“Planes come first,” says the Russian military.
The Russian Defense Ministry and the Tupolev aircraft maker have signed a contract on the development of a new-generation strategic bomber, the company’s general director said on Wednesday.
“We signed a contract this year on research and development of a future strategic bomber for the Russian strategic aviation. It will be a conceptually new plane based on the most advanced technologies,” Igor Shevchuk said at the MAKS-2009 air show near Moscow.
Russia’s Air Force commander, Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin earlier said a fifth-generation strategic bomber could be used effectively in both conventional and nuclear conflicts.
Tupolev is projecting a 2020 deployment, which translates to 2030 from Russian to English. If Tupolev is half as inefficient as Sukhoi — Ivan’s fighter production company which has promised a “Raptor-killer” for years — then I wouldn’t give their NGB a second thought. What does worry me is the prospect of proliferation and an influx of Chinese money. If the PLA were to field an advanced bomber, presumably boasting supercruise and a certain level of stealth, the balance of power in the Pacific would be drastically altered — a condition exponentially worsened by the cancelation of the F-22 program.
