First Stealth Fighter Makes Test Flight

A prototype of Russia’s first stealth fighter successfully completed its long-delayed maiden flight Friday, receiving a warm welcome from government officials who hope that the jet will become a new centerpiece for its aging air fleet.

The flight is also welcome news for the country’s military industry, which is struggling to develop technologies not based on Soviet designs. The military’s 13th test of its new Bulava intercontinental missile failed in December, resulting in a bizarre and much-publicized light show over northern Norway.

The successful test of the T-50 PAK FA fighter, made by state-run Sukhoi, comes amid a spate of crashes involving the company’s aging Su-27, which are often blamed on human error. But concerns remain over the new plane’s engine, being developed by NPO Saturn, and military analysts say commercial production is still at least eight years off.

Pilots should begin training on the T-50 at a facility in Lipetsk as soon as 2013, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a government meeting Friday. Mass production should begin in 2015.

“It’s a remarkable event,” Putin said, while acknowledging that the fighter, and particularly its engine, still needed work. “I am personally following it.”

Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who oversees the military-industrial complex in the government, praised the jet as “unique” during the meeting.

“This jet is equipped with a radically new avionics complex, with an integrated ‘electronic pilot’ function and promising radio detection and ranging equipment with a phased-beam array,” he said.

The plane took off from a test range at the production facility in the far eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur and flew for 47 minutes, piloted by Sergei Bogdan, Sukhoi said in a statement.

“We’ve conducted an initial evaluation of the aircraft controllability, engine performance and primary systems operation. The aircraft had retracted and extracted the landing gear. The aircraft performed excellently at all flight-test points scheduled,” pilot Sergei Bogdan said in the statement. “It is easy and comfortable to pilot.”

A source in Komsomolsk-on-Amur told Interfax that the T-50 had lowered and raised its landing gear twice during the flight, which “the American F-35 fifth-generation jet couldn’t do” on its test flight.

But the success comes well behind those of its U.S. competition.

Sukhoi won a tender to build the T-50 in 2002, replacing similar projects to build a fifth-generation jet fighter that had been discussed since the late 1980s. The jet will have a speed of 2,000 kilometers per hour and a range of up to 5,500 kilometers, according to Sukhoi.

The T-50 is intended as a rival to the U.S. military’s F-22A Raptor, the world’s only fifth-generation jet in service. The F-22A, produced by Lockheed Martin and partner Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, first flew in 1997 and entered service in the U.S. Air Force in 2005.

via First Stealth Fighter Makes Test Flight | News | The Moscow Times.