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Su-7B fighter-bomber

In the second half of the '50s, the USSR armed forces scrapped its ground attack arm. Nevertheless, the Air Forces still had to provide battlefield support for the foot soldiers. The MiG-15 and MiG-17 were used as a stop-gap substitution for the Il-10, but that was a makeshift solution, and it was clear that frontline aviation needed a special-purpose strike aircraft. In this context, the Air Forces having put in a suggestion to this effect in 1957, the OKB-51 design bureau was given the job of developing a Su-7-based fighter-bomber, the Su-7B.

Officially, the go-ahead for development was given by a decree of the government of 31st July 1958. The building of the first prototype, C22-1, was completed at the end of 1958. In March, the aeroplane was flown with an AL-7F engine; fitted with an operational AL-7F-1, the aeroplane's first flight, with the design bureau's test pilot Ye.S. Solovyov at the controls, was performed on 24th April 1959. The manufacturer's tests of the aeroplane were completed in September 1959. State Integration Tests (SIT) were conducted between December 1959 and May 1960, with two prototypes used at the same time starting January 1960.

The Su-7B was put into production at plant No 126 in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in 1960, starting with production run 13; it was manufactured till late 1962. The first production Su-7Bs were put into service with 4th CEC of Air Forces in Lipetsk in the summer of 1960, the separate aviation regiment stationed at the Martynovka airfield being the first combat unit in the Air Forces to be rearmed with the Su-7B; from January to October 1961, the airfield was used to conduct service testing of the fighter-bomber. In the light of the testing results, a 24th January 1961 resolution of the government put Su-7B into service.

The SIT findings cited the Su-7B's low flight range as one of its major shortcomings. At the beginning of 1961, the second prototype, S22-2, underwent appropriate modification: its wings were fitted with fuel bays, with underwing pylons engineered to support external fuel tanks. The manufacturer's tests of the aeroplane were conducted between May and September 1961, with official tests held in October-November 1961. The variant with increased fuel tankage and improved avionics line-up was produced under the designation Su-7BM from 1963 to 1965. The Su-7BM fighter-bomber became the first aircraft of the Su-7 series to be exported: in 1964, the USSR sent the first flight of 12 Su-7BMs to Czechoslovakia. Besides Czechoslovakia, Su-7BMs were delivered to the Air Forces of Poland. This way, the USSR's closest Warsaw Treaty allies were armed with the same aircraft as the Air Forces at home.

For deliveries to other countries friendly to the USSR, the Design Bureau developed in the mid-90s a special export version of the aeroplane. The pilot production-run prototype of the Su-7BM export version had been built at the production plant by March 1966. After verification testing, the aeroplane was put in production in 1967 under the designation of Su-7BMK ("K" standing for "commercial" in Russian). Planes of this type were exported in the period between 1967 and 1971 to 7 countries: Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, India, the Korean People's Democratic Republic (North Korea) and United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria). In the inventory of the Air Forces of those Middle East states, the aeroplanes were deployed in combat operations during the Arab-Israeli wars and hostilities of 1967-73, and in India's Air Force, during the Indo-Pakistan conflict of 1971.