Irkut Corporation will continue to manufacture Su-30SM
multirole fighters. This was declared by Yury Slyusar,
President of UAC and Irkut Corporation, on the eve of Army
2018 International Forum. According to him, a new government
contract for supply of Su-30SM to the Ministry of Defense of
the Russian Federation is planned during the current year.
In addition, the fighters will be exported. “Su30 family
has a good future, the fighters have been sold to a lot of
countries and hopefully will be being still sold", added
Slyusar.
Currently, Irkut Corporation is being manufacturing Su30SM
for the Russian Aerospace Forces and navy aviation, and a
next contract for supply of these fighters to Kazakhstan is
underway. In this May, Arman Ramazanov, General Director of
RSE Kazspecesport, and Oleg Demchenko, 1st VicePresident —
Chief Designer of Irkut Corporation, signed a contract for
supply of a new lot of Su30SM for the Air Defense of
Kazakhstan. The contract is to be completed by 2020.
Manufacture of a lot of Su30SM for the Ministry of Defense
of the Republic of Belarus is the next in turn. Other CSTO
and SIC countries are also interested in the fighter.
According to experts opinion, unification of aircraft fleets
of Russia and its close allies makes it possible to create
combined air task forces, if necessary, for general military
threat suppression.
Licensed production of Su30MKI multirole fighter — a “big
brother” of Su30SM — is underway in India. More than 250 of
aircraft of this type form the basis for the Indian Air
Force, and this condition will remain even after
implementation of the advertised tender for supply of new
combat aircraft.
Considering the announced new contracts, the total number of
already supplied and ordered Su30MKI/MKM/SM family fighters
will cross an important boundary of 500 fighters. It should
be noted that no domestic aircraft has been able to achieve
such serial production after 1991. Whether military or civil
aircraft.
Su30SM fighters have approved themselves in daytoday
operation and passed a test in severe combat conditions.
According to Yury Borisov, Deputy Prime Minister of the
Russian Federation, the fighters “have showed good results
in Syria and demonstrated their combat capabilities”.
Su30SM crews emphasize that many features of the fighter
occurred to be in demand in highthreat environment. Thus,
separation of functions between a pilot and navigator made
it possible to detect and attack ground targets with ability
to view and analyze an air situation. Su30SM heave demonstrated their excellent capabilities in top cover of
bomber aircraft attacking terrorists.
It should be noted that it were Su30SM that were honored to
accompany Vladimir Putin’s, the President of the Russian
Federation, aircraft to Hemeimeem.
Let us recall that Su30MKI was the first seriesproduced
highlymaneuverable fighter in the word. For this very
reason it was selected by the pilots from "Russian Knights"
aerobatic team. Andrey Alekseev, the Leader of the team, has
emphasised: “We are very much honored by the opportunity to
represent Russian Air Force using the world’s best Su30SM
fighters”.
In addition to the continued series production, the program
has another very important area of development —
modernization both in the interests of the Ministry of
Defence of the Russian Federation and foreign customers.
The major aircraft improvement areas are: installation of
higherpower engines, expansion of airlaunched weapons,
provision of new electronic warfare suites.
