Russia sells China 100 Su-35 fighter jets

(China Daily Mail)- According to a report by Voice of Russia, China and Russia have concluded an export agreement for 100 Su-35 fighter jets during the Paris Air Show.

At the 50th Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport, Russia had it’s most intensive participation over the past few years. All the 46 well-known Russian weapon manufacturers and companies, including Sokhoi, Mikoyan and Ilyushin, had presence there. In the exhibition hall, open-air site and flying shows, the audience has witnessed the Russian aviation industry’s newest achievements.

At that exhibition, there was the first flying show of the Su-35 abroad. The Su-35 is the most intrepid fourth-generation fighter jet in the world today. It is equipped with a 30mm machine gun, a radar with a search range of 400 km, and a flight range of 3,500 km without refuelling.

It’s powerful engine enables it to perform various super difficult movements such as horizontal rolling, plane screw spin, Pugachev Cobra and other stunt manoeuvres. It has its unique super “pancake” manoeuvre – a horizontal 360 degree turnaround without reduction of speed. Western media exclaimed in admiration, “It’s not an airplane, it’s a UFO.”

Mikhail Pogosyan, general manager of United Aircraft Corporation, was tremendously satisfied with the Su-35’s performance this time. He said: “The Su-35 is better than all other types of fourth-generation aircraft. Its performance not only embodies excellent pneumatic technology, but also the ability of the unique equipment it carries and its attack capability.

“It is not yet our newest achievement because we are at the same time developing a fifth-generation fighter jet. The two types of aircraft may supplement each other in the future to enhance the combat efficiency of the air forces of Russia and the countries that use Russian-made weapons.”

Source: huanqiu.com “Russia: China and Russia Have Concluded Export Agreement for 100 Su-35s” (translated from Chinese by Chan Kai Yee)

China Daily Mail

Russian Arms Exports Up 15% Since January

President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russian weapons exports had grown 15 percent since the start of the year, in comparison with the same period last year.

“The first results of the year once again confirm that Russia’s ties abroad in regard to military-technical collaboration are continuing to strengthen,” the president told a gathering of defense industry officials.

Last year, Russian weapons exports were up 12 percent year-on-year, at $15.7 billion. In April, Putin said Russia controlled more than a quarter of the world’s arms market.

On Monday he emphasized the need for Russia to consolidate its positions on the global aircraft market, especially in after-sales servicing.

Russia has a “solid portfolio of orders” for helicopters, he said, adding that about 9,000 Russian-made helicopters were currently in operation in more than 100 countries.

Putin reiterated state support for arms manufacturers, recalling that in the past three years they received more than 27 billion rubles ($820 million) from the federal budget in subsidies alone.

India is the leading buyer of Russian arms, with Vietnam, Myanmar, Venezuela and Middle Eastern nations also among Russia's top weaponry purchasers.

RIA Novosti

Turkey May Adopt Chinese Air Defense System

ANKARA — Turkey is strongly leaning toward adopting a Chinese long-range anti-missile and air defense system, Turkish procurement officials said, even though it may be impossible to integrate the system with its existing NATO architecture.

One senior procurement official familiar with the program said the Turkish government has concluded that the Chinese proposal was technologically satisfactory, allowed technology transfer and was much cheaper than rival proposals.

The decision to select the Chinese contender awaits final approval from Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The decision would be finalized and officially announced at the next meeting of the Defense Industry Executive Committee, chaired by Erdogan, which oversees major procurement decisions. No date has been set for the meeting.

In January, Turkey restructured the $4 billion program, dubbed T-Loramids, which had originally been constructed as an off-the-shelf purchase. The contenders’ bids would remain valid, but the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) procurement office would ask bidders to submit parallel, co-production solutions. Erdogan ordered the launch of feasibility studies on “potential co-production” of the system.

T-Loramids consists of radar, launcher and intercept missiles.

The same month, SSM wrote to the bidders and asked them to send letters of intent for any co-production deal. The bidders are a U.S. partnership of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, offering the Patriot air defense system; Russia’s Rosoboronexport, marketing the S-300; the China Precision Machinery Export-Import Corp., offering its HQ-9 (*); and the Italian-French consortium Eurosam, maker of the SAMP/T Aster 30.

T-Loramids, has been designed to counter both enemy aircraft and missiles. Turkey has no long-range air defense systems.

But diplomats and analysts warn that Turkey may not be allowed to integrate the Chinese-Turkish system into Turkey’s mostly NATO-owned early warning assets.

“I cannot comment on how the [US] administration would react to that. But I can tell you that integrating a Chinese or Chinese-Turkish air defense system into NATO assets may not be a good idea,” a US diplomat here said.

A Western industry source said that US officials have warned the Turkish bureaucrats several times about the potential difficulties in achieving interoperability if Turkey decided to go for a Chinese or a Russian architecture.

“I see that the Turks remain defiant. But I do not think it would be practically possible to integrate either the air defense or the anti-missile components of the planned Turkish-Chinese architecture into NATO radars,” a London-based Turkey specialist said. “The Turks would have the same problem if they chose the Russian system, but I think for the Americans, China represents a more direct threat.”

About half of Turkey’s network-based air defense picture (radars) has been paid for by NATO, said a Turkish defense official familiar with NATO work. They are part of the NATO Air Defense Ground Environment. He did not comment on potential problems if Turkey wanted to make the planned system interoperable with these assets.

To defend against missile threats, Turkey needs satellite and dedicated ballistic missile detection and tracking radar like the NATO radar deployed last year in Kurecik.

For the anti-aircraft component, Turkey needs an overall picture for data fusion. The Patriot system, for instance, can detect threats with its own radar. So does the Chinese system. But without integrating into a full air picture, the Chinese system could not work efficiently, officials said.

“Turkey can always decide to build a stand-alone system. But in that case, abstracting the air defense system from NATO assets would mean that Turkey will lose half of its radar capabilities,” said one defense analyst here.

He said Turkey would need interface data to make its own air defense architecture interoperable with NATO assets, primarily data on the identify friend or foe system.

“This is top secret and cannot be installed into any Chinese system,” the analyst said.

Another major question, he said, is “how would Turkey have in its possession a made-in-China IFF system, and how would that system be integrated into its fleet of F-16 aircraft?

“There is an important degree of incompatibility here and all in all any Chinese-Turkish co-production program would look problematic,” he said.

Defense News

(*): Chinese HQ-9 is a modern mobile strategic SAM system roughly analogous to the Russian-made S-300PMU (SA-10B GRUMBLE). The HQ-9 has a range of 100 kilometers, an increase over the S-300PMU’s 90 kilometer maximum range but less than that of the S-300PMU-1′s 150 kilometers.