Those self defense missiles are indeed a great development and would go a long way in protecting the PAK-DA's. The number of defensive missiles and their range might have some limitations though?
They have shown designs of vertical tubes for aircraft launching weapons... such a grid array of launchers would be perfect for an aircraft with a large upper surface like a flying wing type bomber... and their shorter range would allow them to be smaller which would also mean they could be carried in much greater numbers than if they had greater range.
Having dorsal mounted missile launchers would leave the weapon bays free for ordinance... in the same way those wing mounted weapon bays on the Su-57 allow two self defence missiles be carried while leaving the two main weapon bays free for other ordinance like longer ranged AAMs or air to ground weapons.
My hope is that they would come up with a similar design philosophy that was employed by Sukhoi with their Su-57. Its a fine balance between stealth, speed and maneuverability.
The difference here is that manouverability is not so important, and speed is not really that important either... but low drag can be related to stealth and flight range and payload capacity would be important for a PAK DA.
If they can balance out all the compromises in the PAK-DA design it should be great, but it will be an enormous challenge to get it right.
Serial production of the Blackjack means they can take longer to get it right and could look at more upcoming technologies we have no idea about to add to the design further down the track.
A subsonic stealth bomber is so mainstream(I lost interest the moment it was announced not being supersonic) I want an aircraft to change aerial warfare like a hypersonic interceptor. I dont want Mig-31s and Tu-160s to be the peak design and the last things Tupolev and Mikoyan to be known for designing.
They have a supersonic bomber... they are the only ones to develop a practical supersonic strategic bomber... except it is a cruise missile carrier of course...
But a flying wing optimises flight performance minimises drag and makes stealth easier and more natural to achieve, and if they do it properly its flight range will be excellent and its weapon capacity should be very good making it an affordable and very capable platform.
Well there was a lot of politics involved between the different OKB's. At the time Mikoyan and Tupelov was heavily favoured above Sukhoi and Myasishchev. In fact much of what eventually became the Tu-160 was actually a Myasishchev design. Not to mention all the great things Sukhoi achieved!
And also what Sukhoi didn't achieve... wasn't their T-4 mach 3 bomber design handed to Tupolev, who poured cold water on the idea (because even at the time mach 3 bombers would not have been safe, but would have burned fuel like nobodies business... making them very expensive to operate).
Fast bombers sound like a good idea till you look at the design compromises you need to make to allow them to be low drag enough and of course all the engine power needed to achieve that sort of performance cuts into payload capacity and fuel capacity.
The Mig-35 is great and all that, but it is yesterday's tech.
I think it will be a good stepping aircraft for their new 5th gen light fighter they have been working on, and the new tech they put in their new 5th gen fighter can improve the performance of the MiG-35s they put into service... things like 5th gen engines in the RD-33 size and weight class with perhaps 12 tons of thrust instead of 9 tons they currently produce.
With the US putting F-15s and potentially F-16s back in to production why would you be concerned about yesterdays tech... the MiG-35 aerodynamically is still a good platform... as is the new Flanker models with small refinements and new engines they will remain formidable opponents for some time.
but Mig should be working on a Mig-41 prototype to replace the Mig-31's - hopefully we will see it soon. Will it be hypersonic? I doubt it - esp if you want something to perform CAP. A cheaper and more logical way is hypersonic air-air-missiles.
The MiG-31 is and the MiG-41 will be a pure interceptor so speed is a very important component... the faster you can fly the further away from its targets you can intercept a threat aircraft or missile.... I suspect they will be aiming for Mach 4-4.5 flight speed, which will extend the flight range of any missile it happens to launch, and should allow operations at much higher altitudes which will also extend weapon range... the MiG-25RB could drop bombs using an early version of the Gefest & T system... they had special heat resistant FAB bombs and fuses made for them... perhaps a Mach 4 bomber that could release its bombs several hundred kms away from its target from very high altitude out of reach of most interceptors and long range SAMs...
S-350, S-400, S-500 based air to air missiles would be another interesting feature... the 60km range and 150km range S-350 9M96 missiles are ARH and already are small and compact without lots of high drag wings and fins... for internal weapons bays and launched from 30km altitude at mach 4 who knows how that would effect their max effective range... S-500 will be a substantial missile so the energy its rocket motor would need to use to get off the ground and accelerated to high speed and high altitude would be enormous... launching it from high altitude and high flight speed would increase its performance spectacularly against air and space based targets too...
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They might decide to just pause the project halfway through..
Realistically speaking, the Pak-DP will probably get here in 2036 or 2040 perhaps.. Unless ofcourse Russia badly needs it. Then it will be sped up. Nuclear submarines and ICBMs are actually completed before the set time in Russia because they maintain Russia's threats to the US and NATO..