Era Su-34

A unique military fighter has been put into service

Today is exactly 13 years since the first flight of the Su-34 fighter. Work on its creation began with a decree of the USSR government in June 1986. In 1995, the car was demonstrated at the Le Bourget air show as the Su-32FN. Ten years later, the Russian Ministry of Defense signed a document “On determining the conditions for the production of Su-34 aircraft at JSC NAPO for the Russian Air Force.” And last Friday at the Eltsovka airfield of the Novosibirsk Aviation Production Association (NAPO) named after. V.P. Chkalov military pilots received the first two production Su-34s with tail numbers 01 and 02. The crew of “zero first” is as follows: commander - Hero of Russia Colonel Igor Malikov, test navigator - Colonel Alexander Oshchepkov, Candidate of Technical Sciences. For the first time in the modern history of the country, a new multifunctional combat complex has been put into service.

From that moment on, the plant left behind the long and difficult years of perestroika, when wages were not paid for a year and a half, and houses were cut off from electricity, when the food plant baked bread for workers to offset future wages. Many enterprises during that period sold their space and simply disappeared. NAPO did not allow a single tenant or a single foreign structure into its industrial site, and they managed to retain the main specialists. The average monthly salary this year alone increased from 6,700 rubles. up to 10700.

Over 13 years, the aircraft underwent two modernizations - in 1999 and 2004. The tandem seating of pilots, traditional for the Su, was replaced by an alternative option - with the pilots seated in a “side by side” pattern. It was this arrangement that made it possible to create unprecedented comfort for the crew for a fighter. During a ten-hour flight (including refueling), pilots can take turns standing up, warming up, and heating up in-flight rations in a microwave oven. If necessary, you can take a nap in a horizontal position between the chairs. This is probably the first fighter to have a toilet on board - not all aircraft, even long-range aviation, are so equipped. The author of these lines several years ago flew for two weeks as part of the crew of the Russian AWACS - A-50 and can testify: with a crew of fifteen people, the plane did not have a toilet. The general bucket was carried out at the airfield by the one who could not stand it first during the flight.

The Su-34 pilots' seats have a massage back, like those on the strategic Tu-160, which were appreciated by the Supreme Commander after the famous flight. Up to an altitude of 11 thousand meters, pilots do not have to take oxygen masks. The aircraft is easy to control, including due to the front horizontal tail - the so-called “wings”. The cabin is a titanium armored capsule. Fuel tanks are protected and filled with polyurethane foam, which significantly increases their explosion safety.

But more important, of course, is the combat characteristics of the vehicle. With satellite-corrected ammunition (their tests were completed only this summer), the aircraft is capable of “working” even against submarines and buried bunkers. The radar-absorbing coating of the fuselage and the special configuration of the airframe make the aircraft virtually invisible to ground-based radars. At 12 hardpoints, the Su-34 can carry four types of air-to-air and air-to-surface guided missiles, adjustable aerial bombs, incendiary tanks, disposable bomb clusters, and unguided projectiles. Maximum combat load is 8 tons.

General Director of the Sukhoi Corporation Mikhail Pogosyan, who flew to Novosibirsk, said that the aircraft has ample modernization capabilities. New electronic and radar complexes and an electronic warfare system have already been laid down. As a strike complex, the Su-34 has a future for the next twenty years. According to Army General Vladimir Mikhailov, the Air Force needs about 200 of these vehicles. After the first formation of the Russian Air Force is equipped, the Su-34 will be exported. The Air Force Commander-in-Chief is confident: in terms of its aerobatic properties, this aircraft cannot be called a bomber - it is piloted like a fighter. There is no need to produce the Su-34 separately as a reconnaissance aircraft - it is enough to attach a container with equipment to it. This is a machine of the future, with great potential, it will be in demand in the next 30-40 years, the general believes. There are no analogues of the Su-34 in the world. In total, 300-400 of these machines will be produced, according to Mikhail Pogosyan.

Back in the summer of 1999, the Su-34 set seven records, without any special modifications. For example, a height of 16,100 meters was reached with a load of one ton in the form of air-to-air missiles - with a practical ceiling of 15 km specified in the tactical and technical data. The chief designer of the Su-34, Rolan Martirosov, is delighted with the onboard radar, which has unique characteristics: “Not every country can boast of such a locator.” Mr. Martirosov does not yet see the need for an engine with variable thrust vectoring, since 70% of the tasks of this aircraft are impact. Although the now fashionable “engine” can easily be installed on the Su-34. Former general director of NAPO, now deputy head of the Military-Industrial Commission, Alexander Bobryshev, enthusiastically praises the aircraft: “As soon as the pilots feel the Su-34, they will cool down towards the other machines. The era of the Su-34 is coming.”

On this day, the factory workers also handed over four repaired and modernized Su-24M2s to the military under a long-term contract. “We have not missed a single line of the state defense order,” said the general director of NAPO im. Chkalova Fedor Zhdanov. The state pays the enterprise the same. This year's state defense order is 47% of the total volume of production, that is, more than 2 billion rubles; next year there is no doubt it will be 67%. This is a lot in these times. NAPO moved from one-time work commissioned by the Ministry of Defense to a long-term program for the development of the Air Force. NAPO production volumes have doubled this year and will double again next year. The number of jobs will soon increase by more than a thousand people.

In the neighboring workshops there is production of the Superjet-100, which will replace the Tu-134. For this purpose, a workshop has been created for super-high-speed processing of parts at the European level. Three five-axis machines are already installed in it, each of which replaces 10-15 old ones; instead of 20-30 hours on the old equipment, a part is manufactured in 2-3 hours. Each machine cost approximately a million euros. The workshop operates in three shifts. The finished blocks are sent to the plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur for assembly.

And the first Su-34s will go to the 4th Lipetsk Center for Combat Use and Flight Training. There, in about a year, methodological manuals for linear unit pilots will be written. By 2010, in accordance with a three-year government contract, NAPO will manufacture and transfer to the Air Force a regiment of such aircraft. Subsequently, they will completely replace the Su-24. It is symbolic that in the West the Su-34 received the name Fullback - “defender”. Air Force Commander-in-Chief General Mikhailov is going to set another record on the “defender”, and this year. And in the depths of the Sukhoi Design Bureau, the contours of the next unique front-line aviation - the Su-35 - are already visible.

Nikolay POROSKOV, Novosibirsk