At stake is $ 10 billion: "Sukhoi" with its Su-75 again bypassed the "MiG"

The XV International Aviation and Space Salon MAKS-2021, which recently ended in Zhukovsky near Moscow, at the Ramenskoye airfield, was marked by a number of premieres, including a new reconnaissance and strike UAV of the Orion family from the Kronstadt group of companies; and the modernized Il-114-300; and a lightweight multifunctional LMS-901 "Baikal" from the Ural Civil Aviation Plant UZGA; and the long-suffering medium-haul narrow-body passenger MS-21-310, which finally received domestic PD-14 engines from the Perm Motors UEC, designed to replace the American PW1400G-JM from Pratt & Whitney, and made its first demonstration flight with moderately high aerobatics paired with the same MC-21-300 aircraft, but equipped with American engines.

However, all these remarkable novelties were overshadowed by the premiere of a fundamentally new lightweight tactical multipurpose single-engine fighter (LTS) of the 5th generation of the Sukhoi family, which, according to its creators, will have to compete in the international arms markets with a similar American 5th generation fighter F-35 Lightning II. The new LTS for the internal customer will be produced under the Su-75 index, and will be exported under the marketing name Checkmate (literal translation of “Shah and Mat”). It was originally conceived as an alternative to the heavy multifunctional fighter of the 5th generation Su-57 and was immediately focused on the foreign markets of the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region (primarily India and Vietnam) and Latin America. This is the first such case when the corporation began developing documentation without an order from the RF Aerospace Forces. It took her about a year to create a prototype of the aircraft. Such a short period was due to the use of supercomputer of technologies and ready-made blocks from the Su-57 already delivered to the wing. All work was carried out under the heading "secret" and in the strictest confidence. And at MAKS-2021 this secret was revealed.

Demand determines supply. At stake - 300 aircraft

First of all, what attracts attention is the commercial approach to the creation of this product. Initially, a niche was identified for it and the minimum need for an aircraft of this class was calculated. Developers from the United Aircraft Corporation, which includes Sukhoi, and Rostec, which is behind it, expect that the backlog of orders for Checkmate will be at least 300 cars (more than $ 10 billion). And this is without taking into account the needs of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, counting only on the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East and Latin America. The determining factor here will be the price. The price of our product is planned in the region of $ 30-40 million, which, all other factors being equal, distinguishes it favorably from the competitor F-35, the price of which ranges from $ 94 to $ 116 million, depending on the configuration. An important factor here is also the cost of a flight hour - in our product it is 7 times lower than that of the F-35 (it is equal to 33-35 thousand dollars), and is comparable to the cost of a flight hour of Gripen NG (Saab JAS 39 Gripen is a 4th generation Swedish multi-role fighter from SAAB Avionics, has been in service with the Swedish Air Force since 1997, the cost of its flight hour ranges from 4,5-8 thousand dollars, depending on the version). At the same time, the combat capabilities of the LTS Checkmate are significantly higher than the latter.

I will talk about the combat capabilities of the product a little lower, but for now I will explain what the developers came from when choosing a niche for their product. Here we witnessed an unprecedented struggle for a potential buyer, in which two flagships of the domestic military aviation industry, PJSC Sukhoi and JSC RSK MiG, entered, although united under the roof of a single aviation cluster of the UAC of the state corporation Rostec, level of design thought. And the novelty from Sukhoi presented at the XNUMXth airshow showed that here Sukhoi was again ahead of the Migars.

Wars of military aircraft designers for foreign sales markets

It should be noted that the military aircraft sector is one of the few in our Fatherland who, in the difficult post-Soviet years, was able to stay afloat and not go to the bottom, while demonstrating outstanding competitive qualities. The list of industries that have disappeared as a kind of medium and heavy engineering of the Soviet era is so long that it is easier to list those that remain. Along with the military aviation industry, this is also Rosatom, gas and oil production, icebreaking and military shipbuilding (moreover, we are talking only about submarine, with the construction of surface ships we have a lot of problems) and Roskosmos (moreover, the latter is already with a downward trend). Everything! The rest disappeared, unable to withstand competition with the West, to which we opened our internal market, unable to compete with it on the external. At the same time, we managed to maintain competitive advantages in these industries only thanks to the colossal foundation accumulated by generations of Soviet engineers and scientists, which we inherited from the USSR. In other industries, advanced competencies were lost, especially in terms of technology, and we were unable to resist Western manufacturers in conditions of fair competition (and I'm not even talking about unfair competition here). The restoration of the lost positions is proceeding extremely slowly and with difficulty. It's just that blood is given to us, take a look at the domestic engine building and shipbuilding (especially surface ships of large displacement).

