to copy.”—RH Sukhoi’s Su-35BM recently completed its first phase of test flying. 92 July 14, 2008 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Farnborough Show News - July 14, 2008

Farnborough Show News - July 14, 2008 Contents Thirty More Years CFM Reveals New Engine Boeing Reduces Forecast UAVs’ Quiet Revolution Finmeccanica: U.S. Success A Plethora of AESAs BAE North America Plus L-3 Becomes a Prime Better Late Than Never A Peek Behind the Curtain China’s J-10 Revealed Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner Breaking LM’s Hegemony

Farnborough Show News - July 14, 2008

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