JON LAKE
The second Sukhoi Su-30MKK prototype, the variant developed for export to China, is being displayed at Le Bourget this year - a further twist in the convoluted tale of this Soviet era aircraft.
A $1.5 billion contract for the delivery of 40 (or 45, according to some sources) Su-30MKKs to China was signed by GK Rosvooruzhenie at the end of last year, and the first 10 were delivered to U Khy airbase near Nanking on 20 December 2000. All will be delivered by the end of 2002.
The Sukhoi Su-30 was originally conceived (under the designation Su-27PU) as a dedicated two-seat long-range/long-endurance interceptor for the Soviet air defence force, the IA-PVO. The aircraft was based on the standard Su-27UB trainer, and was jointly developed by the Sukhoi OKB and the Irkutsk Aircraft Production Organisation (IAPO), the manufacturers of two-seat Su-27 variants. An export version was offered as the Su-30K, while the Su-30MK was a multi-role export fighter-bomber. The first export customer for the Su-30MK was India, which was to have received batches of aircraft to successively higher standards, culminating in the full-standard Su-30MKI with Western avionics, canard foreplanes and thrust-vectoring engines. The programme ran into considerable difficulties, and only a handful have been delivered, these being little more than Su-27UB trainers with inflight refuelling capability. In May 2001, IAPO finally completed testing of the full-standard Su-30MKI, complete with its unique mix of Russian, French, Indian and Israeli avionics systems. Five aircraft are now expected to be delivered to India by the end of the year, and licence production will begin in 2007.Meanwhile, to the reported chagrin of senior IAPO personnel, the rival Komsomolsk na Amur Aircraft Production Organisation (KnAAPO), manufacturer of single-seat Su-27 variants, has developed its own version of the two-seat Su-30, with all-Russian avionics, for export to China as the Su-30MKK.
Success
KnAAPO got its foot in the door as a result of its earlier success in selling ‘standard' Su-27SK single-seat fighters to China, supplying 38 aircraft (together with 12 IAPO-built two-seaters) in 1992 and 1996. This was followed in late 1996 by the granting of a licence for China to build 200 Su-27SKs, and 28 more Su-27UBKs were ordered from IAPO for training, the first of these being delivered during 2000. Locally-built Su-27SKs were delivered from 1998, though initial deliveries were very slow. The Chinese Su-30MKKs have a new avionics suite, designed and integrated by the AO Ramenskoye Instrument Building KB (RPKB), based around a new onboard computer, but retaining the existing Su-27's N-001 radar. The aircraft is optimised as an interceptor, but does have a genuine air-to-ground capability. When all existing contracts have been fulfilled, there will be more Sukhoi Su-27s and Su-30s in China than in Russia, where about 300 Su-27s are in service with the Russian air forces.
Source: Flight Daily News
