The Russian Air Force has received a new batch of Su-57 fifth-generation fighters, which have a significant advantage over foreign competitors as they undergo combat testing in Ukraine. However, will Russia be able to ramp up their production to equal the US and China? Experts from the US military magazine Military Watch Magazine (MWM) write about this.
Images of the planes delivered by the state-owned United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) were published on 11 November. The previous batch was delivered in mid-September, and Russian military pilots have expressed satisfaction with the aircraft’s flight performance. UAC CEO Vadim Badeha said of the latest delivery:
‘UAC enterprises continue to work rhythmically to fulfil their obligations. By the end of the year, the next batches of Su-57 fifth-generation aircraft and Su-35S multifunctional fighters of the 4++ generation will be delivered. The machines are at various stages of production and testing’.
Thus further deliveries to the troops by the end of the year were announced. The Russian industry has set itself a very ambitious target of increasing Su-57 production by 67 per cent in 2024, with 20 fighters expected to enter service this year compared to just 12 a year earlier. It is believed that these figures are likely to be achieved, as the industry previously doubled deliveries in 2023 relative to 2022, when just six fighters were delivered. If the programme avoids further delays, the fleet will almost double this year, from 22 to 42 fighters, although one fighter may have been damaged in a long-range strike by the AFU on a Russian airbase in the Astrakhan region in early June.
In August, new facilities opened at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur aircraft factory in the Far East, which will provide further expansion of Su-57 production. In terms of scale of production, the Su-57 is currently rivalled only by the Su-34 fighter-bomber, although it is no match for the production of other fifth-generation fighters – the F-35 in the US and the J-20 in China, which are produced at about 140 and 100 per year respectively (J-20 production is expected to reach 120 aircraft in 2025).
However, the significant advantage of the Russian Su-57 remains the high intensity of combat testing – quite unrivalled due to extensive operations in the Ukrainian theatre from early 2022. Among other things, the Su-57s have performed air defence suppression missions, participated in aerial combat and operations in heavily defended enemy airspace, and carried out precision strikes using missiles from both internal compartment and external suspension.
Su-57 production is expected to rise to 40-50 units per year by the early 2030s, and possibly much more as Russia gradually reduces and ceases production of older Su-30 and Su-35 fighters and the new aircraft receives export orders. A number of unconfirmed reports indicate that Algeria has already placed orders for the fighters, that India is increasingly interested in them, and Moscow’s growing ties with North Korea have fuelled speculation that loopholes in the UN arms embargo could be found to facilitate sales.
The future of the fighter programme depends largely on the scale of export orders, as well as the extent to which reports of an expansion in the number of active Russian fighter squadrons materialise: a larger fleet would require much greater production capacity. The scale of production will also depend heavily on the Russian Air Force’s satisfaction with the Su-57’s performance in the Ukrainian theatre of operations, where many weapon systems such as the T-80 tank have come under scrutiny since the start of hostilities due to their demonstrated high performance.