But is it true? Upgrading an entire regiments worth of MiG-29SMTs, and not just the original Topaz upgraded (N019MP/N019M1), but Zhuk-M? That would be really expensive by comparison- heck, the Su-27SM is equipped with N001V by comparison.

Already posted in the RuAF crisis thread- why did you want MiG-AT? MiG has the MiG-29SMT, MiG-29K/KUB, MiG-29M1/M2, MiG-35 and civil projects- Yakovlev needs it more. Besides, the Yak-130 looks way better. 🙂

And T-60

What about it?

and how many incarnations has PAK-FA been through now?

Erm … one?

I doubt it- I’d be more inclined to trust the conceptual sketches put out by Jane’s, at this point. Which is not much trust, incidentally 🙂

A more general article:

Air Force Development Strategy

Yesterday air force commander-in-chief, General of the Army Vladimir Mikhaylov, visited the FGUP Moscow Salyut Machine Building Production enterprise. The CinC familiarized himself with production and met with the general director, Yuriy Eleseev, and the plant’s design team and master craftsmen.

According to General of the Army V. Mikhaylov, the MMPP Salyut facilities are satisfying the needs of the air force fully in the upgrade and overhaul of engines. It is enough to say that in 2005 alone, 364 engines were overhauled at the plant.

At the present time, MMPP Salyut’s main customer is Russia’s air force. The enterprise is participating in the creation of the fifth generation engine. Thus, in one of the shops the adjustable nozzle of such an engine was demonstrated. The plant’s specialists also are involved with the program for upgrade of the AL-31F-M1 engine for the Su family of airplanes and the AI-222-25 fan-jet engine for the Yak-130 combat training airplane. Moreover, overhaul of the MiG airplane family’s engines is underway at the enterprise.

Speaking of the fifth generation airplane, air force commander-in-chief, General of the Army V. Mikhaylov, announced that the experimental examples of this aircraft will be lifted into the air in 2007 and temporary ((PROMEZHUTOCHNYE)) AI-222-25 engines from the Yak-130 airplane will be installed on them. The requirement which will be produced for the fifth generation engines are, most likely, reliability and sustainability ((RESURSNOST’)). According to General of the Army V. Mikhaylov, many ideas already have come to fruition. As the general director of MMPP Salyut, Yuriy Eliseev, noted, while being involved in the program for the steady upgrade of engines, the enterprise already has created the necessary reserve for productions of the engine for the fifth generation airplane.

Moreover, the amount of the Russian air force’s financing will grow in 2007 for realization of the intended program. As General of the Army V.A. Mikhaylov reported, the necessary funds already have been allocated for the airplane and the fifth generation engine, and under favorable conditions, work on the PAK-FA may be completed earlier than planned – 2010. This will happen in the event several enterprises will be cooperating on the fifth generation airplane.

Moreover, General of the Army V. Mikhaylov reported that an upgraded Tu-160 strategic supersonic bomber will reach Russia’s air force in the beginning of July. One such airplane will be transferred from Voronezh, and in the future the air force will receive the next Tu-160.

Also, the series-built Su-34 fighter bomber with a new engine soon will supplement the air forces’ airplane fleet, and four Yak-130 combat training airplanes are in the testing stage, which is going successfully. At the present time, the need of the air force’s line units for Yak-130 combat trainers is 250 aircraft. An on the whole, the share of “130s” will be 75 percent of the total number combat training airplanes.

Source: 16.06.06, Krasnaya Zvezda , Correspondent: Aleksandr Pinchuk

The other 25% will be MiG-ATs.

Russia’s Air Force Will Receive Upgraded Tu-160 at Beginning of July

Russia’s air force will receive an upgraded Tu-160 strategic bomber in the beginning of July, the Russian Federation air force commander-in-chief, Vladimir Mikhaylov reported. “We will ferry an upgraded Tu-160 from the automobile ((sic)) plant in Voronezh in the first days of July, and a new Tu-160 is on the approach,” he said in an interview with journalists.

He also reported that the air force already has received the first series-built Mi-28N “Night Hunter” helicopter. “Soon we also will receive a new Su-34 series-built bomber with the new MMPP Salyut manufactured engine. Four Yak-130 combat trainers already are flying,” General Mikhaylov said.

According to him, the Russian air force is experiencing a need for 250 combat trainers of this type. “Tests are on-going, and there is no doubt that the manufacture of these aircraft will increase, in which connection not only in Nizhniy Novgorod, but also in Irkutsk,” the CinC said.

He reported that the Yak-130 will compose 75 percent of the combat trainer and trainer fleet for Russia’s air force, the rest will be MiG-AT.

Source: 15.06.06, ARMS-TASS

it is this engine they are referring to. It is intermediate engine towards 5th generation.

That would be AL-41F1A then. Not only has the Su-35BM been stated to be equipped with AL-41F1A engines, but 14.5 tonnes thrust = 142kN.

