GarryB Wed Oct 06, 2021 4:10 am
Oh, I was thought the $30m number is for domestic.
No. When they announced the figures there was no indication the Russian Air Force was even interested in it... that is the export price... and more importantly the operational costs are supposed to be 5-6K per hour, which is comparable to early model F-16s and Gripen which are obviously not 5th gen fighters...
If they can manage to export with that price, even in the-least-option-possible form, it will really be market disrupter.
That is the idea... cheap to buy and cheap to operate so instead of buying 12 or 24 or 36 at most... you could buy 100 or 200... and actually operate them.
Countries kept the MiG-21 in service for so long because its low operational costs made it affordable to keep flying it, while heavier more expensive aircraft were not being flown so much because of their operational costs.
Imagine the F-35 in UK service at 90K pounds per flight hour operational costs... even rich western countries that love to piss away money on war can't afford that.
The Su-34 has entirely different front section, the radar, the cockpit, the landing gears, the tail string radar, the EW suite and other subsystems.
It is share only few parts with other planes in the platform. Therefor less cost sharing.
Very good point... it is an optimised strike model that does not share radar or avionics or engines, though in future they could use standard engines for all their Flankers just to save a little money as there are no specific requirements for the Su-34 that would prevent it benefiting from using new engines for Su-35s and also used on the Su-30s.