5th gen light mulltirole fighter/Mikoyan LMFS

Isos wrote:Any fighter can be used to intercept enemy fighters. But that doesn't make them real interceptors.

GarryB wrote:Identical role and mission?

Of course there is no difference in role or operational use from a MiG-25 and an F-15... but does that make sense...  Which model F-15 is similar to the MiG-25R, or indeed which model MiG-25 equates to the F-15C?

The MiG-25 is an interceptor and a recon aircraft and a bomber in the RB version but they are specific models and honestly they are vastly better than the F-15 in any of those roles. The F-15 is a multipurpose FIGHTER that can intercept but is not that great for the job.

To be clear: I am not saying the F-15 is a specialised interceptor, which is something obvious. I am saying that in the whole USAF inventory it is the most similar plane to the MiG-25 and the only one that can dash at similar speeds (2.5 M vs 2.83 M) as demanded per classical interceptor role, which added to big missile load and powerful radar makes it well adapted for such missions. Such similar capacities and design generation make it no wonder that it can be externally similar to the MiG-25, which was the original point of Garry.

You seem to be assuming there will only be one version...

You could say I assume it, if anything because I can't remember any plane done in two versions (flat w/o AB vs round nozzle with). But I don't make it a point of contention.

You seem to be confused... If MiG won the MFI programme then why did Sukhoi make the PAK FA?

Because MFI got cancelled. The program itself, after having lost a whole decade without financing, I assume.

The fact that they clearly didn't make a full sized aircraft prototype suggests that single engine model didn't win anything.

Maybe you are talking about some other program?

What I was trying to say is that there are not manned aircraft that can fly at low altitude at mach 3 so expecting an unmanned aircraft to fly at mach 3 at low altitude is unreasonable. There are manned aircraft that can fly at 1,400km/h at low altitude so it is no great leap to suggest an unmanned aircraft might be able to do the same.

Ok, I agree.

But doesn't that rip your whole argument apart... you want a light fighter and by your definition the reason a twin engined model can't be used is because MiG-29s have a dry weight of 14 tons which is too heavy... well this is a single engined aircraft that doesn't have the extra weight of vertical tails or a cockpit and it is even heavier in terms of dry weight by ratio with the F-16 with the X-47B which is the US equivalent you seem so keen to use as yard sticks.

I don't see it does. Okhotnik is not a fighter so TWR parameters and many other have nothing to do with what you need from a fighter. BTW MiG-29 of course can be used as "Lo" side of the mix, it is only less optimal than what I propose IMHO, that is the bottom line.

Why do you think the Su-57 is going to be flying around the place at supersonic speed?

Because VKS, patent, designers, pilots and experts say it. If you are interested I can look for sources.

You say they will work together but think the Su-57 will "cover" the S-70... if they are working together wouldn't they be covering each other?

Not necessarily...

Sounds like you are assuming the Su-30 is used for ground attack, which might be the case for a country like India with no Su-34s, but for Russia the Su-30 is more like an upgraded Su-27.

It is a multirole plane. Weapons operator is normally preferred for ground attack operations, pure fighters in VKS are single seater.

No it doesn't.

This is physics Garry

The S-400 can engage aircraft moving at mach 3.5 out to 400km...

I would be happy to see some source saying that, it would be revolutionary to me.

No it doesn't. The S-400 can deal with targets moving at 4.8km/s... and targets moving that fast does reduce the engagement range to about 60km, though partially because objects moving at that speed are ballistic and therefore have fairly steep trajectories which also effects engagement range.

It depends on the overlapping of SAM systems. Those speed and range figures you mention are not against aerodynamic (manoeuvring) but ballistic targets. It is commonly known that max range in the S-400 is not meant against fighter targets. If it did, it could reach way more than that against slow targets.

The point is that the serious lack of air defence missiles that HATO is equipped with means sending up fake targets and drones actually makes a lot of sense for Russia... very cheap simple subsonic cruise missiles... perhaps equipped with MALD type decoy rockets like the ones they have for their 122mm rocket pods, would distract the air defences from the hypersonic high altitude and stealthy low altitude attackers they also launch.

Indeed. I agree NATO AD as of now is not comparable to Russia's, because they have never had to fear massive attacks. In any case they are more than aware of their vulnerability, specially against drones on the one hand and hypersonic weapons on the other. Not that they are very good with the rest of threats either, but these vulnerabilities are easier to sell to the politicians. And as the tensions against Russia are ramped up, they will try (they are trying already) to boost their defensive capabilities. Russia should not think the West cannot spend some money and focus in AD if they see it necessary, even when their resources are diminishing fast they are still wealthy and technologically advanced nations.

I was one thing I found amusing with HATO expectations during the Cold war... the Soviets were considered idiots and would send in forces and it was only after those forces were soundly beaten by HATO air power or whatever that they would then meet the threat and use their air defence capacity... it always seemed they would hold back their real force structure until they were forced to by successful HATO attacks... they were never going to use modern combined forces to start off with...

Misconceptions needed to preserve the Western illusion of superiority. Russians are backwards, they design their planes for WVR because they are so bad in BVR, they plan a defensive warfare and no active attack of NATO strategic depth etc etc... it is plain silly, wishful thinking. When they run their simulations considering the rival to be rational, blue gets their asses kicked hard.

Whether manned or unmanned the first attack missions will face a largely unknown defence, so why not send in unmanned attackers to begin with... the US sends in cruise missiles first to degrade the command structure and the air defence capacity by taking out the big long range SAMs... why would Russia not try to do the same?

Yes of course.

And most high priority attacks of that type would be suicidal for a manned platform most of the time... it should be done by a hypersonic missile...

Agreed

Changing speed altitude and direction is much easier at subsonic speeds than at supersonic speeds and that is the best way to reduce the performance of a BVR missile... you are never going to out run them and the faster you go the less you can manouver...

This was the topic of a past conversation of us. I argued back then that the main factor affecting the success chances of the attack is the speed difference between target and missile. Have you played paint ball? Didn't you find it funny how beginners tend to think they can out-run pellets? Think of the same effect with subsonic target vs. highly supersonic AAM. You can twist and turn all you want, you are almost a static target for the missile.

