In Komsomolsk-on-Amur, the 9th prototype of a fifth-generation fighter T-50 (T-50-9), created as part of the program of the advanced aviation complex of front-line aviation (PAK FA), was launched into the air, Lenta.ru reported with ref to a source in Russian military structures. Ground tests of aircraft equipment began in autumn 2016.

“The new fighter took to the air at the end of April, in the near future it will be transferred to the testing center of the Air Force. It is equipped with a full set of equipment and can carry all the standard weapons, “- said the source.

In the autumn of 2016, the Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia, Yury Borisov, announced the beginning of testing the equipment of the 9th aircraft, T-50.

The first flight of a heavy fighter of the fifth generation T-50 took place on January 29, 2009. As part of the test program, T-50 must make about two thousand flights.

The delivery of the first serial aircraft in the Air Force repeatedly shifted. Currently, it is expected in 2018, and the readiness of the first unit on new machines – until the end of 2020.

Now the available prototypes of the aircraft are tested in the Gromov Flight Research Institute in the Moscow region of Zhukovsky. Some of the experimental prototypes were transferred to the armed forces and tested at the 929th Chkalov State Flight Test Center in the Astrakhan Region.

Own flight T-50-9 from Komsomolsk-on-Amur, which took place from May 10 to May 12, through the whole country for further tests at the airfield of the Flight Research Institute. MM Gromov in the Moscow region of Zhukovsky, allowed, finally, to take pictures of this aircraft.