Russia's new advanced aircraft

As the Bush administration and the Department of Defense struggle over questions about the development of new U.S. warplanes such as the Joint Strike Fighter and the new F-22 "Raptor" air superiority fighter, Russian designers are hard at work developing Moscow's next generation of fighters that could rival U.S. contemporaries.

According to Russia's Military News Agency, Moscow intends to restart test flights of its new S-37 "Berkut" prototype fighter, a fifth-generation warplane with strikingly different design features and, reportedly, new stealth technologies.

Last September, a Russian aeronautics-engineering source sent WorldNetDaily photographs of the S-37 -- which is being designed by the famed Sukhoi bureau -- in flight. The twin-engine plane features a forward-swept wing design, a large configuration and supersonic speed.

The plane, which has made about 100 test flights so far, is being kept largely under wraps by the Russian government, though it could eventually be featured at the annual international air show in Farnborough, England, in July. Officials have said, however, that the plane may only be displayed rather than flown during the show.

Tests will be conducted at the Zhukovsky Flight Test Center near Moscow.

Sukhoi has not been able to obtain Russian Defense Ministry permission even to display the S-37 publicly at Russian venues other than Zhukovsky, although the aircraft made two brief overflights of Moscow after it first flew in 1997, reports said.

Russian aviation experts said the S-37 is the most advanced new Russian warplane design since the Sukhoi-built Su-27 model first became operational nearly 20 years ago. Since then, the Su-27 has been upgraded several times and is now being offered for export to India and China. The Chinese have also signed a deal with Moscow to produce 200 of the aircraft inside China; Indian officials are negotiating for a similar contract.

"The S-37 remains highly classified, and the Ministry of Defense is not in a hurry to make information available about this aircraft," General Director Mikhail A. Pogosyan told Aviation Week & Space Technology last summer.

The plane has been shunned by some senior Russian military officials, but Pogosyan's "special relationship" with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who himself likes to fly in supersonic Russian fighter planes, has taken an interest in the project and Sukhoi in general.

"A new Sukhoi heavy fighter design will not necessarily involve a forward-swept wing. But the composite materials development and fabrication techniques and flight control technologies embodied in the S-37 will benefit Russian fighter designs well into the next two decades," Aviation Week said.

Also in development is the MiG-1.42, which carries a more conventional aircraft design, but has incorporated "thrust-vectoring" exhaust nozzles to give the aircraft much more maneuverability.

The MiG has flown considerably less time than its S-37 counterpart, officials said, but both aircraft will embody technologies for any new next-generation Russian fighter and will be designed to counter the U.S. Air Force's new F-22, which is also still under development.

Russia is also examining the S-55, a prototype that has yet to be built, as a counter to the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter. The Mikoyan Design Bureau is also looking at a JSF-type aircraft.

Russian designers are confident in their abilities to design the next generation of Russian warplanes to meet or exceed operational requirements necessary to rival U.S. and other Western aircraft.

"The aerodynamics during supersonic flight have been proven. It has also satisfied one of our main goals to correlate ground test structural data with structural loads information obtained during flight," Pogosyan said of the S-37 -- the "Su-" designation hasn't been applied because the aircraft is still experimental and not yet operational.

"We are proud to say that all the advantages of this configuration [forward-swept wings] have been successfully proven during flight test," he added.

"Air flowing over the S-37's thin super-critical airfoil travels inward towards wing root instead of outward toward the tips as in conventional wings. As this inward flow occurs across the airfoil, it prevents the wing tips and ailerons from stalling at high angles of attacks," said Aviation Weekly.

"As the forward sweep maintains uniform over the ailerons, this -- coupled with computer control of the movable canards -- enables the pilot to maintain excellent control response at angles of attack of 45 degrees or more," the magazine said.

The S-37, however, is inherently unstable and can fly only because of its fly-by-wire control system, officials say.

Two similar U.S.-made models by Grumman flew 442 research flights between 1984 and 1992 and had three digital flight control computers, each with an analog backup, said Aviation Weekly.

In an e-mail to WND, the Russian engineer did not provide many details about the new plane, but indicated that Russian defense officials were moving ahead with the project at a regular pace.

Published reports say the S-37 is capable of reaching speeds up to 2,500 km per hour (about 1,600 mph) and has maximum range of 3,880 km (about 2,400 miles). It is armed with a single 30mm cannon and an undisclosed number of air-to-air missiles that are self-contained within the aircraft's fuselage.

As Russia progresses with its fighter programs, the Bush administration, led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has launched a study that is to be presented to President Bush by mid- to late March detailing the most pressing Defense Department needs for the current and next several fiscal budget years.

Constrained by the 2001 Pentagon budget, which tops out at nearly $310 billion, the administration is quietly examining programs such as the F-22, the JSF and the MV-22 "Osprey" tilt-rotor aircraft programs to see if they will meet the technological needs of the U.S. military over the next decade and beyond.

While the F-22 has passed a number of recent tests and is further along than its JSF cousin, the Joint Strike Fighter program's future is less clear, though Defense officials and the Air Force say both programs are needed to upgrade America's aging fleet of warplanes.

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