Could be launched from a torpedo tube and fly in international air space till it gets close to an economic or financial hub like London and then boom... or should I say whimper.

Billions of us would applaud the City being put out of business in such an elegant way  

Isn't it a similar size to the X-47B... which is about 6 tons empty weight... and about 20 tons MTOW.

S-70 is a bit bigger, but indeed the weight of the X-47B seems to support a weight in Okhotnik even below 10 t. It is important to have similar aircraft to compare, when you are missing official data...

The problem is that engines with the best thrust are expensive to buy and to maintain

Any modern fighter would use similarly advanced engines, be it twin or single

It has already been established it is a subsonic drone.

OK then. It is good to discuss with reasonable people  

Isos wrote:Anyway today an interceptor should be able to shoot down cruise missiles which would be the first things to fly above friendly territory and f15 doesn't have that capacity.
The only jet capable of that today is the mig-31.

Some F-16/18E/Fs with CFTs could also be modified for CM defense.
The USAF could theoretically pull out a few F-111 from storage:
The combination of persistence and supersonic dash performance, and large payload, provides the F-111 with the ability to cover inner zone patrol areas without tanker support, in an environment where its lack of close-in air combat agility is irrelevant. An F-111 can orbit on station 200 nautical miles from a runway for about 4 hours without refuelling, simply impossible for an F/A-18A or JSF. Retrofitting a suitable radar like an APG-79, APG-80 or APG-81, a JTIDS terminal and clearing the AMRAAM are relatively cheap given the return on investment, especially in reduced tanker demand and supersonic intercept capability against any fast bombers..
The US Air Force solution for outer zone cruise missile defence is the F-22A, which will exploit its supersonic persistence and large APG-77 radar to kill cruise missiles and delivery aircraft.
https://www.ausairpower.net/Analysis-Cruise-Missiles.html

Tsavo Lion wrote:

Isos wrote:Anyway today an interceptor should be able to shoot down cruise missiles which would be the first things to fly above friendly territory and f15 doesn't have that capacity.
The only jet capable of that today is the mig-31.

Some F-16/18E/Fs with CFTs could also be modified for CM defense.
The USAF could theoretically pull out a few F-111 from storage:
The combination of persistence and supersonic dash performance, and large payload, provides the F-111 with the ability to cover inner zone patrol areas without tanker support, in an environment where its lack of close-in air combat agility is irrelevant. An F-111 can orbit on station 200 nautical miles from a runway for about 4 hours without refuelling, simply impossible for an F/A-18A or JSF. Retrofitting a suitable radar like an APG-79, APG-80 or APG-81, a JTIDS terminal and clearing the AMRAAM are relatively cheap given the return on investment, especially in reduced tanker demand and supersonic intercept capability against any fast bombers..
The US Air Force solution for outer zone cruise missile defence is the F-22A, which will exploit its supersonic persistence and large APG-77 radar to kill cruise missiles and delivery aircraft.
https://www.ausairpower.net/Analysis-Cruise-Missiles.html

Nearly all of the remaining F-111 scraped.

There is nothing to bring back.

https://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=133

Shortly after the Royal Australian Air Force, the last operator of the F-111, retired its fleet in 2010, the aircraft stored at AMARG were moved into Type 4000 storage. What had once been several hundred F/FB-111s have nearly all been scrapped. The last of the nearly 260 C-141s stored in the desert was cut into sections and destroyed in place in early 20

There r many A-6/7s & S-3s that could also be modified- they can stay in the air for many hours & be adequately armed:
https://in.pinterest.com/pin/681662093570198938/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_A-6_Intruder#Specifications_(A-6E)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_A-7_Corsair_II#Specifications_(A-7E)
http://www.aircraftinformation.info/art_A7.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_S-3_Viking#Specifications_(S-3A)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_S-3_Viking#Retirement

http://www.flugzeuginfo.net/galleryphoto_en.php?photoid=11396

http://www.flugzeuginfo.net/galleryphoto_en.php?photoid=11393

Tsavo Lion wrote:

Isos wrote:Anyway today an interceptor should be able to shoot down cruise missiles which would be the first things to fly above friendly territory and f15 doesn't have that capacity.
The only jet capable of that today is the mig-31.

Some F-16/18E/Fs with CFTs could also be modified for CM defense.
The USAF could theoretically pull out a few F-111 from storage:
The combination of persistence and supersonic dash performance, and large payload, provides the F-111 with the ability to cover inner zone patrol areas without tanker support, in an environment where its lack of close-in air combat agility is irrelevant. An F-111 can orbit on station 200 nautical miles from a runway for about 4 hours without refuelling, simply impossible for an F/A-18A or JSF. Retrofitting a suitable radar like an APG-79, APG-80 or APG-81, a JTIDS terminal and clearing the AMRAAM are relatively cheap given the return on investment, especially in reduced tanker demand and supersonic intercept capability against any fast bombers..
The US Air Force solution for outer zone cruise missile defence is the F-22A, which will exploit its supersonic persistence and large APG-77 radar to kill cruise missiles and delivery aircraft.
https://www.ausairpower.net/Analysis-Cruise-Missiles.html

So, it means that actually the meagre number of combat capable F-22A is already stuck to provide a (very partial) coverage against a somewhat remote menace to mainland America.
All other solution seems me unrealistic also, the only valid one seems me to wait for F-15EX.

I am not saying the F-15 is a specialised interceptor, which is something obvious.

The F-15C is a specialised air superiority fighter used for BVR and WVR combat with enemy aircraft, there are three main MiG-25 types... none of which are intended for that role. Bomber interceptor, recon, and bomber types are the three MiG-25 types and Air Superiority Fighter and Strike aircraft are the two main F-15 types (F-15C and F-15E).

They look the same and can do some of the same things but they are different in use.

Such similar capacities and design generation make it no wonder that it can be externally similar to the MiG-25, which was the original point of Garry.

