Russia drops ‘decade-old’ stealth fighter project with India

By cancelling the mass production of the Su-57 fighter jet, Russia has effectively pulled the plug on its fifth-generation stealth fighter aircraft.

This lays to rest the rumours that India is “not too happy with the Su-57”, and was keen to pull out of its 10-year collaborative programme with Russia to build the aircraft.

With neither the Indian nor Russian government publicly announcing the termination of the joint project for several years, confusion reigned in the defence corridors.

However, with the Russian Deputy Defence Minister Yuri Borisov recently saying on Russian television that it did not make sense to speed up work on mass producing the fifth-generation aircraft, the fate of the controversial Indo-Russian defence programme appears to have been sealed.

The multi-billion dollar project regarding the fifth-generation fighter aircraft programme, or FGFA, was to be a shared effort between the two nations to produce an improved variant of the Su-57 stealth fighter. The partnership between Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Russia’s Sukhoi dealt with a production order of more than 100 FGFAs, with much of the actual manufacturing occurring in India.

“Engine troubles and the FGFA's questionable stealth had stalled the programme for several years. Just the cost of of developing four prototype fighter jets is pegged at a prohibitive $6 billion," said a source.

A Defence Ministry official in the know pointed out that the FGFA project is “more than a decade old. The original plan was to create a variant of Russia's stealth fighter. Added to this, there would be a number of Indian alterations like weapons integration, avionics, communications systems and stealth features. However, the aircraft design did not meet the desired stealth features and neither side could agree on how to split the production, cost and technological development."

The Indian Air Force (IAF) reportedly withdrew from the project, citing “the FGFA's limited capabilities and several features that were inferior to the US-made F-35 and F-22 jets," said the official, adding that although the IAF was keen that the project be abandoned, and had made it clear on many occasions over the last two years.

A committee appointed by the Defence Ministry to examine the FGFA programme, had instead recommended, last year in a report, that India should continue in its FGFA efforts.

HAL has been keen to bring niche technology of the FGFA to India. However, with the recent announcement on Russian television, and the Russian military yet to sign a contract to purchase the initial pre-production batch of 12 aircraft, and the IAF terming the deal very expensive, plans for the FGFA appear to have been shuttered.

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