However, in the interim its likely for Su-34s to be equipped with AL-31FM1s, like the Su-27SM- not only does the article posted above indicate this (since AL-41F1A/ Article 117S isn’t ready yet, though it’s being tested)

link

Link

AL-31FM1 is known as Article 99M1

Aircraft carriers post-2009

Why Russia Does not Need Aircraft Carriers

Russia does not plan laying out any new aircraft carrying cruisers before 2009, vice premier and defense minister, Sergey Ivanov, announced after a meeting on questions of developing military ship building. According to the defense ministry’s head, “It is too early now to talk about building aircraft carriers,” although such a possibility is not being ruled out in the future. At the same time, after 15 years of chaos, the Russian navy is entering a period of new development. Izvestiya has tried to ascertain why our navy will be without any aircraft carrier for this period.

The state armaments program to 2015 places naval development on a level with the strategic nuclear forces containment level, that is it is the state’s main priority. Of the 4.9 trillion rubles allocated for reequipping the military, 25 percent will go for renewing the navy’s ship component.

“I cannot name, for reasons you understand, the exact totals,” Sergey Ivanov reported. – But it is a quarter of all expenses for the state arms program. So, think of it like this. These are billions of rubles…

In its history, the Russian navy has been regenerated three times: after the Crimean war, the Tsushima defeat and in the middle of the 1970s – 1980s of the last century, when the USSR in a short time was able to create a nuclear missile fleet which was commensurable in its combat capabilities with the Americans. The collapse of the USSR put an end to Russia’s oceanic ambitions. The program for developing the navy, one of the main tasks of which was the creation of an aircraft carrying group capable of autonomously operating at any point of the world’s oceans, quietly ceased its existence. We in fact had aircraft carriers by that time – they were four “Baku” type aircraft carrying cruisers (up to 34 flight vehicles were based on them: 18 anti-submarine Ka-25 and Ka-27 helicopters and 16 Yak-38 vertical take-off fighters. A series of project 1143.6 aircraft carrying cruisers had been laid out with a “normal” – straight deck which allowed basing Su-33 fighters on the ships.

We succeeded in putting only one of them – “Admiral of the Fleet Kuznetsov” – into service by the time of the collapse of the USSR. The “Varyag,” which was 70 percent built, was cut into “needles”; the same thing happened with the “Ul’yanovsk” atomic aircraft carrying cruiser. The fate of the four “Baku” ships is even sadder. During design, the builders “forgot” about one trifle – where, in essence, will these giants be moored – there were no berths for them. All ships of this type were in the slipway of naval bases, using up their service lives non-stop. Exactly the very same fate awaited the “Admiral Gorshkov” cruiser, but, fortunately, India became interested in it as newer and more modern.

According to Sergey Ivanov, today a strategy for the development of ship building to 2030 has been developed. By 2010 it is planned to increase construction volumes of military ships by 1 ? times. A whole series of 40 frigates has been laid out for the first time in 15 years. In 2005, six submarines and nine surface vessels and boats have been built at all Russia’s shipyards. Now the defense ministry is talking about an “oceanic” fleet. Evidence of this also is the growth of naval exercises and long-range cruises into the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean. In order to correspond to the worldwide level, Russian sailors need aircraft carriers. According to naval commander-in-chief, Vladimir Masorin, we have projects for aircraft carrying cruisers, but it won’t be possible to talk about their construction earlier than 2015. It is expensive and even technically difficult. For example, we do not have any trained deck-based aviation airmen. Just like the ship-based Su-33 fighters themselves. They have begun to build a special “Nitka” trainer for training the airmen (exactly the same as was left in Ukraine on the Crimean.) As the sailors say, it is impossible to “send” an aircraft carrier to sea “by itself” – they will drown it (it is too vulnerable). As the “boss,” it needs “protection” from missile cruisers, destroyers and anti-submarine ships, and atomic submarines. Right now, as Ivanov says, the domestic shipbuilding program is concentrating exactly on this.

The aircraft carrying cruiser is not an aircraft carrier

The definition of “aircraft carrier” has not been settled in Russia. According to legend, navy commander-in-chief Sergey Gorshkov did not want the Soviet ships to be like the American in any way. Soviet propaganda called American aircraft carriers “an instrument of worldwide imperialism.” On the other hand, the country’s leadership also did not grasp the class of ships very well, operating on the notions of “submarine – surface vessel.” If the designers called a heavy aircraft carrying cruiser in an “aircraft carrier” in those years, then the party leadership would only deprive the project of financing because of technical incompetence. Admiral was not able to allow this, understanding well that there is nothing the Soviet navy can do in the 21st century without aircraft carriers. As his colleagues recall, being a sharp and strong ((ZHESTKIY)) man, Gorshkov introduced with a personal decision a new class of ships into the Soviet navy – the “aircraft carrying cruiser.” That same “Admiral Kuznetsov” is called a “cruiser with aircraft arms.”

Why does one have to “carry” aircraft into the ocean

A floating airfield, as they often call aircraft carriers, is necessary in order to create in a short period of time in one or another regions of the world’s oceans a powerful aviation group capable, while not entering the operational zone of an enemy’s anti-ship forces, and to impose its game tactics on it. This is what the Americans did when the bombed Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan from the sea. That’s what they will do if they decide to win Iran over to nuclear non-proliferation with force. Russia has not plans for an imposed settlement in relation to other states, but there is a need for the defense of her own economic interest on the world’s oceans.

Source: 13.06.06, Finansovye Izvestiya, Correspondent: Dmitriy Litovkin