When the F-15 was being hurriedly designed it was believed the MiG-25 was a mach 3 F-15C type of air superiority fighter, so their method was to copy the basic layout and rely on superior US electronics and engines etc etc to make a better plane... the Mattel Foxbat...

They later found out that the MiG-25 was a pure interceptor intended to counter Mach 3 bombers like the Valkerie and later the SR-71 recon aircraft, and its speed was also used for developing recon and high altitude bomber versions.

You could say I assume it, if anything because I can't remember any plane done in two versions (flat w/o AB vs round nozzle with). But I don't make it a point of contention.

Well perhaps if the flat engine nozzle they developed and tested on a Flanker was more successful they might have fitted it to Su-34s, but I doubt they would have bothered on the Su-27SM3s and Su-30s and Su-35s.

It had a specific role and purpose which didn't apply to all the types they were using...

And it would be the same for drones... they might have some drones that are missile trucks that take off and orbit the airfield and a short range fighter like a MiG-29M2 might take off with external fuel tanks and just orbit with them using its radar to detect threats and targets and getting the drones to use up their missiles so the fighter can remain on station much longer with drones using up missiles and then landing for reloads instead of fighters.

The benefit would be that the drones could refuel the fighter in flight so the fighter with the expensive radar and IRST can remain on station longer, while the drones themselves wont need expensive radar or IRST and can just carry lots of fuel and lots of missiles and do the dog work relatively cheaply... they don't need stealth... stealth would just make them more expensive to buy and to operate... during training you could use one or two and cycle them, but in practise half the drones might just have extra fuel in their bomb bays because real conflict is 99% waiting and boredom with 1% of pure panic... so most of the first drones could be all fuel and perhaps two medium range missiles each and if an attack is detected they can refuel the fighter in the air and then land and be fuelled up and load up missiles... internal and external because they are not stealthy anyway and they can get back into the air in time to start shooting down the targets...

Because MFI got cancelled. The program itself, after having lost a whole decade without financing, I assume.

I thought it got cancelled because they changed their minds about an interceptor and wanted a more multifunction aircraft and it became the MFS programme... which the MiG design lost to the S-37 Berkut FSW fighter...

Because VKS, patent, designers, pilots and experts say it. If you are interested I can look for sources.

When we discussed penetrating enemy air defences you said the drone should be flying low and the Su-57 should be flying high... presumably supercruising too?

In such a case the low flying drone of any type would be subsonic unless you plan on carrying an enormous amount of fuel in a very very low drag shape...

Any drone of any shape will have more chance of flying transonic at medium and high altitudes.

For air superiority and CAP roles flying high and supercruising makes sense but not if you are outrunning your own support aircraft...

Not necessarily...

Not suggesting the Su-57 pilot should risk his aircraft and life to protect the drone, but a dead drone is a useless drone.

It is a multirole plane. Weapons operator is normally preferred for ground attack operations, pure fighters in VKS are single seater.

The Su-30M programme was a PVO project and had no guided air to ground capacity.... it was a fighter with a radar operator... they described its role as being a mini AWACS in the sense that it didn't have a huge all powerful radar but it could control a flight of smaller aircraft with its radar on and their radars off.

This is physics Garry

You are interpreting it wrong.

An SR-71 could be spotted and tracked from thousands of kms... the fact that it is moving faster than other targets only becomes an issue if it is moving faster than the system can engage. Even a 1990s model BUK can intercept targets moving at 1.2km/s.

The head on range for an AAM is effected by the speed of the target but faster targets actually improve range... not decrease it.

An SR-71 flying at mach 3.2 which was its normal operational flight speed is closing on the S-400 at about 1,000m/s and will be detected at enormous range.

The long range missile has a range of 400km so it can intercept targets at that distance, but lets say at mach 6 average (about 1.9km/s) it takes the missile 210 seconds to reach its max range... which is about 3.5 minutes... if the S-400 system detects and tracks the SR-71 3.5 minutes away from 400km or 210km... so when it detects the SR-71 at 610km away heading directly towards the S-400 battery the interception point would be 400km away and it could launch a missile right there... if the SR-71 keeps the same flight path then both missile and aircraft will come together at about 400km range and boom.

If the SR-71 starts to speed up or slow down or starts a turn or a climb then the interception point might need recalculation, but the SR-71 can't to a 180 degree turn and remain inside the state of California, so the idea that it might only be interceptable at much shorter ranges because of its high speed is wrong.

In fact its high speed and lack of manouverability makes it a much simpler target that can be treated more like a ballistic target than an aircraft.. the human inside very much limit its ability to turn or evade...

I would be happy to see some source saying that, it would be revolutionary to me.

The cross range for aerodynamic targets for the 200km range S-300PMU2 missiles is 195km... the cross range for aerodynamic targets for the 150km range S-300PMU1 missiles is 149km.

It is not like they are chasing targets down...

For an R-77-1 with a 110km range, at mach 4 or so they will be travelling at about 1.3km/s, so the time to reach 110km is probably about 84 seconds or about 1.4 minutes, so an SR-71 approaching at 1km/s means when it is about 84 kms beyond the max range of 110km... lets round down and say 180km away the R-77-1 could be launched because by the time the missile has travelled for 75 seconds the SR-71 will be travelling too... the R-77 will start scanning at probably 90km range and in front of it 20km away the SR-71 will be... so while the missile was fired at a target 180km away the actual flight distance for the missile will be the normal flight distance... the question is can it handle targets moving fast and we know it can because it was designed to engage that sort of target... even the old RVV-AE base model R-77 was designed to engage targets moving at up to 3,600km/h... which equals about mach 3.2... not an accident...

It depends on the overlapping of SAM systems. Those speed and range figures you mention are not against aerodynamic (manoeuvring) but ballistic targets. It is commonly known that max range in the S-400 is not meant against fighter targets. If it did, it could reach way more than that against slow targets.

