New Delhi: After agreeing on work share part of the fifth generation aircraft project, India and Russia have fast paced the programme with resolve to freeze design and development of the aircraft by the end of this year.
Sources in Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation told UNI that the process of finalising agreement on the research and development part of the project was progressing well and the signing of the same was likely in next six months.
“India and Russia have generally agreed upon the amount and division of work during the research and development stage of the fifth generation fighter aircraft (FGFA) project,” the sources said, adding that a contract for the R&D phase was being prepared.
The export version of the fifth generation fighter, the perspective multi-functional fighter (PMF-FGFA) was being created in partnership with India.
“The Russian and Indian parties have generally agreed on the work share of each party,” they said.
India hopes to begin inducting 250 to 300 FGFA from 2020 onwards under the joint project with Russia, which rough calculations show will cost India around 35 billion dollars in the decades ahead.
Apart from progressively inducting 272 Sukhoi-30MKIs contracted from Russia for around 12 billion dollars, IAF is slated to induct the first lot of 120 indigenous Tejas from this year end onwards.
The two countries had signed the preliminary design contract (PDC) for joint development of the FGFA on December 22, 2010 and protracted talks have been going on, first on the work share of the project and then onwards regarding R&D share.
The FGFA will be based on the Russian single-seater FGFA called Sukhoi T-50, a prototype of which is already flying, but will be modified to the IAF requirements. The IAF wants a twin-seater FGFA powered by a new engine with a higher thrust.
India and Russia will market the FGFA to ‘friendly third’ countries after fulfilling their own requirements.
Russia is keen to partner with Indian industry on the Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ100) programme, a 100-seat new generation regional jet, the sources said. (UNI)
