Sukhoi Su-38 Sukhoi Su-38 The Su-38L is a Russian agricultural aircraft, the first aircraft of this type to be designed and built by the Sukhoi Design Bureau civil aircraft section (Sukhoi Civil Aircraft (CJSC)). Design originally began in 1993 as a development of the Sukhoi Su-29 aerobatic aircraft. Development was suspended due to economic problems, and when restarted in 1998, the aircraft was redesigned, reducing the aircraft's size and replacing the originally planned M-14 radial engine with a LOM Praha 337S inline engine. The first prototype made its maiden flight on 27 July 2001, with a second flying by June 2002. As
Sukhoi Su-30MKI demonstrator and Su-30 program, being more advanced than the Su-30MK and the Chinese Su-30MKK/MK2. Russia's Defence Ministry was impressed with the type's performance envelope and ordered 30 Su-30SMs, a localised Su-30MKI, for the Russian Air Force. It features state of the art avionics developed by Russia, India and Israel for display, navigation, targeting and electronic warfare; France and South Africa provided other avionics. After two years of evaluation and negotiations, on 30 November 1996, India signed a US$1.462 billion deal with Sukhoi for 50 Russian-produced Su-30MKIs in five batches. The first batch were eight Su-30MKs, the basic version of Su-30.