It is described as aerodynamic targets... which has always included the SR-71... and actually you have that the wrong way around... 400km range against an SR-71 or AWACS does not mean it could therefore hit a smaller more manouverable or faster target at greater range... when the missile is coming down from a lofted trajectory to get that range it will be a high speed slashing attack so your manouver performance and speed really wont help much unless you have excellent information on the incoming missile and split second information on its energy state and capacity to manouver so you turn to make it turn hard and then turn again to exceed its capacity to manouver as it blows past you...

And as the tensions against Russia are ramped up, they will try (they are trying already) to boost their defensive capabilities. Russia should not think the West cannot spend some money and focus in AD if they see it necessary, even when their resources are diminishing fast they are still wealthy and technologically advanced nations.

I would trust the west to spend itself into oblivion... it is what they have learned to be best it... I expect Americas biggest gift to the world is its ability to take technology and use it to kill, and to squander resources and wealth like it comes from a tap that never ends...

Honestly I don't care what the west does, what Russia is doing is keeping it safe and it is not spending too much to do so.

Misconceptions needed to preserve the Western illusion of superiority. Russians are backwards, they design their planes for WVR because they are so bad in BVR, they plan a defensive warfare and no active attack of NATO strategic depth etc etc... it is plain silly, wishful thinking. When they run their simulations considering the rival to be rational, blue gets their asses kicked hard.

The funny thing is that in the 1980s the west was totally confident that AMRAAM was a waste of money and resources because BVR weapons are useless and ignore the huge advantage the west has in dog fighter aircraft that are superior to anything the Russians can make and the skill of our pilots and our command and control advantages based on AWACS and JSTARS... the Soviets have an advantage in armour but our aircraft will save the day and punish them from the air about three days in to the war when we have cleared the skies of their fighters...

Then they got access to MiG-29s and suddenly funding for AMRAAM was there because WVR became suicide with the enemy equipped with HMS and R-73s...

This was the topic of a past conversation of us. I argued back then that the main factor affecting the success chances of the attack is the speed difference between target and missile. Have you played paint ball? Didn't you find it funny how beginners tend to think they can out-run pellets? Think of the same effect with subsonic target vs. highly supersonic AAM. You can twist and turn all you want, you are almost a static target for the missile.

Made even worse with proximity fuse paint balls that direct paint at you even if there is a near miss... but that is essentially for WVR missiles... for longer ranged BVR missiles walking one way and then walking another way and making it manouver when it should be cruising can make long range missiles fall short... changes of speed and direction and altitude can make things hard for BVR missiles and most of them drop from the air below fairly high speeds because those fins are just control surfaces... they are not wings.

Billions of us would applaud the City being put out of business in such an elegant way

I don't think it will be a Russian weapon that does it... I think it will come from their former buddies in the EU... Germany and France will fight to see where the new business hub is located, but it wont be London... or Hong Kong...  

Ironically the US dropping special status for Hong Kong will make it no longer special or useful to China which will likely result in it becoming a normal province in China subject to normal laws... it is going to be a harsh education for Hong Kong... but when they can't be used to bypass western sanctions they are going to have to work to earn their keep...

S-70 is a bit bigger, but indeed the weight of the X-47B seems to support a weight in Okhotnik even below 10 t. It is important to have similar aircraft to compare, when you are missing official data...

Both are known to be for the same role an mission type and have the same basic shape... with the Russian  model with longer range and heavier payload...

Any modern fighter would use similarly advanced engines, be it twin or single

I don't agree... when fitting two engines their power to weight requirement is not as high... just a question of good fuel efficiency.

OK then. It is good to discuss with reasonable people

I am sure they will save the supersonic flying wing for the PAK DAM.... which can be known in western circles as the PAK Damn!!!

I am still hoping for supercruise potential even though I know the compromises on wing and central body profile would seriously reduce internal capacity and range and payload potential...    

The USAF could theoretically pull out a few F-111 from storage:

Wow... what a desperate situation the USAF has created for itself... did you know the original F-111 was going to be carrier based as a multirole fighter/interceptor/strike aircraft and the original radar and missiles designed and made for the carrier based F-111 were eventually adapted and adopted by the smaller lighter F-14A.

It was too heavy for carrier ops but could have been an interesting land based bigger F-14 of the land... fighter/interceptor/striker...

It would be cheaper to bring the F-14D back in to service... the F-111 had the same engines as the F-14A and they were not great for a fighter.... they were OK for long range low level strike but not for a fighter that manouvered and had dogfights... the engines in the F-14D were much better... fit it for AMRAAM and give it a proper upgrade and it would offer all the best features of the F-111 but cheaper and easier...

That article will be from Kopp... who loves the F-111 and would take any chance and use any excuse to get it back in to service...

All other solution seems me unrealistic also, the only valid one seems me to wait for F-15EX.

A new build F-15 is actually a good idea... it is big enough to have good range and performance and with new engines and new radar and new avionics... what is not to like.... you could fit it with a solid gold ejection seat with diamonds on the buckles and it would still be better than the F-35 in terms of performance (despite the weight of the ejection seat made of gold) and it would also be much cheaper.

They might find a way to  make it expensive though... that is their area of expertise... killing good ideas so we can all go back to making lots of money with the shit we want to sell you.

Wow... what a desperate situation the USAF has created for itself...

W/o EF-111, the AF had to rely on USN EA-6Bs & later F-18Gs:
As part of a 1995 deal brokered by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, USAF electronic warfare airmen embedded with the Navy’s EA-6B Prowlers, and now EA-18G Growlers.
https://www.airforcemag.com/PDF/MagazineArchive/Documents/2012/September%202012/0912whidbey.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics%E2%80%93Grumman_EF-111A_Raven
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_EA-6B_Prowler

..did you know the original F-111 was going to be carrier based as a multirole fighter/interceptor/strike aircraft ..

true!

It would be cheaper to bring the F-14D back in to service...

all were scrapped to prevent Iran getting any parts.

GarryB wrote:They look the same and can do some of the same things but they are different in use.

Sure, one is made of alu and is extremely light for a fighter that size, the other is inox... only that makes it clear enough the central role is not the same.

