Russia and India could jointly develop a fifth-generation fighter jet by 2015-2016, a Russian defense industry official said on Tuesday.
"I hope that we will be able to build a joint fifth-generation aircraft in the next five to six years," said Alexander Fomin, first deputy head of the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation.
The new aircraft will primarily be based on Russia's T-50 prototype fifth-generation fighter, with the addition of Indian design and development in the project.
Several integrated on-board systems by third parties could also be incorporated into the new fighter for the Indian Air Force, said Fomin as cited by the RIA Novosti news agency.
"The integration is good because we will not have to invent a bicycle and can use the things that our neighbors already have, but it is also a difficult task because we will have to combine all the elements in a unified system," the official said.
Alexander Davidenko, main constructor of the T-50 aircraft, said the same day the Russian-Indian fifth-generation fighter might be equipped with the supersonic BrahMos missile.
"India has voiced such a wish. We will consider the possibility of its realization when we start working on the project," the Interfax news agency quoted Davidenko as saying.
Sukhoi Design Bureau Director General Mikhail Pogosyan meanwhile called India the sole strategic partner in the development of the fighter, when citing an intergovernmental agreement on the joint project between Moscow and New Delhi signed in October 2007.
Russia's fifth-generation fighter, known as the PAK FA (Prospective Aviation System of Frontline Aviation), or T-50, successfully finished its maiden flight in the Far East late January.
It is Russia's only known fifth-generation warplane project and is designed to rival the U.S.-made F-22 Raptor, so far the world's only fifth-generation fighter in active service.
The T-50 is expected to join the Russian Air Force in 2015. |
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