Russian Air Force Expecting Delivery of First Serially Produced Su-57 Fighter - Factory Footage Published

Russian state media has published photos of the country’s first serially produced Su-57 next generation air superiority fighter - which is currently undergoing final checks at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur aircraft plant before being delivered to the Russian Air Force. Delivery is scheduled for before the end of the year. Production of this specific aircraft took place throughout 2019, and commenced at a time when the Russian military had planned only very limited orders for the fighters - with only around a dozen set to leave production lines before 2025. The Russian Defence Ministry has since dramatically accelerated its schedule for entering these aircraft into frontline service - and is scheduled to field over 80 of the fighters by the middle of the next decade.

A number of potential causes for acceleration of the Su-57 program have been speculated - most notably possible intelligence on progress made on the United States’ own sixth generation fighter programs which the Su-57 will be relied on to counter. The Russian Military currently fields a small number of combat capable Su-57 fighters, ten at most, although these were built by hand for testing and were later converted for use by the military. Such converted prototypes are considered inferior to their serially produced counterparts, but have been deployed for limited combat operations in Syria. The practice of converting advanced prototypes for combat is far from unprecedented - another notable case being the U.S. conversion a prototype B-2 Spirit bomber due to a lack of funding for additional aircraft. The platform has served in the U.S. Air Force for over 20 years.