When the F-15 was being hurriedly designed it was believed the MiG-25 was a mach 3 F-15C type of air superiority fighter, so their method was to copy the basic layout and rely on superior US electronics and engines etc etc to make a better plane... the Mattel Foxbat...

They were probably fooled by the layout and forgot to think it may be almost twice as heavy as it appeared, which would screw any further estimation about its capabilities... BTW if you ask an American they will tell you it was the MiG that copied the A-5 Vigilante... who copied whom? That is why I say the design generation matters, because the state of the art evolves more or less the same for everyone, and logically applicable solutions for similar problems often look quite similar.

And it would be the same for drones... they might have some drones that are missile trucks that take off and orbit the airfield and a short range fighter like a MiG-29M2 might take off with external fuel tanks and just orbit with them using its radar to detect threats and targets and getting the drones to use up their missiles so the fighter can remain on station much longer with drones using up missiles and then landing for reloads instead of fighters+

When considering these scenarios I think we need to pay attention to not only magazine depth, but also dynamic capabilities that influence the whole engagement and very critically the range of the missiles employed. That is why I think that A2A-specific drones will be created and not only missile trucks.

It is also relevant to consider the current trend towards self defence missiles, that may render this approach of overwhelming salvos useless. USAF has just approved such a development for a missile like 1/3 of Sidewinder size for that purpose.

BTW, this scenario you propose makes even more sense to me with a heavy fighter. With such drone short range support + supercruising one of them could cover a lot of space and save lots of money to the air force.

I thought it got cancelled because they changed their minds about an interceptor and wanted a more multifunction aircraft and it became the MFS programme... which the MiG design lost to the S-37 Berkut FSW fighter...

There are so many stories in the internet about soviet and Russian fighter programs that I prefer to check a couple of times before being categoric, but I don't remember reading about MFS program.

When we discussed penetrating enemy air defences you said the drone should be flying low and the Su-57 should be flying high... presumably supercruising too?

The idea here is that the optimal role for the UCAV is low subsonic penetration while the Su-57 takes care of any potential enemy DCA. For that role supercruising is optimal, because it allows to  reach the interception point of the enemy before it can attack your planes, and because it gives the possibility of attacking without the enemy being capable of attacking you. There is no better approach to A2A. As argued above this massively extends the footprint of your fighter fleet and their effectiveness/survivability.

In such a case the low flying drone of any type would be subsonic unless you plan on carrying an enormous amount of fuel in a very very low drag shape...

Yes, they seem to think about doing something like that. Maybe a plane with very low drag, maybe some kind of very smart missile? Hopefully we learn something about this soon.

For air superiority and CAP roles flying high and supercruising makes sense but not if you are outrunning your own support aircraft...

Of course, as said above the air superiority fighter is not the one exposing itself to ground based air defences, or doing it by very brief periods of time, supercruising is critical for that.

You are interpreting it wrong.

Ok lets see...

The head on range for an AAM is effected by the speed of the target but faster targets actually improve range... not decrease it.

This seems to be the bottom line of your argument. Here I have to say that, while I am very aware of that, when we talk about aerodynamic targets we are implicitly assuming them to be manoeuvrable. My original argument when you brought the SR-71 was that a high flying aerodynamic target that flies slow is toast, which it is. I am no expert in the SR-71 and I would not focus the conversation on it, but I guess it had some kind of ESM equipment onboard to avoid SAM sites. Of course, if it flies towards the missile and actually cooperates in being downed, the faster the target, the better, but that is normally not the case. Even very high and very fast, a target will manoeuvrer and get out of the way, or in turn, it will not go inside AD bubbles it cannot timely scape from.

Afterwards youy said this: The S-400 can engage aircraft moving at mach 3.5 out to 400km

This, without further clarification, is not true. It can only engage a cooperative target, a very cooperative one  

The long range missile has a range of 400km so it can intercept targets at that distance, but lets say at mach 6 average (about 1.9km/s) it takes the missile 210 seconds to reach its max range... which is about 3.5 minutes... if the S-400 system detects and tracks the SR-71 3.5 minutes away from 400km or 210km... so when it detects the SR-71 at 610km away heading directly towards the S-400 battery the interception point would be 400km away and it could launch a missile right there... if the SR-71 keeps the same flight path then both missile and aircraft will come together at about 400km range and boom.

I don't know the turning characteristics of a SR-71. With a MiG-31 those 200 seconds would be enough for the plane to turn away. Even at only 1º/s you can change heading within the first 90 sec and ruin the whole kinematic chances of the missile.

In fact its high speed and lack of manouverability makes it a much simpler target that can be treated more like a ballistic target than an aircraft.. the human inside very much limit its ability to turn or evade...

Why the human? In fact the problem is the low lift inherent to the high speed design, plus very thin air at high altitude. The plane simply cannot turn. Some thrusters would help though  

The cross range for aerodynamic targets for the 200km range S-300PMU2 missiles is 195km... the cross range for aerodynamic targets for the 150km range S-300PMU1 missiles is 149km.

I don't understand what you mean by cross range Garry

It is described as aerodynamic targets...

I meant those figures I quoted in my post:
The S-400 can deal with targets moving at 4.8km/s... and targets moving that fast does reduce the engagement range to about 60km,

These are figures against ballistic targets.

400 km are against slow/little agile aerodynamic targets

Fighters are a difficult target!

and actually you have that the wrong way around... 400km range against an SR-71 or AWACS does not mean it could therefore hit a smaller more manouverable or faster target at greater range... when the missile is coming down from a lofted trajectory to get that range it will be a high speed slashing attack so your manouver performance and speed really wont help much unless you have excellent information on the incoming missile and split second information on its energy state and capacity to manouver so you turn to make it turn hard and then turn again to exceed its capacity to manouver as it blows past you...

The main defence of the fighter is that it can turn / accelerate / climb or descend fast, according to the needs. 400 km does not mean that at that distance the kinematic energy of the missile is enough to start the end game pursuit of a very agile target, it means it is already at its limits to hit a target at all. BTW and for the sake of trying to be factual, defeating of a missile as you describe it is not realistic, the missile just needs to do lead pursuit and, as far as it is way faster than the target it will not need any hard turning at all. The problem happens when the missile, at the end of its useful range, is already too slow to compensate the movements of the fighter.

