In the late 1970s, Russia’s Sukhoi Design Bureau was working on finalizing the Su-27—what would become Russia’s most successful air superiority fighter ever built. The design team were then handed a new challenge. They were to take this long-range, heavyweight fighter even longer than the F-14 and turn it into a carrier aircraft.
In the mid-1980s, prototype construction began for the Su-27K carrier-capable prototype, which was ready for testing by the end of 1987. The military conducted test flights on land at the then-Soviet Naval Aviation Research and Training Complex (NITKA). This aerodrome is located in what is today illegally Russian-occupied Crimea near the city of Saki.
On November 1, 1989, Sukhoi test pilot Viktor Pugachev became the very first Russian to land a STOBAR fighter—one of the original Su-27K prototypes but not a series production model—on a carrier using the aircraft’s arresting hook. Dozens of landings were practiced, and by the early 1990s, the first production aircraft emerged from the Komsomolsk-na-Amure Aviation Production Association (KNAAPO).
The production aircraft, now designated Su-33, began flying in 1999—almost 16 years since the first prototypes had begun construction. The operations on board the Admiral Kuznetsov carrier were successful for the Russian Navy (VMF), and the lessons learned were then incorporated into design changes.
The Su-33 Fighter, Explained
In 2010, the Sukhoi Design Bureau implemented several necessary modifications to the aircraft. The flight trials and operational cruises of the carrier had prompted the designers to install a new higher-thrust engine and modify the weapons carriage to carry more missiles.
However, there was no funding available at the time for a newer version of the radar, which was one of the weak points of the aircraft.
Finally in September 2016, plans were revealed for the Su-33 to be outfitted with a new sighting and computing system SVP-24 from the Russian company Gefest & T. This modification enabled the aircraft to use unguided, “dumb” bombs.
According to a very long write-up on this upgrade, the new weapons control computer SVP-24 “collects information about the location of the target, the location of the aircraft, flight parameters, atmospheric conditions, etc., after which it processes it and provides data for dropping bombs. The analysis of all the necessary information allows to increase the characteristics of bombing. In fact, the usual unguided bombs fall into the target with accuracy at the level of the guided ones.”
This particular weapons targeting and guidance package appears to be an adaptation of another similar package from the same company offered more than 10 years before as an upgrade for the Su-24 fighter bomber.This was a significant change for the Su-33 and its potential mission profile. This aircraft was originally based onboard a carrier to operate as an air-to-air interceptor. The entire concept for the carriers in the Soviet years was not for these ships to be the center of a naval task force supporting an amphibious landing, as they are in the United States Navy.
Instead, these ships were to be more like floating interceptor bases that could be used to either extend or plug any “holes” in Russia’s air defense network.
Su-33 Fighter In 4 Words: It Has No Future
Currently, there are about 40 of these aircraft in service, and numerous proposed upgrades are under consideration. Upgrades are required to make the airframe a multi-role platform. Depending on the timeframe, there have been discussions about giving the Su-33 all-new onboard systems that would make it essentially a carrier version of a Su-30SM or Su-35.
Most of the ideas centre on making the aircraft more interoperable with the Aerospace Force’s land-based fighter fleet. So far, there have not been any real success stories in the Su-33 aircraft conducting missions supporting Air Force aircraft or vice versa.
The record of the Su-33’s performance in Syria in 2015-16 when flown from the carrier while on station in the Mediterranean was modest at best. One Su-33 even crashed into the sea when an arresting cable broke during an attempted landing.
But it remains to be seen if there is a future for the aircraft at all in the present. The Russian carrier’s prospects are up in the air. Upgrades continue to be made to the NITKA training center, but to what end if no new pilots are trained there? So far, there have been no export contracts for the Su-33 despite efforts to do so.
The longevity of any Russian weapon system often depends on its ability to make money in the foreign sales market. Without any prospects of new customers outside of Russia and the lack of any real requirement to increase its numbers in inventory there would seem to be a small chance of it ever being placed in production again.
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.
