China. In search of a deck fighter

November 8, 2010 2

China is in talks with the company "Sukhoi" on the purchase of Soviet-made Su-33 deck fighters. The media wrote that the negotiations on the purchase of the Su-33 were stumped, but people related to this issue say that China continues to show interest in acquiring these aircraft. According to some reports, Russia offered China to purchase MiG-29K carrier-based fighters, which are currently supplied by the Indian Navy.

It is clear that China wants to create its own version of the Su-33 fighter, but for various reasons cannot solve this problem on its own. Therefore, the Chinese representatives are returning to Russia again and again to try to purchase the necessary technologies and to achieve step by step progress in creating their own carrier-based combat aircraft.

An authoritative source Jane's reports that Sukhoi may provide China with 12 Su-33 combat aircraft to create a training squadron to train deck pilots aviationand then sell 36 new fighters of this type. Newly assembled aircraft should have on-board equipment similar to that installed on the Su-35. Earlier, KB them. Sukhoi and KNAAPO proposed to equip these aircraft with equipment from the Su-30MK2. But now that Sukhoi and MiG are combined into a single holding, Russia is offering China the purchase of new MiG-29Ks. According to Jane's, one Russian official said that it makes no sense to resume the construction of new Su-33s when the fifth-generation T-50 fighter is being developed.

Earlier it was reported that China bought in Ukraine a prototype of the deck T-10K aircraft. But this aircraft was one of the first experimental models of the Su-33 and has many design flaws that were eliminated later.

In China, there are two groups - a group of industrialists who want to create a carrier-based aircraft based on J-11B (copies of Su-27), and a group of military people who want to buy Russian planes. This conflict should be settled by the PLA command.