03 August 2003 21:06
Russia begins testing engines for fifth-generation fighter aircraft
[Presenter] The testing of a new engine for the future fifth-generation fighter aircraft has begun in Russia. There is tough competition between the world's leading nations to make the new fighter. Meanwhile the Russian army is not reaping the fruit of Russian designers' work. Aleksandr Minakov reports from a leading Russian aircraft engine enterprise. [Correspondent, over video of an aerobatics display] This is the famous Cobra [manoeuvre] performed by a Su-27. No other fighter in the world can perform this manoeuvre, because only Russia produces the engine that does not suffer so-called surging [vernacular: pompazh] when head wind hits the nozzle. The Americans tried to replicate the manoeuvre, but their engines, as aviators would say, immediately choked. The Moscow-based Salyut machine-building enterprise produces engines for all the aircraft of the Sukhoi family. Today the testing of a new device, a prototype fifth-generation engine, began in a special compartment. Competition at the world market of military aircraft becomes tougher year by year. The leading aircraft-producing nations are now working on a fifth-generation aircraft. Who will be first? It will depend to a large extent on who makes the best engine. One of the main tasks of the test is to increase the engine's draft with a swivelling nozzle. So far, Russian engines are lagging behind US ones in this aspect. The automated testing compartment is a unique structure. The combustion chamber withstands temperatures of over 2,000 degrees [Celsius]. The automatic system makes it possible to create any regimes, while recording the parameters of all the units in minute details. [Oleg Potapov, deputy chief engineer of the Salyut machine-building production enterprise in Moscow] At present, the engine is prepared for dispatch to the Gromov test flight institute in Zhukovskiy. The engine will be tested for the first time actually on an aircraft, at the institute's flying lab. [Correspondent] Salyut is one of the world leaders in the production and servicing of aircraft engines. It was here that the production of engines for the first Russian aeroplanes began in 1912. The plant's production lines have state-of-the-art equipment. This six-coordinate processing centre, for instance, is the only one of its kind in Russia. Every six months, the plant sends its specialists for two weeks of training in Europe. The enterprise owes its relative prosperity above all to exports. The main buyers are India and China. The Russian air force has not bought new engines for years now. [Yuriy Yeliseyev, director-general of the Salyut machine-building production enterprise in Moscow] We are exporting engines that are better than those we unfortunately have in our own Russian army. They order virtually no new equipment. The orders we get are for repairs. [Correspondent] Designers believe that work on a fifth-generation fighter are certainly necessary. However, they also have more down-to-earth objectives. [Emmanuil Goldinskiy, chief designer of the Salyut machine-building production enterprise in Moscow] The most important thing for us now is not so much to outstrip the Americans as to improve those engines, those aircraft that are used by our armed forces. [Correspondent] Another worry for the chief designer is the brain drain. In order to simplify their recruitment process, US competitors have recently opened branches in Moscow. The design bureau tries to offset staff losses by recruiting talented young people. Many of them, however, having gained knowledge and experience, later leave too. Yet the Salyut management do not despair: Russia has enough talent for everyone, they say.
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