Vladimir Putin says Russia’s Su-57 stealth fighter jet is the world’s best plane “by all its operational characteristics and by its armament”, according to news agency TASS.
“This is the best plane today, the world’s best aircraft,” Putin said at a meeting with the winners of the Russian Leaders contest. This is the world’s best plane “by all its operational characteristics and by its armament,” the Russian leader added.
“No other aircraft can fly as well as our plane,” the head of the Russian state stressed.
The Su-57 is a Russian-made fifth-generation multirole fighter designed to destroy all types of air targets at long and short ranges and hit enemy ground and naval targets, overcoming its air defense capabilities.
Compared to its predecessors, the Su-57 combines the functions of an attack plane and a fighter jet while the use of composite materials and innovation technologies and the fighter’s aerodynamic configuration ensure the low level of radar and infrared signature.
The Su-57 took to the skies for the first time on January 29, 2010.
But it is worth to mention that the Russian longstanding plan to acquire and commission its fleet of the fifth-generation multirole fighter into service by 2018–19 has been further postponed due to technological hurdles and, above all, engine problems.
Russia will not buy Su-57 in the serial configuration before 2020 and deferred mass production of the fighter for a number of possible reasons, but it hasn’t canceled the program outright.
Initially, it was expected that the contract for the serial Su-57 will be signed in 2018, but later the TASS reported that contract for serial batch of fifth-generation fighter jets to be signed in 2020.