Maximum level of defense is not visible
The organizers of the International Aviation and Space Salon 16, which starts in Moscow, are waiting for new products in the exhibition, primarily Russian participants. But those have a difficulty: it is possible to show off something new only in the case when the aircraft industry and the defense industry closely connected with it are on the rise, they are developing dynamically, and regularly develop promising developments. Is this the situation today? This issue was discussed by the deputy editor-in-chief of NVO, Oleg VLADYKIN, and the head of the Armed Forces of the Russian Armed Forces in 1994 – 2000, deputy head of the RSPP commission on the military-industrial complex, retired Colonel General Anatoly SITNOV. - I sincerely want to wish MAKS-2011 to become a symbol of a new stage in the development of Russian aviation- Anatoly Sitnov began the conversation, - so that the credibility of our designers and engineering schools increases, so that worldwide interest in the technology created and produced in Russia grows.
But, alas, our aviation reality does not have to optimistic moods. This was felt keenly, for example, in the Paris suburb of Le Bourget, where at the end of June the 49 took place on the air show. There, the Russians failed to show anything worthwhile. Of the physical units, Russia was represented by Superjet and Be-200, which actually took off into the air, while the rest were presented as tablets and mock-ups.
True, the West, which is usually trying to show its power to the world, this time showed in Le Bourget the systems and complexes of past years. In the open show ... Meanwhile, there were closed ones. I tried to break into the closed show to the Americans. I go to the pavilion - the guards shout to me: “Mister, mister ...” They look sternly at my badge: “But, but, rushen”. And the French are slyly smiling: "Russia ... Mafia?" And they also launched. Also, the British and Germans didn't let me into their private shows. The main NATO Eight exclusively in a narrow circle conducted an exchange of experience on its actions in Libya. It was there that they, apparently, demonstrated to each other how their newest air-carrier complexes work. And on a general review junk exhibited. Even the elements of new technologies used in the manufacture of aviation technology, methods of processing metals, samples of composite materials that were previously tried to shove, this time is not widely shown.
- Does this mean that the competition in the aerospace sphere has sharply worsened, that the Western partners have become much stricter to keep their secrets from us?
- Yes you! It's exactly the opposite. We just do not take seriously. They clearly show where they are, and where the developing countries lash, to which Russia is now uniquely attributed.
Even the Chinese are already telling us in the eyes: “You stopped in Russia, and we went ahead.” They have every reason to do this, because over the past ten years, China has made a huge leap in the development of aviation. At Le Bourget they showed full scale their entire combat aircraft, and civilian too. Some samples, of course, are copies of existing Western and Russian developments, while the other, and a significant part of them, is Chinese know-how. The People's Republic of China presented practically all the range of aviation systems and complexes that are currently conceivable. Now this country is somewhere at the level of development of the aviation industry, comparable to our industry 90-s. But I am sure that very soon they will surpass us. Modern materials and avionics quickly mastered, closely engaged in aerodynamics. Only the engines can not yet do. This is the most difficult thing on the plane, which the Chinese are still interested in our market. And the rest is no longer interesting to them. You know, the products of the Chinese aviation industry will soon fill the planet. It will be a mass production of cheap products that the “third world” will buy with pleasure. So Russia has no more than 3 years to supply somewhere Su-30, Su-27, MiG-35, and then we will be extruded even from its traditional markets.
- So, maybe MAKS is the unique platform where we can manage to oppose Western and now Chinese competitors?
- Let's be honest. What, in fact, new can we show?
Today we have to admit: the sunset began manned combat aircraft. The entire system of aviation combat destruction begins to localize around remotely piloted vehicles. From strategic to the battlefield. Among them, information, intelligence, jammers, more and more drone drone.
It is not by chance that Americans recently removed F-117 (Stealth) from combat and stopped production of F-22 (Raptor). By the criterion of efficiency / cost, these complexes do not perform the tasks that were once assigned to them. Let's say the F-22 is worth 250 million dollars apiece. It is unnecessarily expensive when it has to be applied in Africa or Afghanistan. There is no opposition to this machine, as a matter of fact, there is no one to fight, there is nothing to apply all its combat capabilities. So they stopped releasing it.
