India demonstrates Su-30MKI/BrahMos, Vietnam looks but cannot buy yet

India has successfully tested the interoperability between the Su-30MKI and the BrahMos missile, in the presence of “several potential partners”.

India demonstrates Su-30MKI and BrahMos features

The Indian Air Force has just successfully performed a demonstration flight of the Su-30-MKI fighter jet with the BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missile - the world's fastest anti-ship missile jointly developed by Moscow and New Dehli for the Indian Air Force.

It is known that the BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missile was manufactured by the Russian-Indian joint venture BrahMos Aerospace, established in 1998. The joint venture was named by combining the names of the two rivers Brahmaputra and Moskva, so the letter M in the word BrahMos is always capitalized.

The basic BrahMos missile is 8.4m long, 0.6m in diameter, has a range of 300km, a launch weight of 3 tons, and a warhead weighing 300kg. Its biggest advantage is its supersonic speed of Mach3 - a speed that no other missile can match, making it the fastest missile in the world.

Currently, BrahMos has been developed with a full range of launch vehicles, including air-launched versions (Su-30MKI), launched from mobile vehicles on the coast (coast-to-ship), from surface warships (ship-to-ship) to submarines under the sea (submarine-to-ship).

For the navy, the BrahMos missile is perfectly suited as the main offensive weapon of both Russian and Indian submarines and surface ships, as a parallel option to the famous Russian Kalibr-PL/NK system (export version Klub).

India's coastal defense missile systems (shore-to-ship missile systems) are also using BrahMos missiles as an optimal choice, because of its 300km attack range, flexible navigation ability and the world's fastest attack speed.

The supersonic ground-to-ground attack variant of BrahMos has been developed into three versions, including Block I, Block II and Block III, capable of flying at speeds from Mach 5 to Mach 7, with an appearance similar to the US X-51A Waverider supersonic missile, completely different from other versions.

Su-30MKI successfully tested the interaction between aircraft and BrahMos missile

According to information from the press service of BrahMos Aerospace, the demonstration flight of the Su-30MKI fighter equipped with BrahMos missile on June 25 was essentially a test of the interoperability between the aircraft and its firepower system.

Representatives of BrahMos Aerospace announced that they have successfully demonstrated the compatibility of the most advanced anti-ship missile BrahMos with a Su-30 fighter jet. This will be a good premise for a successful test launch of this type of missile in the near future.

Indian Defense Ministry leaders stressed that today's successful flight, aimed at testing the direct connection of the aircraft with the fire department, would help the program to develop the air-launched version of BrahMos take a big step towards success.

The BrahMos Aerospace corporation's statement further revealed that the BrahMos air-to-ship and air-to-surface missiles, weighing 2.5 tons (the basic version is BrahMos A) will be launched from Su-30 fighters in the next few months.

It is known that the test flight of Su-30MKI took place at the testing ground of the country's leading aircraft manufacturer, HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) in Nasik. The test was attended and encouraged by the country's top defense officials.

In addition, the famous name PJ-10 BrahMos has attracted the close attention of "a number of countries in the world that own Russian Su-30 fighters and want to buy the most advanced anti-ship weapons for this type of aircraft" - a representative of BrahMos Aerospace noted.

According to Baodatviet