THE SECOND PROTOTYPE OF Sukhoi's Su-34 strike aircraft, pictured recently at Novosibisrsk, shows that a small plug has been inserted in the nose section just forward of the canopy. The plug may have been necessary to make space for the terrain-following radar. The dialectric nose-cone area on the aircraft is also clearly visible. The aircraft does not have the Sorbtsiya-S jamming pods, nor the MAK-UL-type missile-launch warning system seen on the Su-27IB/Su-34 testbed being flown from Zhukovsky flight-test research centre.
Source: Flight International