I would trust the west to spend itself into oblivion...

Indeed... you would think some kind of reaction in view of their current rot is unavoidable, but then you read the last statements of one Pompeo or Billingslea (or any other to be honest), behold their utter stupidity and "bullshit the universe" attitude, and realize they are way past the point of no return. They can do much damage still, though.

Then they got access to MiG-29s and suddenly funding for AMRAAM was there because WVR became suicide with the enemy equipped with HMS and R-73s...

Yet they managed to get their hands on all those weapons systems by buying traitors for decades. They have their methods of doing things, and they use to work too...

Both are known to be for the same role an mission type and have the same basic shape... with the Russian  model with longer range and heavier payload...

To be honest and even when I am egoistically interested in you taking those infographics as true, (since they worked where my arguments failed    ), I have never seen proven and cannot conceive that they are official. To publish such charts that give away the cardinal parameters of your best new systems would be high treason at least, wouldn't it?

I am sure they will save the supersonic flying wing for the PAK DAM.... which can be known in western circles as the PAK Damn!!!

Why not PAK-MAN? Swallowing gringos like candy  
That supersonic flying wing would be interesting indeed and make sense, if they are really willing to substitute Tu-160.

Tsavo Lion wrote:
all were scrapped to prevent Iran getting any parts USN from backtracking on the F-35.

There, fixed it for you. You can always count on the trusty Iranian bogeyman to justify any otherwise embarrassing and treacherous political decision

During aerial reconnaissance missions, the SR-71 operated at high speeds and altitudes (Mach 3.2 and 85,000 feet, 25,900 meters) to allow it to outrace threats. If a surface-to-air missile launch was detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outfly the missile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird

Over its operational life, the Blackbird carried various electronic countermeasures (ECMs), including warning and active electronic systems built by several ECM companies and called Systems A, A2, A2C, B, C, C2, E, G, H, and M. On a given mission, an aircraft carried several of these frequency/purpose payloads to meet the expected threats. Major Jerry Crew, an RSO, told Air & Space/Smithsonian that he used a jammer to try to confuse surface-to-air missile sites as their crews tracked his airplane, but once his threat-warning receiver told him a missile had been launched, he switched off the jammer to prevent the missile from homing in on its signal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Shape_and_threat_avoidance

MiG-31 intercepts & their fire control radars locks on them helped the USAF to stop all recon flights close to the USSR. Similarly, Iranian F-14s stopped MiG-25R flights over Iran.

You can always count on the trusty Iranian bogeyman to justify any otherwise embarrassing and treacherous political decision

they got scrapped well after the F-35 programme was in full swing; regardless, those F-14s r gone.

There are news that India has deployed navy's Mig-29K on Himalaya, given that they seems to have the fastest scramble in their arsenal.
So, if true we have a clear indication of the possible role of Mig-35 as a classical point defence interceptor.

all were scrapped to prevent Iran getting any parts

Maybe Iran could sell them a couple of airframes... Billion US dollars each...

BTW if you ask an American they will tell you it was the MiG that copied the A-5 Vigilante... who copied whom?

Yeah, I heard that chestnut before... the only problem is that the F-15 and the MiG-25 look nothing at all like the A-5 they don't have anything in common at all except two side by side engines but a single vertical fin... the MiG-19 had two side by side engines and a single fin... in comparison the MiG-25 and the F-15 have exactly the same layout... from the top, from the front, from the side, from the rear...

Claiming the MiG-25 is a copy of a Vigilante is a joke and a poor joke at that... just desperate.

That is why I say the design generation matters, because the state of the art evolves more or less the same for everyone, and logically applicable solutions for similar problems often look quite similar.

Which makes the American claim that a mach 2.5+ MiG-25 interceptor designed to shoot down Mach 3 bombers might be a copy of an American carrier based strike/ESM aircraft is just silly.

They were probably fooled by the layout and forgot to think it may be almost twice as heavy as it appeared, which would screw any further estimation about its capabilities...

Not fooled by the layout... the layout is sound and is used by the MiG-25, 29, 33, and their stealthy designs I have seen so far as well as the Flanker and Fullback families and the F-15 and F-14 and F-22 that all use two engines and two vertical tails.

They assumed it was a mach 3 plane and thought it was made of titanium so it would be lighter and still heat resistant, but making aircraft out of titanium is bloody expensive... the SR-71 got withdrawn multiple times because of their cost to own and to operate, but went back in to use because they have unique capabilities and CIA drug money was paying for it all anyway...

That is why I think that A2A-specific drones will be created and not only missile trucks.

A custom made A2A drone will be a pain in the ass... you could have it able to pull 30g and with full TVC it would be a terribly tricky target to defeat... imagine the first one that is hijacked and used against the civilian aircraft of the former owner...

It is also relevant to consider the current trend towards self defence missiles, that may render this approach of overwhelming salvos useless.

Morphie is already there... and that little quad pack of Pantsir missiles... it just means you are going to need more missiles to penetrate the enemies defences...

Morphie is supposed to be carried by fighters and also bombers as a self defence missile for use against enemy SAMs and AAMs and enemy aircraft and drones.

There are so many stories in the internet about soviet and Russian fighter programs that I prefer to check a couple of times before being categoric, but I don't remember reading about MFS program.

The MFI and LFI were the PAK FA and the new light 5th gen programmes predecessors... they were replacements for the Su-27 and MiG-29 which at the time were both interceptor/fighters. Improvements in electronics led to them being changed to MFS and LFS... I don't know the Russian terms but they changed from next gen interceptor medium and next gen interceptor light (MFI and LFI) to next gen multipurpose medium aircraft and next gen multipurpose light aircraft.

The MFS is what the S-37 Berkut won, which is the black canard and tail equipped FSW fighter from Sukhoi, and the MiG 1.42/1.44 lost... but may have sold information about to China nudge nudge wink wink...

