Just Like US(AF)? Russia's fifth generation fighter
by Reuben F. Johnson, Kiev, The Weekly Standard
01/09/2009 12:00:00 AM
For more than a decade the world has been waiting for Russia's aerospace industry to produce a fifth-generation fighter aircraft -- a replacement for the more than 25-year-old designs of the Mikoyan MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27/Su-30 models and an analogue to the Lockheed Martin F-22A Raptor and F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Organised as a cooperative program involving almost the entirety of the Russian military aircraft industry, the project is known as the PAK-FA (Perspektivnnyi Aviatsionnyi Kompleks - Frontovoi Aviatsyi, or Future Air System for Tactical Air Forces).
The design bureau designation for the prototype is T-50, with this airplane in the beginning stages of assembly at the Komsommolsk-na-Amure Aviation Production Association (KNAAPO) plant in the Russian Far East region of Kharabovsk. "Metal is being cut at the KNAAPO plant" and the plan is now for the aircraft to fly in 2009 -- or 2010 at the latest -- said a source knowledgeable of the program.
The emergence of a Russian fifth-generation fighter airplane should be music to the ears of the U.S. Air Force (USAF), which has long sought to use the specter of such a program to justify increased procurement of the F-22A and funding for the F-35. But, no one on the Air Staff in the Pentagon should be putting champagne on ice just yet. Ironically, the PAK-FA seems to be taking the same labourious route from first flight to actual deployment that started with the selection of the YF-22 prototype in the early 1990s.
"During the flight evaluations of the YF-22 and the [Northrop-McDonnell-Douglas] YF-23 the Lockheed design was picked as the 'winner,' but this was despite the fact that the prototype airplane did not demonstrate stealth, did not have a working radar or avionics suite for testing, and did not supercruise. So, all that was really evaluated and 'won' the fly-off was an aerodynamic paint job," said US aviation and stealth technology analyst Jim Stevenson. Stevenson has authored numerous articles on the F-22A and has written extensive histories of both the F-18 and ill-fated A-12 program.
"The USAF essentially picked a winner and then said 'now that you have officially won go and develop the airplane,' which took another 14 and half years between this fly-off of virtually empty prototypes and the official acceptance of the F-22A into service at the end of 2005," said Stevenson.
The PAK-FA seems destined to meet a similar fate. The prototype will fly sometime within the next 12 to 18 months, but -- like the F-22A -- it seems that these demonstration flights will meet almost none of the Russian Air Force's (VVS) operational requirements.
Russian industry representatives close to the program tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD that "the radar to be flown in the aircraft from NIIP design bureau will be a variant of the same Irbis-E passive electronically scanning array (PESA) radar technology that is in the Sukhoi Su-35 Super Flanker and not the next-generation active array (AESA) that program requirements call for. The engine will be the Saturn/Lyulka 117S modernised derivative of the Su-27's AL-31F-Series 3 engine and not the next-generation AL-41F1 design. There will also be few new-age on-board systems in the avionics suite."
As early as mid-2007, Sukhoi General Director Mikhail Pogosian and other senior Russian industry officials were downplaying expectations when they hinted that these on-board systems might not be ready when the first prototype aircraft flies and would only come on line later. When asked about the engine development at the Le Bourget air show outside of Paris in June 2007, Pogosian responded "that since the serial production covers a period of 30 years and 30 more years for operation, the engine and other systems will change considerably in the course of serial production. That is normal."
According to the division of labour that has been agreed to for the PAK-FA, the KNAAPO plant will be the lead final production assembly point. The Chkalov NAPO plant in Novosibirsk will supply the nose section and other carbon composite sections for the aircraft. But, officials in Novosibirsk have previously told THE WEEKLY STANDARD "there are no plans to place a large share of the [PAK-FA] production at NAPO, largely due to the nature of the local workforce here in Siberia. Because there are no so many commercial trading companies now here in Novosibirsk it is too difficult to retain enough skilled engineering talent with this kind of competition from the private sector."
But, labour problems are only one facet of the difficulties that Russian defense industry now faces. Among them is a government out of touch with industry's problems, lack of investment, and technological bottlenecks -- and literally demanding that they "make ropes from sand," as the old fable says.
An example came during a recent telemost broadcast on Russian state television in which Russian PM Vladimir Putin answered phone-in questions he was asked about the PAK-FA program and stated "we are developing such airplanes and the work is going according to plan. I am certain that they will appear in the Russian Armed Forces and I would like that they appear on time."
Demanding that the PAK-FA appears "on time" shows that Putin and Co. have not spent enough time reading their briefing book on "why the Soviet Union failed as a nation-state." Rule number one from that briefing is that simply decreeing a desired outcome does not make it so. Even though Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Board of Russia's Unified Aircraft-Building Corporation (OAK), Sergei Ivanov, stated in May 2007 that Pogosian had "confirmed that the first plane will make its maiden flight in late 2008," these technological obstacles have made it so that the first flight will now be at least a year late.
"The most likely near-term future for the PAK-FA is that there will be prototype demonstrators that make a number of flights -- just like the Mikoyan MFI 1.44 and Sukhoi S-37/Su-47 models -- and then the program may slow down or come to a halt altogether while industry tries to finish developing these on-board systems," said one analyst in Moscow familiar with the program.
The consensus of the industry representatives who spoke to THE WEEKLY STANDARD is that overcoming these technology bottlenecks depends significantly on whether or not any foreign partners come on board to cooperate -- and bring some much-needed funding with them. Development of the avionics and radar components will require a significant investment in Russia's electronics industry sector, which has been neglected for years. Russia, now in the middle of the worst economic crisis to hit the nation since the hyperinflation of the 1990s, simply lacks the resources required to bring its largely dilapidated defense industrial base into the 21st century. The most optimistic estimate for the program is that production-series PAK-FA airplanes will not be flying in VVS service before 2016 and that export customers would receive their aircraft much later.
One of the nations that Russia had been hoping would become a program partner was Brazil. Concerned about the acquisition of so much advanced Russian weaponry by Compañero President Hugo Chavez in neighbouring Venezuela, Brazil -- South America's largest nation -- decided to embark on a major modernization of its long-outdated air force. Russia had hoped to convince Brazil to join the PAK-FA program, but last year's state visit by President Dmitri Medvedev did not convince the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to sign onto the project.
Russian officials had proposed that the Força Aérea Brasileira (Brazilian Air Force or FAB) sign on to an initial procurement of the Sukhoi Su-35 Super Flanker and then follow on with a role in the PAK-FA, but the FAB Commander, Juniti Saito, stated that: "I do not want to blacken the image of Sukhoi, but the project did not fit into our necessities." Translation: Brazil is not in the position to finance the development of a Russian fighter that is not in production yet nor will it be soon -- it needs something it can buy off the shelf now.
The FAB, which earlier dropped the Su-35 from its FX-2 competition, stated that it had excluded Sukhoi fighters from the program because of compromises that would have to be made on terms of technology transfer. This is almost a complete turnaround from several years ago, when the Su-35 made it into the last round of the FX-2 competition before the program was put into abeyance. In these intervening years, Russia has started to lose the technological edge that made it so attractive to its export customers, and in today's environment they are not likely to have the financial means to address that deficiency.
A representative from one of the PAK-FA's major partners told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that "the situation is very simple. Right now the only real fifth-generation fighter airplane in service in the world is the F-22A. This state of affairs is not likely to change anytime soon."
Reuben F. Johnson is a regular contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online.