Further, in ten years, practically all combat tasks from the air will be carried out by remotely piloted aircraft. Mathematics, software have progressed so far that unmanned systems become completely self-sufficient, self-determined, self-oriented, self-aiming. They will be able to independently determine the complexity, the importance of goals, the priority in their defeat. And the man there (the remote UAV operator) does not risk his life. And, in addition, unmanned aerial vehicles can be subjected to overloads over 9 g, which will significantly improve their maneuverability, flight performance. Therefore, a plane with a pilot inside for which there is a limit on overloads cannot fight in the sky with such an apparatus. And minimization and optimization in technical solutions make UAVs much cheaper than manned systems. So soon a person in a flying war machine will have nothing to do. And all the leading manufacturers of aircraft technicians are working intensively in this direction.
And what are we? At one time, they began to make a plane like the F-22. Remember, such a MiG project was demonstrated in January 1999 of the year ... Then all sorts of dirt were thrown around the project, and it was decided to close it. Although this plane had already run, it began to fly, engines were made for it, so that it could fly on 5 hours. But still closed, and in 2001, the decision was made to build a new 5 generation fighter - the T-50 PAK FA. Now it is already flying, albeit not fully communicated yet. And this is currently the only model of military equipment that we can present as a novelty. However, this project also has a serious problem - the very huge cost of the car that made the Americans stop the production of F-22.
- That is, the claims of the military department to defense industry enterprises about sharply increased prices for military products are unfounded?
- Each next generation of aviation requires an order of magnitude more cost than creating the previous one. If earlier it was possible to develop MiG-29 for 100 million dollars, now there is little 50 billion for the development of T-1. And this is only a glider, avionics, all sorts of equipment. The development of a modern combat engine, say, with the 10 – 14 tons tonnage in Russia now costs 4,5 billion dollars. New materials, new physical processes, in fact new electronic control systems, new fuel. I note that the development of the engine for the F-22 cost 16 billion dollars. The cost of such a modern fighter is still measured in price per kilogram of its weight. Here it weighs 25 tons and 250 million worth. That is, 10 000 dollars worth in it 1 kg of weight. At one time, they announced that the cost of throwing one kilogram into space on the Buran was just 10 000 dollars. Now such a cast, even on a rocket, is 25 thousand. So the cost of an existing fighter, such as the Su-27, MiG-29, with weapons in the complex - from 3,5 to 4,5 thousands of dollars per kg. And the price of a modern fighter will rise.
By the way, at the expense of optimizing and minimizing design, the price of a 1 kg weight will cost the 1,5 – 2 thousands of dollars cheaper than a manned aircraft of the appropriate combat designation. But we do not want to move in accordance with the advanced trends in the development of military equipment. And the fact that our country can today offer to the international arms market ceases to buy. Radar does not buy, do not buy ammunition, ships do not buy, fighters stopped buying - we lost tenders in India and Brazil. Do not need our fighters now and China.
“It turns out that the Chinese are great, because they are striving to increase the production of relatively inexpensive 4 fighter jets.” But our aircraft industry is backward, having been releasing the same and more advanced machines for a long time, and also getting ready to start the production of 5 generation fighters. By the way, "NVO" has already reported that T-50 PAK FA claims to participate in the South Korean tender. Does the difference in prices for Russian-made and Chinese-made cars serve as the sole criterion of your assessments of the prospects of these developments?
- Evaluation criteria dictated by the market. If we continue to focus on the countries where they even take aviation second-hand with pleasure, then they don’t want to buy heavy fighters there. These machines are able to create and know how to use the four centers - America, Russia, China and India. Well, except that some other countries acquire a small number of heavy fighters for prestige. And all the rest will buy fighters of the MiG-29 class and less, such as our Yak-130. And here the Chinese have an advantage because of cheapness. Therefore, in the near future, in this segment of the arms market, we will definitely lose to them. And investing huge amounts of money in the development of T-50, ignoring the development trend of aviation in the long term, we are losing to Western developers. If the Raptor went away, then why are we doing T-50 a la Su-27, keeping almost all its aerodynamics? It would be necessary to invest in projects of remotely piloted aircraft.