Winning the competition led to the PAK FA programme being run by Sukhoi and the Su-57 has resulted...

The idea here is that the optimal role for the UCAV is low subsonic penetration while the Su-57 takes care of any potential enemy DCA. For that role supercruising is optimal, because it allows to reach the interception point of the enemy before it can attack your planes, and because it gives the possibility of attacking without the enemy being capable of attacking you. There is no better approach to A2A. As argued above this massively extends the footprint of your fighter fleet and their effectiveness/survivability.

But racing ahead of the low flying drone you are supposed to be providing top cover for is just alerting ground based air defences isn't it?

Wouldn't it make more sense to have the drone flying up high with you so there is no risk of ground fire damaging it and its weapons get better range performance as well...

Of course, as said above the air superiority fighter is not the one exposing itself to ground based air defences, or doing it by very brief periods of time, supercruising is critical for that.

Super cruising is about covering larger areas of airspace and being able to chase down enemy bombers stuck at subsonic speeds, and giving height and speed boosts to any missiles you do launch... it has little to do with evading SAMs... SAMs will smack a mach 2 target every bit as easily as a mach 4 target if they are manned because they won't be pulling more than 3-4 gs at most and most likely much less most of the time to maintain speed.

This seems to be the bottom line of your argument. Here I have to say that, while I am very aware of that, when we talk about aerodynamic targets we are implicitly assuming them to be manoeuvrable. My original argument when you brought the SR-71 was that a high flying aerodynamic target that flies slow is toast, which it is. I am no expert in the SR-71 and I would not focus the conversation on it, but I guess it had some kind of ESM equipment onboard to avoid SAM sites.

Manouvering is the difference, and the SR-71 is pretty much unable to manouver when operating at top speed... minor course corrections only... in comparison an aircraft like an Su-57 or even a MIG-31 can perform manouvers that would make them more difficult targets.... the 31 can only pull 5 gs but at the height it operates at most planes can't even do that.... the MiG-31 has large control surfaces and the speed it moves at makes it rather manouverable for its size and weight.

I ignore ESM because it is an unknown... one year a jammer might keep the Titanic safe and the next year the same jammer might attract missiles like flies to a sheep carcase.

Of course, if it flies towards the missile and actually cooperates in being downed, the faster the target, the better, but that is normally not the case. Even very high and very fast, a target will manoeuvrer and get out of the way, or in turn, it will not go inside AD bubbles it cannot timely scape from.

Most SAMs are located near the targets they are protecting so most of the time the incoming aircraft has to go where the SAMs are.

This, without further clarification, is not true. It can only engage a cooperative target, a very cooperative one

Well to be fair if the S-400 did launch to intercept the SR-71 at max range and the SR-71 detected the presence of an S-400 and jammed on the anchors... slowed down to a much slower speed and turned around and left the area then I agree the S-400 missile would not hit the target... but the SR-71 wouldn't have any idea the S-400 is on the way so unless they are contacted by radio or satellite link then they would most likely continue unaware... and when they were 400km from the S-400 battery suddenly they would detect an active radar lock on to them from above and seconds later an S-400 would blow through them ripping them to shreds.

I don't know the turning characteristics of a SR-71. With a MiG-31 those 200 seconds would be enough for the plane to turn away. Even at only 1º/s you can change heading within the first 90 sec and ruin the whole kinematic chances of the missile.

Not even close at only 1km/s... the S-400 battery would be tracking you so if you turned one degree after 90 seconds then for 110 seconds you are moving along a slightly different course... after another 60 seconds (after that first 90 seconds... so now 50 seconds to impact) if needs be the S-400 battery can send a course correction to the missile to change its trajectory slightly so when it comes roaring down near vertically on the SR-71 it will be leading it a little bit but it will otherwise be central in its view... meaning little chance of escape...

Maybe if you were moving at 3km/s and you could turn 5 or 10 or 15 degrees for 20 seconds and then turn 20 degrees back the other way.... then the chances of using up fuel and energy on the missile and indeed running the risk that shifting the intercept point 50km it might simply not have time to turn and reach the new intercept point when the target is going to be there... half a second late and you miss by more than 1.5kms.

Why the human? In fact the problem is the low lift inherent to the high speed design, plus very thin air at high altitude.

Because at that speed turning creates huge gs very fast and human beings are not g tolerant... the pilot might survive 12 gs for a few seconds but the will just be passengers unable to function or manage or operate normally... a missile moving at mach 10 making a 5 degree turn could do it pulling 30gs... as I mentioned... the SR-71 at full speed could not complete a 180 degree turn and remain inside the state of California... which admittedly is a narrow state... but not tiny.

I don't understand what you mean by cross range Garry

A target that is not heading towards the SAM itself... for instance a group of ships surround an aircraft carrier which is getting targeted. A ship in front of the carrier... say 10-15km ahead detects a target it needs to shoot down but the target is heading towards the carrier and not the ship with the SAM. Say the ship is a Sovremmeny class destroyer and the SAM is the naval BUK. The later models had a range of about 42km but a crossing target range of about 14km, so if the target crossed within 14km of the Sovremmeny class ship on its way to hit the carrier then the BUK could take it on... even though the missile can reach targets at 42km...

400 km are against slow/little agile aerodynamic targets

Fighters are a difficult target!

The problem is that speed is not an issue in itself... it only shortens range when combined with manouvering... so 400km for slow... but also fast targets that don't manouver... don't manouver like AWACS and JSTARS and inflight refuelling aircraft, SR-71, Bombers like B-52 and B-2 and even B-1B because none of them could perform more than a few g to evade a missile which as we agree is like a bullet... as long as it is properly aimed you wont be dodging it... and if it can hit targets moving at 4.8km/s I don't think even moving mach 3.2 would make you safe.

Fighters are tricky but likely could only evade if lucky because a 150kg warhead directing fragments towards your aircraft no matter how hard you managed to turn in the last few seconds you had warning of would make evasion very hard.

The main defence of the fighter is that it can turn / accelerate / climb or descend fast, according to the needs. 400 km does not mean that at that distance the kinematic energy of the missile is enough to start the end game pursuit of a very agile target, it means it is already at its limits to hit a target at all.

