MOSCOW: Based on feedback from potential buyers, Russia’s Su-75 Checkmate single-engine light tactical fighter jet underwent technical changes allowing to optimize its costs, TASS has learned from Rostec.
“Rostec’s United Aircraft Corporation received feedback from potential buyers regarding the Checkmate project. Apart from receiving additional requirements, expressed by potential buyers, an effort was made to optimize its cost and analyze certain technical solutions. This allowed to boost its competitive performance and commercial appeal, as well as to reduce technical risks while creating this domestically-made single-engine aircraft,” Rostec said.
The company said that because of the aircraft’s modular design and the use of modern digital technologies, technical changes could be introduced within the shortest possible timeframe.
Director of Russia’s Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation (FSCTC) Dmitry Shugayev earlier told TASS that FSCTC was consulting with some foreign customers on cooperation as part of the Checkmate project. Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov also said that foreign customers were displaying their interest in the fighter. In his words, Russian engineers had made adjustments to the aircraft’s layout, control and armament systems on the basis of their feedback.
The Checkmate light tactical fighter developed by the Sukhoi Aircraft Company (part of the United Aircraft Corporation within Rostec) was unveiled at the MAKS 2021 international airshow that ran in the suburban town of Zhukovsky outside Moscow. The new combat plane’s foreign presentation took place at the Dubai Airshow 2021 in the United Arab Emirates. The new combat plane created by Russia’s state tech giant Rostec at its own initiative is a derivative of the Su-57 fifth-generation fighter.
In July 2023, it was reported that the aircraft was patented by the UAC in three versions: single-seat, two-seat combat trainer and uncrewed.