MOSCOW, July 31. /TASS/: An air regiment of the Western Military District stationed in the Tver Region in central Russia has completed its rearmament with the generation 4++ Su-35S fighter jets under the defense procurement plan, the District’s press office told TASS on Wednesday.
"The fighter regiment of the Western Military District has completed forming a squadron of generation 4++ Su-35S super-maneuverable fighters for its permanent deployment in the Tver Region. Overall, the manufacturing plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur delivered six planes in July under the defense procurement plan," the press office said in a statement.
The new Su-35 fighters will replace the air regiment’s outdated aircraft pool. Military pilots and technicians accepted the new aircraft on the premises of the manufacturing plant in the Khabarovsk Region in the Russian Far East. The pilots underwent re-training in Lipetsk where they used special simulators to learn to perform aerobatic maneuvers at full speeds and loads.
Previous reports said that three Su-35 fighters had been delivered to the air regiment in the Tver Region under the defense procurement plan.
The Su-35S is a heavily upgraded generation 4++ supermaneuverable multipurpose fighter jet developed on the basis of fifth-generation technologies. The Su-35S is distinguished by its new avionics suite based on the information control system, the new radar, plasma ignition engines of the increased capacity and thrust vectoring. These engines meet the requirements for the powerplant of fifth-generation fighters as they allow developing supersonic speed without using an afterburner.
The Su-35S supersonic fighter jet performed its debut flight on February 19, 2008. The fighter jet is a derivative of the Su-27 plane. The Su-35S weighs 19 tonnes, has a service ceiling of 20,000 meters, can develop a maximum speed of 2,500 km/h and has a crew of one pilot. The fighter jet’s armament includes a 30mm aircraft gun, up to 8 tonnes of the weapon payload (missiles and bombs of various types) on 12 underwing hardpoints. The Su-35S has been in service with the Russian Army since 2015.
