Russia to build 5th-generation fighter jet prototype

Moscow, Aug 8 (UNI) Air Force commander Col General Alexander Zelin today said Russia will soon start building a prototype of fifth-generation fighter jet.

''At present, we have completed the development of technical documentation for the fifth-generation fighter and passed it to the production plant, which will start the construction in the near future,'' Col General Zelin told RIA Novosti news agency.

He said the new fighter would be built at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur aircraft-manufacturing plant in Russia's Far East, adding that the manufacturer of the engines would be chosen in a tender.

The Russian Defence Ministry has already announced plans to develop a new-generation fighter under the federal defence procurement programme up to 2015, and contracted the Sukhoi Design Bureau to design the new aircraft.

He also said Russia would deploy advanced Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) with flight range up to 400-km and flight duration up to 12 hours by 2011.

He said the UAVs of both fixed and rotary wing types, would perform a variety of tasks, including reconnaissance, attack, retransmission of radio signals and target designation.

The Air Force commander said the country was also developing a fifth-generation air defence missile system, superior to S-400 Triumph complex, and capable of hitting targets in space.

Russia deployed the first S-400 air defence regiment to protect its airspace last Monday and was planning to equip over two dozen regiments with the system by 2015.

''While working on the S-400, we have been developing a fifth-generation air defence system, which will be more compact, more manoeuvreable, and will certainly have superior technical characteristics,'' he said.

UNI