How the Su-33 took the Flanker to sea

What makes the Su-33 special

Full Su-33 specifications

Baseline note: these figures describe the production Su-33 as delivered to Russian Naval Aviation and as flown from Admiral Kuznetsov — single-seat, two Saturn AL-31F3 turbofans, N001K radar, canards, folding wings and folding tailplanes — because that is the only mark that ever reached a squadron. Deltas for the T-10K prototypes and pre-production machines of 1987–1990 and for the abandoned side-by-side Su-27KUB / Su-33UB of 1999 are in grey. Figures reflect sources available on 3 September 2026. Two warnings belong above the table rather than beneath it. First, this aeroplane is defined by a number that is not in any specification: Kuznetsov has no catapult, so every figure below that depends on take-off weight is capped not by the airframe but by 105 or 195 metres of steel deck and a bow ramp. The 33,000 kg maximum take-off weight is a runway number; at sea the aircraft launches several tonnes lighter, and the fuel and ordnance it gives up are the real specification. Second, the widely mirrored claim that Russia operates "40+" or even 48 Su-33s — it appears in the English Wikipedia infobox and in the tables copied from it — is arithmetically impossible: only about two dozen production aircraft were ever built, and three have been destroyed. Any source quoting a fleet in the forties has multiplied a notional squadron establishment rather than counted airframes. The Su-27, Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35 are separate aircraft with their own pages; nothing here should be read across to them.

Armament & payload

The Su-33 was armed as a fleet interceptor and never properly rearmed as anything else

The Su-33 carries twelve hardpoints and up to about 6,500 kg of stores, which sounds generous until you notice what it is allowed to hang on them. Its weapons control system is essentially the early Su-27’s, so the missile inventory is the R-27 family and the R-73, and nothing newer: the R-77 that arms the Su-30, Su-34 and Su-35 has never been integrated, because the N001K cannot provide the mid-course datalink it needs. There is no integrated anti-ship missile, no anti-radiation missile and no guided air-to-surface weapon of any kind — the Kh-41 Moskit was studied and never fitted, and the Kh-31 and Kh-25MP that appear in some Western reference tables are not evidenced in service. That left the aircraft an air-defence fighter with a secondary capability to drop dumb bombs.

The one meaningful change came in September 2016, when at least six aircraft received the Gefest & T SVP-24 computing system before sailing for Syria. It gave iron bombs a release solution good enough that the Su-33’s combat debut, on 15 November 2016, could be flown with 500 kg weapons rather than nothing. It is a revealing upgrade: rather than integrate a guided weapon, Russia made the unguided ones accurate enough, because that could be done without replacing the radar. Loadouts on this aircraft are governed less by the pylons than by the ramp: a launch from one of the 105 m positions caps take-off weight near 28 tonnes, and the fuel almost always wins that argument over the ordnance.

Sourcing caveat: Russia has never published a weapons clearance document for the Su-33, and the type flew barely two months of combat operations. Missile fits above follow Sukhoi and Russian Ministry of Defence material and photographs of the 2016 deployment; the air-to-surface entries deliberately record what could not be corroborated as well as what could, because several widely reprinted tables list weapons for this aircraft that no Russian source claims for it.

Variants

Two dozen aeroplanes, one abandoned trainer, and a Chinese fighter built from a prototype Russia never sold

The Su-33 exists because of a decision taken in 1981 that had nothing to do with aerodynamics. The Soviet Navy’s next carrier was to have catapults; the catapults were cancelled, and a bow ramp was substituted. Everything that distinguishes this aircraft from an Su-27 follows from that: the canards, the enlarged wing with its double-slotted flaps, the twin-wheel nose leg, the hook, the shortened tail cone, the folding wings and folding tailplanes, the probe. Design work began under Konstantin Marbyshev in 1984, ramp trials had already started at the NITKA shore facility in the Crimea in August 1982, and Viktor Pugachyov flew the first T-10K on 17 August 1987. On 1 November 1989 he put the second prototype down on the deck of the carrier then named Tbilisi — the first conventional arrested landing by a Soviet aeroplane on a Soviet ship.