You know, we have a widespread opinion that Russia in the development of the UAV has always been an outsider, and now it has irrevocably lagged behind. Lies it all! Back in the Soviet army, and then in the peoples of the Russian army, there were 38 units of remotely piloted aircraft. And there was a training center for UAV operators in Yegoryevsk. All this was structurally part of the army aviation of the Ground Forces, commanded by Colonel-General Vitaly Pavlov. But he left, army aviation was transferred to the Air Force, and units and training center of remotely piloted aircraft were eliminated during the permanent reform of the Armed Forces. What did it lead to?
I could list a number of our enterprises, where, nevertheless, UAVs are produced that meet, shall we say, the requirements of yesterday. And some of them are supplied to the troops. But the really promising developments, focused on tomorrow's day, not inferior to the latest Western developments, need serious investments. But there is no funding for these projects. I come to the directors of the factories, and they tell me: “Look, look, the models of the devices are standing, all the project documentation is ready. We need funds to make a couple of existing samples, to conduct full-scale tests and demonstrate to potential customers. Do not allocate. Instead, the Ministry of Defense for 50 millions of dollars bought five Israeli UAVs, by the way, not even the last modification. What are they doing ?! For 10 millions for each device.
- Yes, purchases of military equipment abroad are strongly criticized by experts and many questions ...
- If it was only about military technology. Such a policy destroys our entire aircraft industry.
At the beginning of 1990's, Boeing Corporation executives directly told us: “We will not allow you to let out long-haul airliners. This is our market. The maximum that we can solve is to make regional planes. ” But even here the West began to actively impose so-called screwdriver technologies. And 92% Superjet 100 is going now on the basis of foreign shipments. A similar technology was also used in the SaM-146 engine, which seems to be produced in Russia, which the French at Le Bourget quietly put up in their exposition as their own product.
And we all consistently turn off. Moreover, a rare country has such a large, complete line of aviation equipment that we had recently had. No, we didn't need it. We are discontinuing the beautiful IL-96 long-haul aircraft. There are excellent medium-haul Tu-204 and Tu-214, in no way inferior to their foreign counterparts. We also remove them from production. There is a beautiful car Tu-334 - certified, accepted by all. There was a decision to make six cars for the presidential squad. Three cars are left unfinished at the aircraft plant in Kazan. Everything has died down.
We have joint projects with Ukraine, where in each 65 – 70% participation aircraft is Russia's share. Our science, materials, avionics ... An-70, An-124, An-148, An-158, Ruslana, An-225 Mriya. We have a line from the maximum passenger to the minimum aircraft. But today we are not engaged in this business. Alone talk. No plant has orders, all orders go through management companies. The money allocated for aviation does not reach the manufacturers, they disappear in an unknown place.
- Again, money ... Is it really that the system and procedure for financing aircraft manufacturing enterprises is so flawed?
- I, as a former head of the ordering department in the Ministry of Defense, always owed enterprises. Because they did, and we did not have time to pay. And last year, enterprises, as stated by Vladimir Putin, were supposed to 180 billion rubles. So money was allocated or not allocated? Either this money was taken, but not mastered, or they did not reach the enterprises at all. Well, if the average cost of an 15 – 20 aircraft is millions of dollars, then count how many aircraft you could build for the amount of debt. More than three hundred. Have they been made? Not. And let us think that 3,5 billion dollars spent on the Superjet 100, and it barely flies. And the An-148 aircraft was built for ... 360 million dollars. The question is: what unique technologies were used at the Sukhoi company, under which they received such fantastic financing, and why did other aircraft building companies have hundreds, thousands of times less?
So here is the short-medium-haul MS-21 passenger aircraft ... At first, he was at Tupolev’s place, then he was transferred to Yakovlev, and they were sent to Irkut. And he lured away the designers, specialists from the Tupolev company, and they seem to be engaged in the same project again. Who needs all this mess? It shows that our entire industry is without a rudder and without wind. But, as they say, in muddy waters ... It is not by chance that the head of the Sukhoi company, Mikhail Pogosyan, suddenly became president of the United Aircraft Building Corporation. This is the management company through which all the funds allocated by the state to enterprises pass. And, presumably, it is again not by chance that Pogosyan immediately dispersed the entire structure, which was in the KLA before him, and created a different structure. He brought there people tested in working with big money ... But three changes of structure are two fires.
- And how much does the industry burn?
- Glows more. Although for the sake of objectivity, I must say that the destructive processes have been going on in our aviation industry for a long time. The country had 28 aircraft fully operating plants. And that's what happened to them today.
