Russian Air Force receives first advanced bombers

MOSCOW, December 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Air Force received Friday its first two newly built Su-34 Fullback bombers.

Designed by the Sukhoi Design Bureau, the Su-34 will replace the Su-24 Fencer frontline bombers. Experts said the new bomber has the potential to become the best plane in its class for years to come.

A ceremonial handover of the Su-34s took place at the Chkalov Aircraft Production Association in Novosibirsk, in West Siberia. In attendance were Russia's Air Force commander, Army General Vladimir Mikhailov, and Sukhoi holding Director General Mikhail Pogosyan.

The $36 million Su-34 fighter-bomber is a two-seat strike aircraft equipped with twin AL-31MF afterburning turbojet engines. It is designed to deliver high-precision strikes on heavily defended targets in any weather conditions, day or night, and fields weaponry that includes a 30mm GSh-301 cannon, up to 12 Alamo or Archer AAMs, ASMs, and bombs

Mikhailov said Russia's Air Force needs about 200 Su-34s, which will be on active duty in the next 30-40 years along with modernized Su-24s, which are expected to be gradually replaced over the next 20 years.

"In all, we need about 200 [Su-34] aircraft," he said, "But at the same time, we do not want to replace the modernized Su-24[M] in the next two or three years, as the aircraft can be in service for 10-15 years. All of the Su-24s will be replaced with Su-34s in around 20 years."

The commander said the Su-34 has been modernized twice since the late 1980s, when it was designed, and will be further modernized after 10 years in service.

Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said earlier that Russia's Air Force will buy 58 Su-34s by 2015.

The Su-34 is armed with a 30mm GSh-301 gun and 180 rounds of ammunition. The gun has a maximum rate of fire of 1,500 rounds per minute and the muzzle velocity is 860m/sec. The gun is supplied by the Instrument Design Bureau in Tula.

The aircraft has ten hardpoints for weapon payloads and is able to carry a range of missiles including air-to-air, air-to-surface, anti-ship and anti-radiation missiles, guided and unguided bombs, and rockets. The aircraft is fitted with a target designator.

The R-73 (NATO codename AA-11 Archer) short-range air-to-air missile is supplied by the Vympel State Engineering design Bureau in Moscow. The R-73 is an all-aspect missile capable of engaging targets in tail-chase or head-on mode. The missile has cooled infrared homing. The R-73 attacks the target within target designation angles of +/- 45 degrees and with angular rates up to 60 degrees per second. The missile can intercept targets at altitudes between 0.02 and 20km, target g-load to 12g, and with target speeds to 2,500kph.

The RVV-AE long-range air-to-air missile, also known as the RR-77 or by the NATO designation AA-12, is manufactured by Vympel. The missile can intercept targets at speeds up to 3,600kph and altitudes from 0.02 to 25km. The minimum range in the aft hemisphere is 300m and the maximum vertical separation between the host aircraft and the target is 10km. The RR-77 has inertial guidance with mid-course radio updates and terminal active guidance. A new, longer-range (150km) version of the R-77, with solid fuel ram-jet propulsion, is being tested by Vympel.

The Su-34 carries a range of precision guided and unguided bombs and rockets, including the KAB-500 laser-guided bomb developed by the Region State Research and Production Enterprise based in Moscow.

SYSTEMS

The Su-34 is equipped with an electro-optical fire control system supplied by the Urals Optical and Mechanical Plant (YOM3) and a Geofizika FLIR (forward-looking infrared) pod. Leninetz of St Petersburg supplies the passive phased array radar system and TsNIRTI the electronic countermeasures suite.

ENGINES

The aircraft is powered by two afterburning AL-31F or AL-35 turbofan engines. The engines are mounted under the wing and are equipped with all-duty fixed geometry air intakes. A rotor protection installed in the air intakes provides protection against the ingestion of foreign objects.

The aircraft can carry 12,100kg of fuel internally in two fuel tanks in the wings and four in the fuselage. Three external fuel tanks, each with a capacity of 3,000 litres, can also be fitted.

The aircraft can achieve a speed of 1,900kph (Mach 1.6) at altitude and 1,300kph (Mach 1) at sea level.

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The aircraft shares most of its wing structure, tail, and engine nacelles with the Su-27/Su-30, with canards like the Su-30/Su-33/Su-35 to increase static instability (higher manoeuvrability) and to reduce trim drag. The aircraft has an entirely new nose and forward fuselage with a cockpit providing side-by-side seating for a crew of two. The Su-34 retains the Su-27's engines, but with fixed intakes, limiting its maximum speed to about Mach 1.8. Production models are likely to have thrust vectoring, like recent Su-30MKs.

Frontal view

Unlike the earlier Su-27, the Su-34 has a modern "glass" cockpit, with colour CRT multi-function displays. Its avionics currently are based around a Leninets V004 phased array radar, and a UOMZ laser/television system for designating and guiding precision-guided munitions. The front-mounted radar is supplemented by a rear-aspect V005 radar housed in the long tail "stinger." The Su-34 is equipped with comprehensive ECM equipment, including an infrared missile launch detection system. Despite the advance of these systems over existing Su-27 avionics, they may be replaced with still more sophisticated equipment before the aircraft enters service.

The Su-34's most distinctive feature is the unusually large flight deck, which not only provides side-by-side seating, but includes space for a galley, a latrine, and a bunkbed. It was joked that "It's got a bigger cockpit than the Tu-160". Much of the design work went into crew comfort, which resulted in novel features such as pressurization provided by the air conditioning system, rather than with oxygen masks and a massage function in the K-36 ejector seats

The Su-34 has 12 stores pylons for up to 8,000 kilograms (17,635 pounds) of ordnance, intended to include the latest Russian precision-guided weapons. It retains the Su-27/Su-30's GSh-30-1 30mm cannon.

The development of the Su-34 has been hampered by the poor state of Russian finances, and to date only a handful of pre-production models have been built. In mid-2004 Sukhoi announced that low-rate production was commencing and that initial aircraft would reach squadron service around 2008. Nevertheless, upgrade programs continue for surviving Russian Su-24s, as the Su-34 may still not enter wide service for some years to come.

In March 2006 Russia's minister of defense Sergei Ivanov announced that the government had purchased only two Su-34's for delivery in 2006, and planned to have a complete air regiment of 24 Su-34s operational by the end of 2010 (total 58 aircraft will be purchased by 2015 to replace some of 300+ Su-24 [1], which are going through modernization upgrades currently to prolong their service life). Ivanov claimed that because the aircraft is "many times more effective on all critical parameters" the Russian Air Force will need far fewer of these newer bombers than the old Su-24[2] it replaces.

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