Maksim covers aerospace developments in Central Asia for Aviation Week. He has worked for Russia's Air Transport Observer magazine and was in charge of several ATO sister aerospace publications after working for the Moscow-based CAST defense think tank.
Maksim has a degree in international relations from MGIMO University, Moscow.
MOSCOW — Russia is boosting defense cooperation with India, signing several contracts during the visit of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to New Delhi. The two sides finally settled the price increase for modernization of the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier. Russian officials would not reveal the revised price for the ex-Admiral Gorshkov, but Indian press reports quote a figure of $2.33 billion. In 2004 India agreed to take the 44,500-ton carrier for free, paying only $800 million for modernization at Russia’s Severodvinsk-based Sevmash facility.
Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi has started flight-testing the fifth-generation T-50 fighter developed in the PAK FA program. The first prototype made a 47-min. maiden flight from the airfield at Sukhoi’s Knaapo facility in Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Jan. 29. The fighter is slated to replace Russian air force Su-27s beginning in 2015.
David A Fulghum (Washington), Maxim Pyadushkin (Moscow), Douglas Barrie (Singapore)
Russia has begun flying a stealthy fifth-generation fighter to rival the U.S. F-22, but Western analysts question whether Sukhoi can develop and deliver the aircraft by 2015 as promised. Sukhoi’s T-50, which made its 47-min. first flight on Jan. 29 from the KnAAPO facility in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, is the prototype of the PAK FA “future front-line aircraft,” the first new-generation fighter for the Russian air force since the Su-27 Flanker entered service in 1984. India plans to co-fund development and co-produce the new aircraft.