The Nizhny Novgorod Aviation Plant Sokol produced the MiG-31, Yak-130. The Yak was taken to Irkut. They failed. They gave it back to the Falcon. But this huge plant, in essence, a real city, where a modern industrial environment is created and there are tens of thousands of skilled workers, is actually worth it. He has almost no serial orders. The second plant in Nizhny Novgorod, the Volga, which once made WIG, is also worth it.
Voronezh Aviation stopped - no one gives to work. Samara was also stopped. Kazan barely breathes. Novosibirsk plant in coma.
Now let's see what motor builders have. In fact, there is no Samara bush - Kuznetsov’s scientific and technical complex. In St. Petersburg, the Klimov plant, after regular scandals around its ownership, was in a frozen state. And the list goes on.
Design offices are degrading. In Rybinsk, in KB, in which thousands of specialists worked 3,5, there are only 800 people left or even less. In Ufa, there is no design office. There is no Myasishchevsky KB, there is almost no Yakovlevsky either, they have dispersed Tupolev, Ilyushinsky practically does not breathe. In general, I would like to note that the institute of general designers as such is completely destroyed here. Instead, they came to lead the remaining effective aircraft managers. They also rule the ball in corporate management. These are people who understand only in money. If the cash flow is not looped back, then the output will be airplanes. And if looped - then the money. Here in the latter they are well versed.
- How does all this bedlam production affect military products?
- Well, take for example the same Kazan Aviation Plant. To support the maintenance and upgrading of the Tu-160 and Tu-22, they were given an order for the release of the Tu-204 / 214. For the sake of maintaining the production site in a viable state and transferring part of the capacity to support strategic nuclear forces. Gave there and Tu-334. The playground does not work. They killed 334 and killed 214. Only, after all, they did not kill Kazan themselves, they are just ready to work.
Kuibyshev Aviation Plant, servicing and conducting repairs, upgrading the old turboprop strategist Tu-95. There were such machines 85, left 65. Will serve more. In order to prevent the plant from falling, An-140 was dragged there by hook or by crook. This plane flies beautifully in Yakutia. Iran produces it, will not rejoice. Flies to Ukraine. Now it turns out that he is no longer needed. There are no orders.
Smolensk Aviation Plant previously participated in the production of the Yak-42, fired rockets. There is no Smolensk plant today, we do not see it anywhere. But the company also produced a special, unique product - the high-altitude aircraft M-55 Geophysics. In a military version, this is the M-17RM, a high-altitude aircraft with side locators, which went under promising weapons. The locator looked at a range of 250 km beyond the front line, could determine the size tank. This aircraft, while controlling a pilot, barrages in the air for 6 hours, and in an unmanned version - 12 hours at an altitude of 12–20 km. The designers proposed on the basis of such remotely piloted machines to create a relay system in a special period. Raise four points in the air so that all communications from Moscow to Kamchatka are provided by these repeaters at an altitude of 20 km. This means that two planes take off and barrage near Moscow - 12 hours each, in the Urals another pair, then Khabarovsk and Kamchatka. And the whole country is in a controlled circuit. When space will not work, when communications on the earth are thoroughly destroyed, such an aircraft will be able to provide any kind of communication with a signal from the air. The Americans created such a system. We refused here. They buried the project.
- Is it possible to rectify the situation, is it too late?
- Not too late. And for this it is not necessary to reinvent the wheel. In 1990, the Ministry of Defense worked very closely with the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economics. Together, they thought how to maximize the balance of development of the defense industry. And they said: “You are launching rockets, airplanes, you are avionics, you are ammunition, you are providing airfields with equipment ...” We strictly observed that there was no transfer of orders to and fro around the benefits of one manufacturer or another. And then there was little money at all, in the whole country. Therefore, we have established absolutely for all enterprises of the military-industrial complex a number of stringent requirements for cost savings and, at the same time, preferences.
Today, only the 5 generation fighter of the PAK FA T-50 generation can be considered a real novelty of the Russian aviation industry.