Then the Soviet Union ended. The follow-on carriers were cancelled or sold, the sister ship Varyag went to China as a casino and came back as Liaoning, and Sukhoi built about two dozen aircraft instead of the several hundred a proper carrier fleet would have needed. Formal acceptance did not come until 31 August 1998, seven years after the aircraft was in effect already in service. The aircraft that resulted is a strange object: superb in the specific thing it was made for — getting a very large fighter off a very short deck and back on again — and obsolete in almost everything else, because the sensors and weapons were frozen at the 1980s Su-27 standard and never unfrozen.

The most consequential variant is not Russian. In 2001 Shenyang bought the unfinished T-10K-3, an early pre-production airframe, from Ukraine, which had inherited the NITKA facility and its contents. Russian-Chinese talks for the real thing ran in parallel and collapsed: Rosoboronexport wanted a minimum order of about fifty aircraft for some 2.5 billion dollars to justify restarting the line, with two machines first for evaluation; Moscow had by then discovered that China’s J-11B was an unlicensed reworking of the Su-27SK, and Beijing judged the terms uneconomic. A last unsuccessful Russian offer was made in March 2009. By then the J-15 had been under development for years, and it flew on 31 August 2009. Russia sold nothing and lost the design anyway.

T10-3, T10-24 and T10-25 (1982–1984, 3 conversions)

Early Su-27 airframes used at the NITKA shore complex at Saki in the Crimea to prove ramp launch, canards and arrested recovery. Nikolai Sadovnikov made the first ramp take-off on 28 August 1982; the flat ramp was reprofiled into a true ski-jump as a direct result of what those flights showed.

T-10K-1 and T-10K-2 (1987, 2 built)

The first purpose-built naval prototypes, with canards, folding wings, twin nosewheel and hook. First flight 17 August 1987 by Viktor Pugachyov; the second flew on 22 December 1987 and made the first deck landing on 1 November 1989. Accounts of the fate of the first airframe differ and none is well documented; it did not enter the carrier trials programme.

T-10K-3 to T-10K-9 (1989–1990, 7 pre-production)

Pre-series machines used for carrier qualification, weapons trials and the 1989–1990 deck work in which 227 sorties and 35 landings were flown in three weeks. T-10K-3 was left unfinished in Ukraine and sold to China in 2001.

Su-27K, from 1998 Su-33 (1990–1996, about 24 production aircraft)

The only production mark, built by KnAAPO at Komsomolsk-on-Amur. Seven rolled out in 1990–1991, state acceptance trials passed in 1994, formal entry into service 31 August 1998 under the new designation. All served with the 279th Independent Shipborne Fighter Aviation Regiment at Severomorsk-3.

Su-27KUB / Su-33UB (first flight 29 April 1999, 1 prototype)

A radically different aeroplane despite the designation: side-by-side seating in a widened forward fuselage, a larger wing and tailplanes, revised slats. Intended as a deck trainer with a combat role and pitched as a multi-role naval strike aircraft. Flown by Pugachyov and Sergey Melnikov. No production; the airframe survives as a testbed and the programme was abandoned.

Su-33 modernisation, first stage (2016, at least 6 aircraft)

Gefest & T SVP-24 sighting and computing system fitted ahead of the Syrian deployment, giving unguided bombs near-precision accuracy. A second stage promising new engines and sensors was announced by Naval Aviation chief Major General Igor Kozhin and has not visibly happened.

Su-33 re-engining (2017, 18 aircraft planned)

The United Engine Corporation restarted AL-31F series 3 production to re-engine the survivors, the first batch delivered in 2017. An earlier 2010 proposal for the more powerful AL-31F-M1 at 132 kN was not taken up on this type.

Su-33 export proposals to China and India (2006–2009, none built)

China negotiated for about 50 aircraft at roughly 2.5 billion dollars, with two for evaluation; talks stalled in 2006 over the J-11B intellectual-property dispute and a final offer failed in March 2009. India assessed the type for Vikramaditya and chose the MiG-29K instead, citing outdated avionics and the Su-33’s sheer size on a smaller deck.

