The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) certificated the SaM146 series production by the NPO Saturn joint stock company on 2 April 2012.

The programme of development of the SaM146 engine to power Sukhoi Superjet 100 airliners is being run by the PowerJet joint venture set up on a parity basis in July 2004 by Russia’s NPO Saturn association and French company Snecma, a Safran subsidiary. The French company is responsible for the core, control system, powerplant integration and flight tests, while Saturn for the ‘cold’ segment of the engine, final assembly and ground trials. In June 2010, the engine’s baseline model was certificated by EASA and then by the IAC Aircraft Registry, which not only guarantees high quality of the product, but also opens up new export vistas for it.

The 121st Aircraft Repair Plant (121st ARP), a subsidiary of Aviaremont JSC, continues to upgrade Sukhoi Su-25 ground attack aircraft in service with the Russian Air Force. During the traditional open day at Kubinka airbase in the Moscow Region in late March 2012, one could see more Su-25SM aircraft upgraded by 121st ARP and put to acceptance tests. Unlike the previous Su-25SMs, these ones sport the new grey camouflage pattern RusAF has adopted recently.

The Irkut corporation on 22 March 2012 issued an official statement about having landed a Russian Air Force order for a batch of Su-30SM twin-seat supermanoeuvrable multirole fighters. The contract to this effect was signed by Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and Irkut President Alexei Fyodorov. Under the government-awarded contract, Irkut will have supplied RusAF until 2015 with 30 Sukhoi Su-30SM aircraft, a derivative of the Su-30MKI the corporation makes for export.

A most large-scale Russian Air Force re-equipment programme is the deliveries of advanced Sukhoi Su-34 multirole combat aircraft replacing the previous-generation Su-24M tactical bombers.

By tradition, the Sukhoi company’s Novosibirsk Aircraft Production Association (NAPO) named after Valery Chkalov hands its aircraft over at year-end. During 2011, the plant made six Su-34 bombers under the five-year contract for 32 aircraft of the type, signed late in 2008. This is a 50% increase over the previous year’s output. Four of them (serials 01, 02, 03 and 04) were ferried from Novosibirsk to the Baltimore airfield near Voronezh on 12 December 2011, having become the first Su-34s available to the air base that is among the largest air bases of the Russian Air Force. 10 days later, on 22 December, they were followed by two more bombers (side numbers 05 and 10) that had been given a new camouflage pattern (dark grey top and blue bottom). All Su-34s will be painted like that from now on.

According to the Salut Gas Turbine Research and Production Centre’s Director General Vladislav Masalov, the company manufactured about a hundred AL-31F turbofans in several variants in 2011. Over 75% of them, in the AL-31FN version in the first place, were exported. The rest were made for the Russian Defence Ministry. To fit the aircraft in service with the Russian Air Force, the company has for several years supplied AL-31F Series 42 engines upgraded by the in-house design bureau and known as AL-31F-M1.