Interesting would be - and even more much more important - is it state-founded or only from UAC, what's the budget, is the RuAF interested or are there other nations providing founds. Otherwise it will remain simply what it is right now: A fancy mock up and excieting PR-stunt.
Quickly:
UAC is a subsidiary of Rostec and Rostec is fully state-owned. All of the companies in the former Soviet military industry have been state-owned since 1991.
The question whether something is a private venture or state-funded is valid in countries like France where Dassault is privately held but treated as if it was state-owned for the purpose of acquisition because of its crucial role in French political strategy. In Russia it's misreading what the formal structure of the industry really stands for.
Russia had a multitude of companies because under the Soviet model there weren't "companies" but design bureaus, research institutes and manufacturing plants. All of them were under a single "company" that was the Soviet state. That's the best way to understand how the centrally-planned economy in the USSR worked - treat the entire country as a single company producing communism. Once USSR dissolved all of those were transformed into legal entities that fit a market economy with products and services and a lot of that was mirroring the kleptocratic privatization of the other heavy industries by the oligarchs. State retained control so the structure was new but the relationship and control structure remained as it was in the Soviet era. Now it's being finally rationalized because the inefficiencies are too great.
The Russian state corporation Rostec announced that the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), and the fighter manufacturers Sukhoi and Mikoyan-Gurevich, will be merged into a single aircraft building center in Moscow. As a reminder, UAC comprises the brands Ilyushin, Irkut, Tupolev, and Yakovlev. The optimization is expected to save $1.7 billion.
"Structural transformations, a cost optimization program, transformation of the industrial model, research and development block, digital transformation of UAC are aimed at increasing the utilization of production facilities and increasing labor productivity,” according to a statement by Rostec, quoted by TASS. “The reform will be implemented in stages over several years.”
Additionally to the aircraft assembly facility, a Unified Engineering and Design Center in Moscow should regroup all the aircraft design bureaux. The engineering and design personnel should not be affected by the restructuring.
Created in 2006, the United Aircraft Corporation was taken over by Rostec in 2018 in an effort to consolidate Russia’s aviation assets. Rostec regroups over 700 companies organized in 14 holdings: 11 of them are in the defense sector, three in the civilian one.
Note that the restructuring is affecting management first. The design and engineering capacity is going to be consolidated before any cuts will ensue. It's both more practical - retaining most valuable staff - and secure - preventing uncontrolled defections trying to preempt cuts.
The manufacturing capacity is also going to be cut because recently there was news that as many as half of all facilities are going to be closed down in the upcoming decade. No specific names or timeframes but the signal is out - there's too many manufacturing plants for what the state and export markets need.
This is a useful list from another forum:
Aviacor, Samara (formerly Tu-95MS and Tu-154. Today ???)
Aviastar, Uljanovsk (Il-476 and Il-78M-90A)
Beriev, Taganrog (Be-200, modernisation of A-50)
Irkutsk Plant, Irkutsk (Su-30, Yak-130, MS-21)
Kazan Aviation, Kazan (Tu-214, new Tu-160M2)
Kazan Helicopters, Kazan (Mi-8, Mi-38, Ansat)
Knaapo, Komsomolsk-on-Amur (Su-30, Su-35, Su-57)
KumAPP, Kumertau? (Ka-31/-35, Ka-32, Ka-226)
RAC MiG with 2 factories in Moscow (MiG-29 versions like MiG-35 and so on)
Sokol, Nizhny Novgorod (MiG-29UB?, Il-114?)
NAPO, Novosibirsk (Su-34)
Progress, Arsenyev (Ka-52, Ka-62)
Rostvertol, Roston-on-Don (Mi-35M, Mi-28N/UB/M, Mi-26)
UUAPO, Ulan-Ude (Mi-8 versions)
VASO, Voronezh (Il-112)
So now to return to new Sukhoi jet. The following are my speculations based on what I've read and deduced - so we'll see in the upcoming days what MAKS brings and whether I was very right, somewhat right, somewhat wrong or
suka blat pashol vpizdyet kind of wrong.
There is no official state program because official state programs don't really exist in Russia since the state orders weapons in state-owned factories. In the west big programs make big news because it's all about private or semi-private industry getting public funds. This is also why China doesn't do anything remotely similar to big western projects. If Russia uses media to promote this or that weapon system it's for export or propaganda purposes.
The VKS (RuAF) is not interested in the jet in the timeframe of the next 10 years because they are putting all their resources into production of more Su-34, production of Su-57s, development of MiG-41 (MiG-31 replacement) and PAK-DA (Tu-160 and Tu-95 replacement). Su-25s are being modernized and reanimated despite being not very useful for modern conflict because that's cheaper.
The VKS is not interested in the jet because it is too small for Russia's needs. Russia needs high performance and long range because they are limited by economy and manpower and have the world's largest airspace and world's longest boundary to protect. Physics dictates what kind of plane Russia will design. MiG-29s were designed for war over Germany. That war no longer exists and is not going to exist unless Republicans take over the US and decide to make a pact with Russia for which they will sell out former Warsaw Pact countries (which they've taken over politically in the recent decade) and reinstate Cold War 2.0 as deterrence to European (primarily German) influence. In other words the "Cauldron" scenario which is being seeded all across Europe by CIA just in case. Unless this happens Russia has no need for small aircraft because absolutely nowhere else does Russia have small areas with high population and infrastructure concentration that shrink battlespace to make such planes viable.
This jet is an aggressive play for export markets which are threatened by China. Sukhois are too expensive to maintain and often are overkill for regional security. Russia did not have anything similar since MiG-21 as increasingly it moved away from this philosophy toward more sophisticated and capable systems in the 70s.
Russia needs the play - even if it loses - to preserve its position in the alliance. Russia provides security and energy which is why it still matters in geopolitics. If it can be reduced to just one it won't matter and its influence will collapse (and with it most likely the Russian state as it exists right now). So Russia has to have something to sell to all those countries looking to settle between US and China since Russia can play the neutral side. Hence Vietnam, Argentina and (traditionally) India in the video. As for the Gulf countries it is a signal that Russia is willing to provide security in place of the US.
Maintenance is at minimum 60% of life-cycle cost of all aircraft. You have a small, single-engine piece of Russian robustness at the price of cheap or ridiculously cheap Ruble. If Russia finally managed to get its tech in working order as a result of Su-57 program it might actually work.
Is it a working jet? Absolutely not. But if they manage to get at least one country's attention during MAKS we'll see a flying prototype in 2-3 years.
Okay. Coffee's out. I'm out. You take care.
