Views of Maks, near Moscow. (Shows & Exhibitions).

Held last August at the Zhukovsky Flight Research Institute airfield south west of Moscow, the Maks air show reflected the urgent need for a thorough restructuring of Russia's aircraft and defence industry.

At Western European air shows one tends to visit a given manufacturer's stand to discuss his own products, but not necessarily so in Russia - which is indeed confusing. At Maks, walking into the Irkutsk Aviation Production Association, which manufactures the famous Su-27, does not necessarily mean that you'll be given authoritative information on the aircraft's future development.

Of course all this dates back to the Communist regime era, when everything had to be compartmented and produced according to well-thought-out multiple year plans.

A decade after the demise of the Soviet regime, this still existing industrial structure is proof that one needs to wait till the old school has retired before a change can start to take place. The word restructure was on almost everybody's lips at Maks and many speculated on the eventual setting up of two main aviation industry groups (each reuniting, one way or another, the famous "design bureaus" with their manufacturing facilities): Sukhoi, Ilyushin and Mil on the one hand, and MiG, Tupolev and Kamov on the other. Wishful thinking? Some predict it could happen within five years. In the meantime, and shortly after the show, the government definitely started to shift gears upwards, by having approved a draft aimed at creating a Sukhoi holding company headed by AVPK Sukhoi (AVPK = aviation military production complex) and the Sukhoi Design Bureau whose umbrella also will shelter the Novosibirsk Aviation Production Association, The famous Knaapo unit (or Komsomolosk-on-Amur Aviation Production Association), the above-mentioned Irkutsk plant, and even the Beriev scientific and technical complex. According to Alexander Klementiev (see below) the Government will have at least a 51 per cent stake in the holding company, while the other major shareholder will be the Sukhoi Aircraft Complex.

Spares and Reliability

Alexander Klementiev, Deputy General Director of the Sukhoi Aircraft Military and Industrial Complex, was kind enough to give Armada International's Editor an exclusive interview to discuss Sukhoi's strategies for the future. Much discussed is covered above, but other issues need to be addressed, not the least being the restoration of the poor aircraft support image.

Obviously expecting the question, Klementiev immediately swung a rather neat booklet across the table. "This booklet shows our new approach. Indeed there was disorder after the [Soviet] collapse, and it took time to change the mentalities. Since our range of customers has widened we have embraced the Western way of doing things and had to create new systems that meet the market requirements".

Turning to the export market issue, Klementiev said that South Eastern countries were being closely looked at, adding "but these are new to us; we hope that co-operation with some old [clients in] Arabic and African countries will be restored". Currently, Russia's traditional clients (outside the usual influence zone) are China and India where the Su-27-based aircraft are being built under license (140 Su30MKs in India and, just for this year, 38 Su30-MKKs in China). Klementiev also announced that depending on the progress made with Brazil's invitation to tender, Sukhoi would repeat its 16,360 kilometre non-stop flight operation to Fidae from Moscow. This revelation led to the obvious question of armament. "This is some problem" he said, "for example, Brazil has its own weapons; technically it could be solved, but the problem may appear at the software level which [in turn] leads to security and intellectual property [problems]". In a most staggering statement he added that there could be "Nato interoperable Su-30s in five to ten years' time. Adapting Western avionics is possible, and we'll issue some proposals".

Air Defence

Amongst the overwhelming number of missile manufacturers at Maks, the oldest Russian air defence manufacturer, Antey, is preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2002. The latest system is the Antey 2500, which is in service in Russia and offered for export (Iraq, Iran, India, China and South Korea have shown interest). This system can intercept 2500-km range ballistic targets at 40 km. However, as reminded by a company official, upgrades of earlier weapon systems represent a sizeable business, since over 1000 Osa systems have been exported to 26 nations. However, for the single most exported system, one has to turn to the famous Tor, which has been in production since 1985 (the current version is the Tor M1), which was recently delivered to Greece and also to China via Rosboronexport.

Phoenix Tracks 50

Defence Systems, for its part, exhibited its Phoenix air-defence turret system for the first time on a vehicle. The Phoenix turret is designed to operate in conjunction with a variety of weapons and uses an eight to twelve-micron band infrared sensor to detect and track aircraft as well as cruise and anti-radar missiles. According to a company official, cruise missile detection range is between six and seven kilometres. Coverage in elevation is -10 [degrees] to +40 [degrees], resolution is 0.5 mrad while the number of targets that can be simultaneously tracked exceeds fifty. Without weapons, the turret weights 250 kg. (Armada/EHB)

BrahMos

A new vertical-launch missile called BrahMas has emerged from a co-operative development between NPO Mashinostroyenia and India's Defence Research and Development Organisation. Taking umbrage of the author's remark on the resemblance of the missile with the Yakhont, BrahMas' CEO Sivathanu Pillai argued that it was a new design, with a body diameter of 670 mm and a 200 kg warhead. Nevertheless, main propulsion is indeed liquid fuel ramjet. The BrahMas is certain to make a few eyebrows circumflex amongst Missile Technology Control Regime watchdogs. The air-launched Yakhont already has a range of 300 km, which is within the maximum limits imposed by the MTCR treaty signed by Russia but not by India. So why a new design? Just to render the missile launchable from the ground, surface ships and submarines? Whilst assuring that the maximum range of the BrahMas would remain 300 km, Pillai confirmed that the development of the missile (which uses jet deflectors after launch) should be completed in about two years' time and that there would be two separated production lines - one in Russia and the other in India. (BrahMos)

Sukhoi's Aircraft Support

Judging by the quality of its new brochure, Sukhoi has indeed started to learn the "Western way of doing things". Obviously aimed at shaking a hefty coat of dust off its tail regarding the disastrous past spares availability situation, Sukhoi has introduced bar codes and optical disk-based maintenance services for the user. Pricelists even include tariffs for "Urgent Category". The booklet also depicts the implementation of maintenance planning complete with flow charts and diagrams. Klemetiev puts the blame for the past ill reputation on the legislation that was "too tough on those issues, with too much bureaucracy which made it difficult to supply parts on a short term basis. We can now meet any requirement by using computerised systems and we are even investigating the possibility of ordering parts by e-mail. We are even spending money on training people." (Sukhoi)

S-300PMU2 + Favorit 48N6E2

It must be said that missile systems had an overwhelming presence over aircraft at Zhukovsky, and this view shows that air defence missile systems dominated that presence.

Proudly displayed on the edge of the air defence missile systems compound was this new Defence Systems S-300PMU2 designed to fire the massive Favorit 48N6E2 missile (seen in the inset behind a 120 kilometre range 9M96E2 and a 40 kilometre range 9M96E). The 1.8-tonne missile can engage targets at ranges of between 5 and 200 kilometres and altitudes of up to 88,580 ft. (Armada/EHB)