Skip to main content

Super Sukhois To Give India A Generation Leap




India is poised to get fifth generation aircraft sooner than expected. While an Indo-Russian programme to develop a fifth generation fighter aircraft is already under way, Russia has agreed to provide India with an advanced version of the Sukhoi-30MKI, which boasts of fifth generation capabilities and stealth features.

The Indian Air Force, which currently has over 100 Sukhoi MKIs, has placed an order with Russia for about 280-300 aircraft, which are likely to come in the form of the Super Sukhois.
This development is expected to provide India a considerable edge over Pakistan. In January 2011, China had agreed to deliver its J-20 fifth generation fighter – touted to be the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft — to Pakistan.

The timeframe of the delivery of the Super Sukhois has not been specified, but India plans to deploy four squadrons of the advanced aircraft in the northeastern sector by 2015.

The Super Sukhoi has come about after India decided to get rid of some of its outdated combat jets and replace them with superior ones. As part of that, India decided to return 18 Sukhoi-30K aircraft to Russia and replace them with the advanced Sukhoi-30MKI, which is being christened as “Super Sukhoi” that boasts of fifth generation features.

The 18 Sukhoi-30Ks were part of the first production batch.
According to a US-based Defense Update report, Russia, the manufacturer of the aircraft, has agreed to replace the aircraft by production versions of the advanced Su-30MKI (the Super Sukhoi), in a ‘buyback’ transaction as the Su-30K were found to have downgraded avionics as compared with the advanced Su-30MKI aircraft.

Further, the aircraft, of which 10 have already been sent back (the remaining eight by November), would be inducted into the Belarusian Air Force.

The Super Sukhoi, apart from having a new cockpit, has upgraded radars and will also be equipped with the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile.

Commenting on the decision to return the older aircraft, Air Commodore (Retd) Jasjit Singh, director, New Delhi-based Centre for Air Power Studies (CAPS), told DNA that India had been asking for the Sukhoi-30K to be replaced for sometime now and that the decision to go in for the upgraded version of the aircraft is a step in the right direction.

“The Sukhoi-30K were manufactured and delivered to India in the mid-1990s and it is an aging aircraft. The IAF may have found it to be cost-effective to send back the aircraft instead of upgrading it on par with the latest model. Besides the upgrades would have taken three-four years, which is not logical with a fleet of aircraft which has already completed half its lifespan,” said Singh.

http://www.dnaindia.com/
 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pakistani JF-17 A Thunder OR A Blunder

Pakistan has witnessed new defense acquisitions in this decade than any other, and in the center of it all is the new fighter which was designed by China with partial funding from Pakistan. It is formally known as JF-17 Thunder. When the fighter was in development, Pakistani online communities were jumping with excitement comparing it with its arch rival India’s modern combatants Su-30MKI, Mig-29S & Mirage-2000H. There were claims of it featuring western Radars and long range missiles, & Chinese ordering some due to its superior capabilities. But the reality is far from it. China having spent significant amount of money into a fighter which it is never going to use, most probably forced Pakistan to accept its avionics to offset some its development costs. Chinese who are known for their self reliance first and quality next, are further downgrading JF-17s capabilities with their poorly copy-pirated avionics. Along with their dubious weapons, any chance of JF...
48 comments
READ MORE

India Planned Attack On Pak Navy Mehran Base To Kill Chinese Engineers

The terrorist attack on Karachi's Mehran Naval Station on May 22 was conceived and launched by India with the primary objective of killing the Chinese engineers present there, a Pakistani newspaper has claimed, citing 'informed sources'. Four to six Taliban terrorists had entered PNS Mehran on May 22, destroying two maritime surveillance aircraft and killing ten military personnel during their 17-hour siege of the naval air base. "India is the only country in the region that feels troubled by the Pakistan Navy, which had awfully beaten the Indian Navy in Operation Dwarka of 1965. Since then, it has been an earnest desire of India to harm the Pakistan Navy but it was perhaps not possible on the battle front, hence it struck the PNS Mehran," The News quoted sources as saying.
23 comments
READ MORE

Pakistani F-16s Shoot Down RAF Eurofighter Typhoons During Air Combat Exercises In Turkey

Pakistani pilots flying modernised versions of the 1970s-vintage F-16 Falcon fighter have beaten the RAF's brand-new Eurofighter Typhoon superfighters during air combat exercises in Turkey, according to a Pakistani officer. Analysis: The RAF Typhoon, formerly known as the Eurofighter, should nonetheless have been vastly superior in air-to-air combat whether BVR or close in within visual range (WVR). The cripplingly expensive, long-delayed Eurofighter was specifically designed to address the defects of its predecessor the Tornado F3 – famously almost useless in close-in, dogfighting-style air combat. The Typhoon was meant to see off such deadly in-close threats as Soviet "Fulcrums" and "Flankers" using short-range missiles fired using helmet-mounted sight systems: such planes were thought well able to beat not just Tornados but F-16s in close fighting, and this expectation was borne out after the Cold War when the Luftwaffe inherite...
18 comments
READ MORE