The fifth-generation Checkmate light fighter, which Sukhoi is working on, is being prepared for production of the first samples. The design documentation has already been transferred to the manufacturing plant, and production preparations have begun, Rostec’s press service said.
Following the presentation of Checkmate at Dubai Airshow 2021 and negotiations with potential buyers, the cost of the project and some technical solutions were adjusted. The project was amended based on the requests received, which made it possible to improve and adapt the aircraft to the requirements of potential customers, Rostec said.
At the Dubai Airshow 2023, which opened on 13 November, Denis Manturov, deputy prime minister and head of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, confirmed interest in the new light tactical aircraft. He said that over the past two years, requirements have been collected based on comments from possible future operators and the project has been adjusted. The changes concern the aircraft’s layout, control system and air armament. The Checkmate will be adapted as much as possible to the needs of customers who are interested in a single-engine aircraft.
“A lot of work has been done precisely on the basis of the Checkmate initially presented here [in the UAE],” Manturov explained. The minister also predicted the timeframe for the creation of the first sample of the fighter jet. According to him, it may happen by the end of 2025.
“The production of a new type of combat aircraft with many advantageous characteristics will unambiguously increase Russia’s combat potential, against the backdrop of the continuing growth in global demand for the Su-35, Ka-52 and T-90 as a result of their successful use in the FEA,” Viktor Bondarev, first deputy head of the Federation Council’s defence committee, wrote in his tg-channel. He noted that the installation batch of Checkmate fighters is planned to be produced in 2026.
The Checkmate was first unveiled at the MAKS-2021 air show in Russia and then at the Dubai Airshow 2021 in the UAE. The foreign premiere of this promising aircraft attracted the attention of specialists and experts. The Checkmate could become a competing product in the global market of fifth-generation fighters, given that it is positioned significantly lower in terms of its price. Russia plans to offer the aircraft to countries that are already familiar with Soviet/Russian technology and that are eager to upgrade their combat aircraft fleets, but the US will never sell the only existing single-engine F-35 fifth-generation fighter on the market to such countries. The U.S. Checkmate can compete with the American machine in terms of the cost per flight hour, open architecture, which allows customers to shape the appearance of the aircraft according to their own requirements, as well as high indicators of the “cost-effectiveness” criterion.
For example, during the Russia-Africa forum, representatives of Nigeria declared during negotiations their interest in purchasing Russian fighters, including the fifth-generation Checkmate, Dmitry Shugaev, director of Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, said in July 2023. Other countries in Africa, such as Algeria, Egypt, as well as – Asia and the Middle East could also be buyers of the advanced Russian fighter.
For several decades, the tactical front-line aviation of the Russian Air Force has been based on multifunctional super-maneuverable heavy twin-engine machines: the Su-27, Su-30, Su-35 and Su-57. However, the approach to fighter aviation is changing, and in addition to foreign buyers, the Russian Ministry of Defence may also be interested in Checkmate, but for this the aircraft must take off and start flight tests to prove to the military that they need such a machine, and Sukhoi has correctly identified the vector of development of domestic combat aviation, because it is developing Checkmate on a proactive basis.
In October 2023, Mikhail Strelets, Deputy Managing Director – Director of the Sukhoi Design Bureau and UAC Deputy General Designer for Military Aviation, told the press service of the United Aircraft Corporation that the concept of modern multirole combat aircraft is becoming a thing of the past due to the length of development and rising costs by the time serial production begins.
In this regard, operational-tactical aviation aircraft complexes in the future should go from being multifunctional, as they are now, to becoming specialised in terms of the range of tasks to be performed. This means that there will be several platforms that are not multifunctional in the sense that is currently available for the fifth generation. They will solve more specialised tasks and complement each other, which will reduce both the cost of each such component and the development time, which is now required of designers by the state customer represented by the Ministry of Defence.
