The Russian Aerospace Forces ferried the first serial Su-57 fifth-generation fighter jet to its home base on January 29, 2021. “The first serial multirole fifth-generation fighter Su-57 was manufactured and handed over to the Russian Ministry of Defense under a state contract for the supply of 76 aircraft,” the state-owned United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) announced. The fighter jets will equip three Russian air regiments by 2027.
The Russian Air Force had taken delivery of this first aircraft in December 2020. Produced in the Sukhoi facilities of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, in the Russian Far East, it flew all across the country to be delivered to the Lipetsk Air Base located about 400 kilometers (250 miles) southeast of Moscow. The base houses the combat training center of the Russian Air Force. Thus, this first production Su-57 will integrate an advanced training unit.
Instructors will be able to acclimatize to the new aircraft before they will in turn start training pilots. In total, five stealth fighters should be delivered to the training center by the end of 2021. The first batch of fighters will be assigned to an operational combat unit in 2022.
Concomitantly with the first deployment, UAC also announced a ramp-up of the Su-57 production output. The first serial production aircraft was completed in 2019 but crashed later the same year.