The main thing is that they decided: the ruble should work as much as possible, be used strictly for its intended purpose, and not scroll in shifting from one state pocket to another. Therefore, defense enterprises were exempt from land tax, they reduced tariffs for transportation, for electricity, reduced utility fees, etc. And most importantly, the costs that went like overhead costs for the production of defense products were minimized. At the same time defense enterprises were given more loans. Such measures reduced the price of OPK products by 50%. This is where capital-intensive production. Where intellectual production - and there is not such a big overhead, the price declined by 20 – 30%. That, in general, is also not bad. So all this could be revived now.
Or another measure that has proven its effectiveness. In the first half of the 90-x with fuel in the Armed Forces and at the enterprises of the military-industrial complex just a disaster. Almost completely absent fuel. And everyone who received then the export quotas for hydrocarbons, it was said: 1% of the volume of oil and gas you must give to the defense fund. You get such a margin, so give the state a small part, specifically for defense. We began to receive 1 million tons of oil per year. That was enough. The same for metal, for many other resources.
Someone shouted, and now he is shouting: “Put the economy on such approaches!” Nothing of the kind. We still do not have an economy - we have it now 8 – 12% of the economy of the Russian Federation in the USSR. But at the same time, we extract 510 – 570 million tons of oil per year, and the Soviet Union extracted 360 million tons. But then it included Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. And then we fed half the world, and now, without these republics, we feed mainly oligarchs. And the price of gasoline in our country is more than a dollar, and Gaddafi’s leveled out has 10 cents per liter of gasoline.
We buy all the metal domestically at the price of the London Stock Exchange. It is sold by one American company, which has become the owner of two steel mills in Samara and Belaya Kalitva. When releasing the fuselage aluminum, which is needed for the production of aircraft, the American owners first send it to the United States and Europe, fulfilling their duties to their local partners, and then, following a residual principle, to Russian enterprises. And more expensive on 30 – 40%. And titanium, produced in the Urals, on 93% is intended for the release of Boeing. The oligarchs have the domestic aviation industry in last place.
- Let's return from the economy to the actual technical policy. In order to clearly determine which weapons systems first of all should be spent on funds, you must first determine the existing threats to our country's security, work out a program for building the Armed Forces in accordance with them, establish what tasks they will have to solve. And only then, under this, to sharpen the program of orders to enterprises of the military-industrial complex. After all, your idea expressed in a recent interview. Do you have, so to speak, a key idea for such a consistent solution to a problem?
- We need to start by creating a global information space of the country. And it assumes, as a basis, mathematical software, which includes: the implementation of all types of space reconnaissance, ground reconnaissance, aerial reconnaissance, and intelligence. They create an information field that is calibrated by navigation - also space and ground. And in this information field there must be a sub-basis - a phono-target situation, which determines everything that moves on the earth, and it should be ottarirovo, that is, recognized and classified. Collected and continuously collected data are entered into the database with open access. And this information space should be managed and have the entire system of targeting. Then, if any military unit enters this information space, it will be able to see everything in its area of responsibility, will know where it is, what environment it will have, will have the exact coordinates of any target and will be able to ensure its defeat. Moreover, this information space should be accessible both on the ground, in the cable mode, and in the on-air mode.
Further, all the systems that need to be built now are systems of high autonomy, high automation with means of destruction, also automatic, selective defeat of specific targets. This information system should include an object management system - a rocket, a shell, an airplane, a soldier, the crew of a combat vehicle. The control system of the union - platoon, company, battalion, ship. The control system of large formations is the very ASU TZ, about which they have been talking so much lately. Operational management system. Then - a strategic level. And all this should be on a single database of information support.
But now you can often hear: "We, they say, will first create an ACS for TK, then we will replicate it." Are there any connections between them? Nobody thinks about them yet. And we must immediately create a system at all levels of management. So that's why we need institutions to develop such global systems. After all, tanks, airplanes, ships, UAVs are only platforms on which the final elements of these systems and means of defeat of electoral control must be placed.
Based on this, it is necessary to develop each sample of military equipment, equipment of each serviceman. But for now they say: “We hang everything that is possible on the soldier, and he will walk and shoot exactly.” Where, for whom, for what? An individual soldier, pilot or UAV operator must have his own information matrix of the battlefield on which he operates, but is firmly tied to all levels of control. And it should display the information necessary to solve his personal combat mission and the tasks of his unit. The war becomes non-contact: you do not see the enemy, but you know where he is. It will be such a global, managed information field, which has already been created in the most developed countries of the world. And we?
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