By Meena Kar
Moscow, Feb 1, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The fifth generation fighter plane of Russia, Sukhoi T-50 had been successful in completing its maiden flight this Friday. Russian experts have planned to launch several high profile weapons for revamping their artillery but have not been successful and so the test flight of this fighter plane had immense significance for them. According to the reports, the Russians, thrilled by the result of the test flight, consider that their Sukhoi T-50 would be able to challenge F-22, the fighter plane of United States. The success of the maiden flight also gave them the hope that it can be put to service in 2015.

Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of Russia was excited after the new fighter plane completed its maiden flight and referred to it as one of the ‘remarkable’ events. He said that the flight of the new Sukhoi T-50 is a great achievement for them but they have to improve on its engine. The spokesperson of Sukhoi said that the first flight had met their expectations. Everyone was satisfied with the performance of Sukhoi T-50, which was originally scheduled to embark on its maiden flight in 2007.

Several technical problems had earlier prevented the test flight of the fighter plane. However, it had finally made the flight last week. The news of the test flight made people curious about its feature but the officials did not provide much details of its designs and specifications. However, there were reports indicating that Russia had collaborated with Indian experts for making the new fighter plane that was in the sky for around forty-seven minutes.

India and Russia will ink an agreement tomorrow extending the current long-term ten-year defence cooperation between the two countries from 2011 to 2020. Opening the 9th meeting of Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) today, Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said the defence cooperation between the two countries is a ”key pillar” of the bilateral strategic partnership.

Before the plenary session of the meeting, Defence Minister A K Antony and his Russian counterpart held one-to-one talks at the Cultural Centre of the Armed Forces of Russian Federation, at the Suvorovoskaya Square in the city centre.

The one-to-one meeting between the two Defence Ministers was originally planned for 30 minutes, but it continued for over an hour.

Knowledgeable sources said the two sides exchanged views on all defence deals facing difficulties and hiccups mid-way their implementation, including the issue of price escalation of complete retrofitting of heavy aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and leasing of nuclear-powered submarine Nerpa to India for a period of ten years. ”I am confident that the work of the Commission will be successful and useful,” Mr Anatoly Serdyukov said.

”We will review its work and discuss future prospects of bilateral defence cooperation,” he added.

The two sides would sign a protocol on the results of the meeting tomorrow.