Algerian Flankers add to the Su story

Four years after ordering 28 Sukhoi Su-30MKA versions of the ‘Flanker’, and with these aircraft now in operational service, Algeria has signed a contract for a further 16 of the versatile and powerful strike fighters – effectively exercising 16 of the 28 options it holds.

The Algerian Air Force (Al Quwwat al Jawwija al Jaza'iriyyah) ordered its initial batch of 28 Su-30MKA fighters in 2006 as part of a $2.5 billion contract, together with 16 Yak-130 lead-in trainers and 34 MiG-29SMT tactical fighters.

There are several competing versions of the Sukhoi Su-30 offered by rival manufacturers, but those selected by Algeria were supplied by the Irkut Corporation’s Irkutsk Aircraft Production Organisation, part of Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). They are like the Su-30 variants sold to India, and Malaysia.

A quite separate family of Su-30 versions is marketed by the Komsomolsk-na-Amur Aircraft Production Association (KnAAPO). The latter aircraft have been sold to China, Indonesia, Venezuela, and Vietnam.

The Su-30 has a long and fairly tortuous story, having originally been conceived as a dedicated long-range/high-endurance interceptor for the Soviet national air defence (IA-PVO), with air-to-air refuelling capability and systems proven for long endurance missions, and using the designation Su-27PU.

Only a handful were delivered before post-Cold War defence cuts saw the programme cancelled. This aircraft became the Su-30 when offered for export and the Su-30M when given a multi-role capability.

As the Su-30M, the aircraft retained the formidable full air-to-air capabilities of the basic Su-27, with long range, powerful radar and beyond-visual-range missiles. But it also added the ability to carry a wide range of precision-guided air-to-ground weapons, including TV, laser, radar and EO-guided bombs and missiles, as well as unguided ‘dumb’ ordnance. This effectively transformed what had often been seen as the Russian equivalent to the F-15C into the Russian counterpart to the F-15E Strike Eagle.

Since Sukhoi started marketing the original Su-30M, the aircraft has been extensively improved and modernized, gaining thrust vectoring, modern avionics and full colour glass cockpit displays, and even a modern radar with an electronically scanned array.

In joint exercises with the USAF, the British RAF and the French Armée de l’Air, the Su-30MKIs of the Indian Air Force have demonstrated the type’s formidable capabilities against the latest Western fighter types, and they have won a great deal of respect from their adversaries along the way.

In Soviet days, the design bureau (Sukhoi), operating is conjunction with the State Export Agency, was responsible for marketing and selling the aircraft. But, following the liberalization and reforms of the early 1990s, the individual aircraft factories (previously subordinate to the design bureau) gained the ability to market the aircraft that they built. Accordingly, two of the plants producing versions of the Su-27 decided to market two-seat multi-role variants based on the Su-30M, though these differed in a number of respects.

The latest Irkutsk-built Su-30 variants differ from those supplied by KnAAPO in being fitted with canard foreplanes and Saturn AL-31FP engines with thrust-vectoring nozzles, and in using a higher proportion of Western avionics systems. All are, to some extent, based on the final standard for India, since this was the first advanced ‘Flanker’ built by IAPO. But because the Indian model used some Israeli avionics equipment (along with indigenous Indian, US, French and Russian) the aircraft for Malaysia and Algeria (both Islamic countries) do differ to some extent.

The Su-30MKA is equipped with the advanced N011M BARS pulse Doppler passive electronically scanned array (PESA) radar, and has a Russian MAW-300 missile approach warning sensor (MAWS), RWS-50 RWR and optical-location system (OLS).

Further details of the Su-30MKA’s avionics suite have not been revealed, though the aircraft is believed to be extremely similar to the Su-30MKM built for the Royal Malaysian Air Force. This has a French (Thales Group) head-up display (HUD) system, a Damocles Laser Designation pod (LDP), and a Thales navigational forward-looking IR (NAVFLIR) system. South Africa’s Saab Avitronics supplies the laser-warning sensor (LWS), Goodrich provides lights, and Rohde & Schwarz of Germany furnishes the communications suite.

The first batch of 28 aircraft were delivered between December 2007 and November 2009, with pairs of aircraft being transported to Algeria on board Antonov An-124 cargo aircraft, where they were assembled by specialists from Irkut (IAZ) and then flown by Russian IAZ test pilots.

Some were delivered in an overall grey scheme, others in a two-tone grey camouflage. Algerian pilots were trained on the ‘Flanker’ at Zhukhovskii, near Moscow (where two of the Algerian Su-30MKIs were temporarily based) and 12 aircraft had been delivered to Algeria by November 2008, allowing test and evaluation trials to begin at Oum El-Bouaki airfield.

The Algerian Air Force prepared a new air base for the Su-30MKAs, located at Ain Baida in the north-eastern part of the country. This has two perpendicular runways each more than 3.6km long, and each with parallel wide taxiways. The base is generously provided with hardened aircraft shelters, with more under construction, and was intended to house three squadrons of Su-30MKAs. Satellite imagery taken by the Eros B satellite on July 12 2010 showed at least 11 Su-30MKA fighters lined up on the flight line.

In May 2010 it was announced that all 28 Algerian Su-30MKAs were fully operational, including in-flight refuelling.

Algeria acquired the first of six or eight Ilyushin Il-78 ‘Midas’ tankers at the end of 2007 and these aircraft, serving with the 357eme Escadron de Ravitaillement en Vol (357th Air-to-Air Refuelling Squadron) now form part of the 7eme Escadre de Transport Tactique et de Ravitaillement en Vol (7th Tactical Transport and Air-to-Air Refuelling Wing) at Boufarik. They play a vital role in supporting Su-30MKA and Su-24 operations and give the Algerian Air Force a real long-range attack capability.

The order for 16 additional Su-30MKAs was signed in April this year and the aircraft will replace the 34 MiG-29SMT fighters ordered by Algeria and delivered, but then cancelled amid reports of Algerian dissatisfaction with the aircraft’s condition and capabilities. The new aircraft are due to be delivered in 2011, alongside 16 Yak-130 advanced trainer/light attack aircraft under a $1bn contract.

Irkut has announced that it expects to export some 242 multi-role Su-30 fighters, worth around $7 billion, by 2014.