MOSCOW. June 9 (Interfax-AVN) - According to major Russian combat aircraft producer MIG, the MIG-29SMT, a new version of the Fulcrum fighter, equipped with the Zhuk-M radar, is being successfully created.
"The first serial SMT aircraft with this radar will be sent to a foreign customer this year," Vladimir Nikitin, MIG designer general and CEO, said in an interview with the Vedomosti daily, published on Monday.
According to Nikitin, the equipment of the SMT has already been fully unified with that of the MIG-29K deck-based fighter jet, also to be equipped with the new radar.
"We hope that the contract on the MIG-29 (with India - Interfax-AVN) will be signed soon," he said.
He also said that MIG was consulting the Ministry of Proprietorship Relations and Russian Aviation and Space Agency on the issuance of MIG equity.
"We plan to issue equity before mid-2004 into a company with 100 percent of state equity," he said.
At the same time, he said, the rise in the state defense order for the products of the corporation has been too little.
"The state defense order in 2002 constituted about 0.3 percent of the total output worth USD354m, compared with, for example, American major producers Lockheed Martin whose share of domestic defense order was 73 percent of the output, and Boeing with 83 percent," he said.
The MIG-29SMT multipurpose fighter operates a wide range of AA and AS munitions and equally effectively engages aerial and surface targets.
The Zhuk-M onboard radar is a derivative of the Zhuk older version, with the focus of upgrade on the surface target engagement capability.