Unexpected delivery of two Su-34s to the Russian Federation - Aerospace Forces
On 2 December 2020, the PJSC Sukhoi Company (as part of PJSC United Aircraft Corporation of Rostec State Corporation) has completed another long-term contract for the supply of Su-34s to the Russian Federation - Aerospace Forces (RF VKS).
The NAZ (Novosibirsk Aviation Plant named after V.P. Chkalov) manufactured and tested the last Su-34 (NATO reporting name Fullback) of the final batch. The strike bombers were subsequently handed over to the 4th Centre for Combat Application and Crew Training (4 GTsPAP i VI) at Lipetsk air base (Russia).
The two additional aircraft are serials T.10V-138 (construction number 11-09, bort number 12 red) and T.10V-139 (c/n 11-10, bort number 19 red) and represent an addition to the contract of 92 Su-34s, signed back in February 2012. The deliveries of the main contract have already been completed in July 2020. In that month the last pair of Fullbacks with serial T.10V-136 (c/n 11-07) and T.10V-137 (c/n 11-08), and both marked 14 red, was transferred to their respective units in Voronezh and Lipetsk.
This addition provides attrition replacement for two aircraft that have been written off in accident on 6 September 2019, when two Su-34s collided in midair due to loss of visual contact, as well as replacement of three Lipetsk Su-34s of early production batches which were decommissioned and transferred for use as ground training aids.
A sum up of the deliveries of the 2012 contract, totalling 94 Su-34s:
Earlier deliveries include five production Su-34s of the 2005 contract and 32 Su-34s of the 2009 contract, bringing the total number of the series examples to 131. Additionally, we have to account for seven experimental flight and pre-production models which rounds the number up to 138. So far at least six Fullbacks have been lost or written off.
However, the story is not over yet, as in August 2020, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation signed a new three-year contract for another 24 Su-34 bombers. Whether the rumours from December 2019 about Algeria having ordered fourteen examples will have materialised into further deliveries, remains to be seen.
Photo by VVN (kindly provided via RussianPlanes.net)