IRKUTSK, Southern Siberia, July 6 (AVN) - The Irkutsk Aircraft Production Association (IAPO) considers research and tests to be a top-priority sphere of activity, a spokesman for the IAPO management said on Friday.
The enterprise has allocated about USD30m on these issues in the past 12 months, the spokesman told the Military News Agency. The major share of the allocations, which is over USD26m, was spent on the SU-30MKI Flanker plane, a multipurpose fighter supplied to India.
The IAPO financed and co-ordinated development of on-board equipment and the AL-31FP engine for the plane. Three prototypes of SU-30MKI have been made and submitted for flight tests.
Besides, the enterprise has teamed up with the Russian Avionics JS and conducted the first stage of the SU-30 modernisation. The works aimed to adapt the plane for using air-to-surface missiles and map-making, integrate multirole indicators in its cockpit and develop a new information-control field. The current modernisation stage is nearing completion and a concept of more thorough modernisation has been developed. It covers the second and third stages.