Farnborough 2008 Show News - July 16, 2008 - (Page 60)

FA R N B O R O U G H 2 0 0 8 PAK-FA Source, Technology Bottlenecks Sukhoi and Komsomolsk-na-Amure Aviation Production Association (KNAAPO) officials both state that the construction of prototypes for the Project T-50 PAK-FA (Perspektivnnyi Aviatsionnyi Kompleks Frontovoi Aviatsyi, or Future Air Complex for Tactical Air Forces) program is underway, and that the aircraft should fly sometime next year. Numerous drawings and artist’s renditions of the aircraft have been shown in both Russia and foreign publications, but no definitive design plan has been seen. However, officials at Russian aviation research centers associated with the developmental work on the aircraft have told Show News that, although the PAK-FA straddles the two generations represented by an Su-27 on one side and the Lockheed Martin F-22 and F-35 on the other, the design is closer to the Soviet-era jet than a U.S. stealth airplane. One of the recent drawings of the aircraft shows an internal weapons bay where air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles are housed in a fouracross or three-across side-by-side arrangement. This is consistent with the design that was originally intended for the Mikoyan Multi-Role Fighter (MFI) Project 1.42/44n program, showing that the designers still intend to make radar cross section reduction a major operational requirement. But Russian aerospace industry observers are quietly voicing their concern about the ability of Russian industry to actually mass-produce the aircraft, as well as manufacture the major subsystems on a large scale. The engine that will power the PAK-FA prototypes is the Saturn/Rybinsk 117S model, which is described by its designers as a “deep modernization” of the AL-31F engine originally developed for the Su-27. Currently the same engine is flying on board the pre-production developmental Su-35 aircraft. PAK-FA series-production aircraft are supposed to have an engine that would be a mod- Many drawings circulate, nothing has been definitively released. ern-day derivative of the model series once siderably from that engine’s original early referred to as AL-41F, but it would differ con- 1990s design. With Saturn/Rybinsk supplying the engines for both new-generation aircraft, there is little “Regardless of how soon NIIP catches up [to their rivals left for the other major AL-31F manufacturer, Salyut, to do, “other than to deliver engines for at Phazotron] and produces a working AESA, the fact the Su-34s being built in Novosibirsk, which can remains that there is no factory in Russia that can be counted in very small numbers for now,” said produce the transmit/receive (T/R) modules and other one Moscow analyst. Another voiced the concomponents economically and on a large scale. Without cern written about in Russian publications over the last three years that Salyut actually has a betmajor investments in this industrial technology by the ter engine design for the PAK-FA and a superior state, the program could suffer additional setbacks.” cadre of personnel to support it. The other issue is production of an AESA —a Moscow analyst radar for the aircraft. NIIP, the traditional supplier of radar for Sukhoi aircraft, has been given the contract for the PAK-FA. So far, the design has not advanced to the prototype stage. At the same time, NIIP’s competitor, Phazotron, already has a working AESA that is now entering flight test for the MiG-35 program. “Regardless of how soon NIIP catches up [to their rivals at Phazotron] and produces a working AESA, the fact remains that there is no factory in Russia that can produce the transmit/receive (T/R) modules and other components economically and on a large scale. Without major investments in this industrial technology by the state, the program could suffer additional setbacks,” the analyst said. —Reuben F. Johnson Saturn/Rybinsk 117S is described as a ‘deep modernization’ of the AL-31F engine for the Sukhoi Su-27. 60 July 16, 2008 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Farnborough 2008 Show News - July 16, 2008

Bombardier, Shenyang $5 Billion for Composites 787 and Seven V-22s for Export Sale? Saving Fuel at SFO Raytheon Roars Into UAVs Bell Eyes ARH-70A Costs All According to Plan We Fly the PC-12NG Russia’s T-50 PAK-FA Optimistic in Israel ICAO Sim Classifications Pratt to Power New Drone Russian Conglomerate

Farnborough 2008 Show News - July 16, 2008

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