Shenyang J-15 Feisha (China, first flight 31 August 2009; 70-plus built)

Developed from the T-10K-3 bought from Ukraine in 2001, combined with J-11B avionics and Chinese systems, with more composite structure and a lower landing speed. First deck landing on Liaoning 25 November 2012. The catapult-capable J-15T and the J-15D electronic-warfare variant became operational in October 2024 and now fly from the catapult carrier Fujian — the Su-33 airframe finally getting the launch system it was designed around and then denied. The J-15 has its own history and is not covered further here.

Su-25UTG (companion type, not a Su-33 variant)

The hooked, unarmed Frogfoot trainer that shares the deck and the regiment, used for carrier qualification because no two-seat Su-33 was ever built. Its existence is the practical consequence of the Su-33UB’s cancellation.

Closing note, in place of an operators chart. There is only one operator and the fleet is too small for a bar chart to tell anyone anything, so the numbers are here instead. About 24 production Su-33s were built, all for the Russian Navy’s 279th Independent Shipborne Fighter Aviation Regiment at Severomorsk-3; roughly 17 to 19 airframes remain on charge and the 2017 re-engining programme was sized for 18, of which considerably fewer are likely to be flyable. The frequently repeated figures of "40+" or 48 in service are inventions derived from squadron establishment tables and cannot be true of an aircraft built in the twenties. Three have been lost: Major General Timur Apakidze was killed at an air display in Pskov oblast on 17 July 2001; an aircraft was lost in the North Atlantic on 5 September 2005 when an arrestor cable parted, the pilot ejecting safely and the wreck later destroyed on the seabed to keep it from recovery; and one was lost in the Mediterranean on 3 December 2016 when a cable again failed on a second landing attempt after a strike over Syria, the pilot again ejecting unhurt. The Russian Ministry of Defence announced that loss on 5 December, and many sources date the accident itself to the 5th; a MiG-29K from the same ship had been lost on 13 November after running out of fuel while the deck was cleared following an earlier cable failure, and after the second accident much of the air group was moved ashore to Hmeimim. Over the whole 2016–17 deployment the air group flew about 420 sorties against a claimed 1,252 targets. As for the ship: Admiral Kuznetsov has not sailed since 2017. Her refit lost the floating dock PD-50, which sank in October 2018 and dropped a 70-tonne crane through the flight deck; a fire in December 2019 killed two men; another broke out in December 2022. In July 2025 Russian reporting, led by Izvestia, stated that repair and modernisation had been suspended and that scrapping was under consideration, with senior figures including the former Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Sergei Avakyants arguing publicly that large carriers are no longer worth having. As of 3 September 2026 no formal decision to withdraw or scrap her has been published, and Russia has previously announced repairs resuming and then not resumed them — but the practical position is a carrier aircraft with no carrier.

From carrier prototype to combat deployment

Twelve stories about the Su-33

The Su-33 in pictures

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The Su-33 in motion

A hand-picked Su-33 video feature is coming soon. In the meantime, explore the photo gallery above and the stories from the deck of Admiral Kuznetsov.

The Su-33 in motion

yolkhere — one of the most-watched Su-33 films on YouTube.

Where the Su-33 flies

A brief, single deployment

The Su-33 has fought in only one campaign. During the 2016–17 Admiral Kuznetsov deployment off Syria, its jets flew the type’s first-ever combat missions, striking ground targets. It has no confirmed air-to-air combat record. These figures are best read as a record of a small fleet on a single, difficult cruise rather than a sustained combat history — and casualty and sortie claims from that deployment should be treated with caution.

Compare the combat record of every military aircraft. Figures as of July 2026.

Everything people ask about the Su-33

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Every fact, checked

• The AviationistContemporary reporting on the December 2016 arrestor-cable landing loss off Syria.
• USNI NewsUS Naval Institute coverage of the Kuznetsov carrier-fighter losses in 2016.
• The National InterestAnalysis of Su-33 production numbers, navalisation and STOBAR limitations.
• Global MilitaryReference specifications and operator summary for the Su-33 Flanker-D.
• Military FactoryAirframe dimensions, weights and armament reference data.
• TASSRussian official statement on the December 2016 carrier landing accident.
• Russia BeyondContext on Russian carrier operations and the 2016 deployment losses.