The first Su-57 fifth-generation fighters with the advanced second-stage engine will be assembled in 2022, Head of Russia’s state tech corporation Rostec Sergei Chemezov said on Monday. This reported by TASS.

"We continue work on the second-stage engine. <...> And I hope that somewhere in 2022 the engines will be made and mounted on the planes and we will launch their serial production in the next few years," the Rostec chief said.

Russia is currently holding the flight tests of the second-stage engine aboard the aircraft, Chemezov said. "Several prototypes of the new engine have already been manufactured. Now work is underway to finalize its assemblies and systems."

The second-stage engine codenamed Item 30 will be serial-produced at the UEC-Ufa Engine Production Association (part of the United Engine Corporation within Rostec). The Ufa enterprise earlier manufactured the first prototype of the second-stage engine that entered flight tests in December 2017. It was earlier reported that the serial deliveries of Su-57 fifth-generation fighters fitted out with the new engines would begin in 2023. The second-stage engine will allow the Su-57 fighter to develop supersonic speed without using an afterburner.