New Su-30SM2 Fighters With Enhanced Engines Delivered to Russian Defence Ministry

The Russian state owned United Aircraft Corporation has handed a new batch of Su-30SM2 ‘4+ generation’ fighters to the Defence Ministry. The corporation stated at the time that the aircraft were “outfitted with cutting-edge high-precision weapons capable of delivering strikes on air, land, and sea targets at a distance of several hundred kilometres,” according to state media. The Su-30SM currently forms the backbone of the Russian Air Force’s fighter fleet alongside the Su-35 air superiority fighter and the Su-34 strike fighter, and represents a less specialised and more well balanced aircraft well suited to air superiority, strike and anti shipping missions. Orders for the aircraft began in the late 2000s to replace the country’s Soviet built Su-27 and MiG-29 fighter fleets. These older aircraft were initially expected to be replaced by the MiG 1.42 fifth generation fighter from the early 2000s, although after the USSR’s disintegration the promising fighter program was cancelled. It was subsequently expected that they would be replaced by Su-57 fighters from the mid-2010s, although serious delays to the program forced the Russian Air Force to rely heavily on the Su-30SM and Su-35.

The Su-30SM is a heavily enhanced derivative of the Su-27 Flanker, which was considered the world’s prime air superiority fighter during the Cold War. The large majority of costs for development were covered by orders for the Indian Air Force for a heavily customised variant of the Su-30 fighter which integrated features from the cancelled Su-37 program of the 1990s, including the Su-37's N011M radar - one of the first ever electronically scanned array radars integrated onto a fighter - as well as the Su-35's controlled canards, AL-31FP engines, and thrust vectoring nozzles. The Su-30SM variant improved on the Indian Su-30MKI by integrating a wide angle heads up display, new identification friend or foe and communications systems, and by gaining compatibility with the SAP-518 jamming pod. The Su-30SM2 variant improved on this with the integration of the AL-41F1S engines from the Su-35 fighter, which significantly improve the aircraft’s flight performance and increase its range, while also having significantly lower maintenance needs and a longer service life. The Su-30 has remained Russia’s most popular fighter on export markets, with recent sales made to Myanmar, Ethiopia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, India and Algeria. In parallel to continued acquisitions, existing Su-30SMs in the Russian fleet are being modernised to the Su-30SM2 standard with the integration of the AL-41F1S engine.