Article Summary and Keywords: The Su-30SM emerged as a highly capable, multi-role variant of Russia’s Su-30, originally designed as an evolution of the Su-27. While initially a modernization of the Su-27UB two-seat trainer, extensive modifications led to a significantly upgraded platform. The fighter has one mission: take on the best fighters and military hardware the West has to offer.
Key Point #1 – India played a key role in its evolution by requesting advanced features such as thrust vectoring, canard foreplanes, and modern avionics, elevating its performance to a new level. This version, the Su-30MKI, set a benchmark and eventually evolved into Russia’s Su-30SM variant, now the backbone of Russian Aerospace Forces.
Key Point#2 – The Su-30SM combines superior maneuverability, sophisticated radar systems, and diverse mission capabilities.
Inside the Su-30SM: Russia’s Go-To Multi-Role Fighter
The story of the Su-30SM fighter aircraft has several chapters.
It began about 30 years ago, when Russia was still looked upon as a member in good standing of the community of nations.
Russia’s Sukhoi Design Bureau introduced the Su-30 as a transition from the venerable Su-27 family of aircraft.
Originally, the aircraft was billed as a modernization of the Su-27UB two-seat combat-capable trainer aircraft.
Becoming The Su-30SM Fighter
Several major design changes included:
-Two-seat aircraft with dual-cockpit/dual-control cabins. Russian air missions could be very long, so the aircrews were to have two pilots, instead of a pilot and a rear-seat weapon systems officer.
-A new on-board oxygen system that would support two aircrew over long-endurance missions.
Pilot relief tubes were added that were near-copies of the relief systems used on board Russian spacecraft.
-The addition of numerous new weapons integrated to the aircraft so that it became fully multi-role.
It could now be used for missions that were not part of the original Su-27’s mission profile. Jettisonable external fuel tanks were also added to extend the aircraft’s range.
What became known as the Su-30MK began to be sold to numerous countries, including the People’s Republic of China. Beijing purchased the Su-30MKK variant for the People’s Liberation Army Navy to carry out naval aviation and anti-ship missions.
The Indian Version
The Indian Air Force took interest in the aircraft, as did other nations such as Vietnam,
Venezuela, and Algeria, all of which became customers. However, the Indian Air Force—as it always does—wanted numerous changes to conform to India’s “unique requirements.”
The Su-30MKI was a major step away from the Su-30’s original configuration. These changes significantly elevated the aircraft’s performance, and soon this variant was the benchmark for Su-30 versions sold anywhere—in fact, the Russian air force began to acquire it.
The modifications the Indians demanded are:
-Adding a set of moveable canard foreplanes that are coupled to the aircraft’s flight control system (FCS).
-An axisymmetric thrust vectoring control (TVC) module that is also linked to the FCS. The aircraft can now perform the aerobatic maneuvers that Russian aircraft became famous for during air-show demonstration flights. The TVC plus the canards give the aircraft supermaneuvrability.
-The previous radar was replaced with a new NIIP N011M Passive Electronic Scanning Array unit that is far superior to the older, mechanically steered array system that dated back to the Soviet period. The aircraft also featured a new avionics suite developed at the Ramenskoye Instrument-Building Design Bureau, and several French-, Israeli-, and Indian-developed on-board systems are integrated into the configuration.
These are very expensive changes, and India ended up paying hundreds of millions of dollars upfront for Russia to upgrade the basic Su-30 and create the Su-30MKI prototype. Major modifications were made at the Irkut Production Association, and not at the Sukhoi Design Bureau.
Su-30SM. Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot.
This aircraft, but with the foreign on-board systems replaced by Russian subsystems, became the Su-30SM, which is now the main combat platform of the Russian Aerospace Forces. The Su-30SM performs missions that were once the province of MiG-28 squadrons. It is the aircraft Russia calls on to fulfill the widest variety of combat objectives.
Image: Creative Commons.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is now an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