Fortunately, this did not affect the Russian military aviation industry, and since the 1990s it has been dynamically developing, maintaining high rates of mass production, in some cases even offering unique offers on the market. It should be noted that the military aircraft market itself in the 29st century is one of the most competitive and is currently undergoing a stage of global transformation. Countries producing military aircraft can be counted on the fingers of one or two hands. And this list is only getting shorter. We managed to retain our leading positions in this highly competitive market only thanks to the presence of two leading competing design groups - PJSC Sukhoi Company and JSC RSK MiG. And their successes of the post-Soviet era are based mainly on breakthrough Soviet developments ahead of their time - the light MiG-27 interceptor fighter and the heavy Su-XNUMX.

Unlike the MiGars, who could not profitably dispose of the Soviet legacy they inherited, and who are now experiencing cyclopean difficulties with the sale of their newest 4 ++ generation MiG-35 fighter, which was the result of a deep evolution of the MiG-29K / KUB and MiG-29M / M2, PAO "Sukhoi" to the maximum realized all the advantages inherited by him Su-27. Its super successful platform, which made it possible to create a wide range of heavy multifunctional fighters of the 4th generation (and even a multifunctional supersonic fighter-bomber Su-34), not only brought significant profits to the domestic defense industry, but also created a kind of "Sukhoi cult", thanks to which for " Dryers "lined up even those countries that objectively did not have a request for such a heavy machine.

A recent example is the Su-30SM. Sometimes the purchase of modern Russian heavy fighters increased the potential of the air forces of the buying countries so much that in a number of regions it even led to geopolitical changes. In particular, according to analysts, it was thanks to the presence of effective Russian-made air defense systems and 19 Su-30MKVs in service that Venezuela, after the death of its President Hugo Chavez, was able to avoid the invasion of foreign "democratizers" from neighboring countries, incited by one neighboring country (name which we all know).

However, trouble crept up from where they did not expect. You cannot milk the same cow all the time. The market potential has exhausted itself. The result of the work of "Sukhoi" and a number of its foreign competitors was the fact that the niche of heavy multifunctional machines at the moment was almost everywhere filled. Moreover, due to the global technological update - the transition of the leading powers to the 5th generation fighters, the number of offers of modernized 4+ and 4 ++ generation aircraft will increase on the market, to which export versions of the 5th generation aircraft will naturally be added. Thus, the market for heavy machines in the next 20 years will be oversaturated and extremely competitive. It will be possible to win back a place in the sun on it only by maintaining the leadership in the "race of modernizations" of the 4th generation cars and the prompt presentation of export versions of the 5th generation cars. This is exactly the way Sukhoi went.

Reasons leading to market glut

It just so happened that the global players (the USA and the Russian Federation), preparing for confrontation with each other, followed the path of creating heavy fighters, acting exclusively in the logic of a global war and a potential clash of major powers in extended theaters of military operations. In the modern world, local conflicts of low and medium intensity most often occur, where heavy fighters have nowhere to even roam. There, their performance characteristics are excessive, and the cost is excessive. Simply put, in such cases, a machine is required, firstly, of a lighter class, and secondly, a multifunctional one, capable of performing both strike missions and air defense missions.

Progressing third world countries - India, Pakistan, the countries of the Middle East and Southeast Asia, which are economically leaders in global development, have a strategic need to create national multifunctional aircraft. The conflicts in which Russia is involved also demonstrate the need for a compact, maneuverable, multi-functional medium-class vehicle with shock and air defense functions (especially in opposition to UAVs), allowing it to be used in conjunction with its own drones and air defense systems.

Thus, one of the most promising areas in the domestic and export markets is now the niche of a medium (according to the Russian classification - light) multifunctional fighter. And here, it would seem, all the cards are in the hands of RSK MiG, since it was he, and not PJSC Sukhoi, who possessed the key competencies and experience in creating light aircraft. But it was not MiG that took advantage of these trump cards, but Sukhoi, which in the shortest possible time developed and offered to potential customers its version of the Su-5 75th generation light tactical multipurpose single-engine fighter (LTS), in export performance under the LTS Checkmate index. Moreover, initially the emphasis was on export, and not on the internal customer (this was the first time when the developers began to develop technical documentation without having an order from the RF Ministry of Defense).

And whether the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation will take a commercial Checkmate for the needs of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation, we will consider in the next text. To be continued.