MOSCOW. May 17 (Interfax-AVN) - Development of the fifth- generation aircraft will take up to 10 years, first deputy director general of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency Valery Voskoboinikov told Interfax-Military News Agency on Friday.
Voskoboinikov stressed that the aircraft's development was only one stage of the program proving for acquiring and employing the new plane. The program is to be fully implemented within several dozens of years.
Voskoboinikov added that the Russian aircraft-building industry was capable of building a new generation plane. Technologies available in Russia can be efficiently used for implementing this project.
The deputy director general said that experts were to solve some burning problems concerning financial support of the program and development of some elements of the aircraft.
He said that the Russian government had already given corresponding instructions to ministries and departments on developing the fifth-generation aircraft. Legal amendments facilitating off-budget support of the program are to be made, too. The current law prohibits military projects to be financed by off-budget funds.
Voskoboinikov added that enterprises to be engaged in developing the new aircraft would be determined in accordance with the results of the draft projects' competition. Now experts of the Ministry of Defense are involved in determining design specifications of the aircraft.
Speaking of outlooks of upgrading in-service aircraft, Voskoboinikov said that all assets had limited modernization capabilities.
Military experts have already carried out a comprehensive analysis proving that even the most substantial modernization could not result in building a new-generation aircraft, Voskoboinikov said. The new asset can be considered to be a four plus generation plane, yet it is not a fifth-generation plane, he added.
An optimum of modernization is to be taken into consideration, too. The deputy head of the consortium said that it was possible to carry out a full-scale modernization of an aircraft, removing all of its interior components; yet Voskoboinikov doubted the cost-effectiveness characteristics of such projects.