Missiles don't chase targets... missiles are bullets they are not planes... if a missile ever slowed down to flying at fighter plane speeds it would drop like a rock because those fins keep it stable on its course they don't hold it up in the air.

The missiles that can reach 400km follow a lofted trajectory and are intended to fall on the target from above... course corrections on the way will ensure when it starts looking it is above the target and falling down on it at enormous speeds so in the few seconds between detection and impact probably the best evasion manouver you could make would be to accelerate forward and climb at max speed and even then with a proper inertial navigation guidance system you wont have much of a chance... planes can't jump aside 100m with a micro second warning... and the advanced directed fragment warhead can probably direct fragments as the missile blows past in any direction out to about 100m or so....

A badly guided missile might start scanning for the target and find it is at its extreme right so the missile turns hard right to reach the target... the target if they are lucky might realise from the path of the missile that it is turning hard right and it might put full ABs on and manouver so that the missile has to turn even harder right which might be beyond the capacity of the missile so it will miss and they don't come around for a second go... that miss is a miss.

But a modern missile like S-400 will normally be used against targets that can out manouver it anyway... the long range 9M96 would be better suited for use against fighters.

BTW and for the sake of trying to be factual, defeating of a missile as you describe it is not realistic, the missile just needs to do lead pursuit and, as far as it is way faster than the target it will not need any hard turning at all. The problem happens when the missile, at the end of its useful range, is already too slow to compensate the movements of the fighter.

A missile launched at a target that is at its max range needs a lofted trajectory or it wont hit anything... a target at say 300km would still use a lofted trajectory because it is the most efficient and will get the missile there quicker.

Most missiles can deviate slightly from their normal flight path but can't turn with a fighter plane.... the fact that they are moving as fast as bullet however means even the most manouverable plane wont have a chance to dodge a missile anyway... moving at 1 km per second or faster it will be a tiny dot and then it will blow past you... no time to see if it is going left or right...

Yet they managed to get their hands on all those weapons systems by buying traitors for decades. They have their methods of doing things, and they use to work too...

As we have seen... stories of Saddams WMDs didn't stack up because people wanting asylum will tell all sorts of stories to get in tight with their new chums.

The rose tinted glasses of the cold war period was that if it sounded too good it was propaganda and only if it sounded really bad was it fact... so stories of helmet mounted sights and R-73 missiles would be written off as propaganda, while Russian Army tanks with auto loaders that rip off soldiers arms is pure fact... why their soldiers would have their arms anywhere near the auto loaders is never explained.

They thought their training would overcome anything, but when they went up against German pilots flying MiG-29s they couldn't hide from the results... the down graded export MiG-29B with the centreline drop tank that restricted g performance to 5 g against the F-16... 62% of the time the F-16 got onto the tail of the MiG and got a shot, but 100% of the time the MiG-29 pilot had already gotten off his shot and based on analysis of the performance of the R-73 and the flares used by both sides the F-16 pilots lost every time.

To be honest and even when I am egoistically interested in you taking those infographics as true, (since they worked where my arguments failed Razz ), I have never seen proven and cannot conceive that they are official. To publish such charts that give away the cardinal parameters of your best new systems would be high treason at least, wouldn't it?

The information was released by the Russian government, presumably to sell weapons and to show the superiority of Russian weapons compared with a select few foreign weapons also available. The infographics show areas of superiority, now they might not want to reveal actual information and the information might be conservative and might just be for export models which might be different from the domestically used models, but it is a frame of reference we can agree on is it not?

In my experience the Russians don't tend to inflate their performance figures like they do in the west. Even the Turks said the performance of the S-400 exceeded what they were promised... clearly it was detecting stuff they weren't expecting it to detect...

That supersonic flying wing would be interesting indeed and make sense, if they are really willing to substitute Tu-160.

Imagine they increase the engine thrust of the NK-31 in the way other engines have been improved... dry thrust equal to former AB thrust.... a supercruising Tu-160 would be awesome... and rather potent... and instead of a 2,000km mach 2 dash it could fly mach 2 its entire 12,000km flight range.... without AB...

For A2A drones a much thinner more streamlined supercruising flying wing would be rather interesting... F-35s would struggle to keep up... even if they could supercruise...

There, fixed it for you. You can always count on the trusty Iranian bogeyman to justify any otherwise embarrassing and treacherous political decision

That is dead right... it was to prevent any subsequent government or regime in the Pentagon to roll back the F-35 programme.... so the F-15 is the aircraft that benefits....

During aerial reconnaissance missions, the SR-71 operated at high speeds and altitudes (Mach 3.2 and 85,000 feet, 25,900 meters) to allow it to outrace threats. If a surface-to-air missile launch was detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outfly the missile.

Which worked fine for the SA-2s and SA-3s launched at it but would not be effective against S-300 and S-400 missiles, which it never went anywhere near in its operational life time.

Even then a later modification of the SA-2 meant it hit several U-2s at their operational height.

85K feet was its absolute max height... because of its shape the long neck did not create lift and so at higher altitudes it could not sustain its nose up attitude and would superstall... they never attempted to take the world altitude record from the MiG-31 which was about 31km.

MiG-31 intercepts & their fire control radars locks on them helped the USAF to stop all recon flights close to the USSR.

Recon flights of the USSR stopped when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U2... no SR-71s ever flew over Soviet airspace... it simply was not safe.

There are news that India has deployed navy's Mig-29K on Himalaya, given that they seems to have the fastest scramble in their arsenal.
So, if true we have a clear indication of the possible role of Mig-35 as a classical point defence interceptor.

Short range interceptor/fighter is what they were designed for....

GarryB wrote:Maybe Iran could sell them a couple of airframes...     Billion US dollars each...

Hahaha, USN may be interested, now they have been screwed with the F-35 and left without air superiority assets...

Not fooled by the layout... the layout is sound and is used by the MiG-25, 29, 33, and their stealthy designs I have seen so far as well as the Flanker and Fullback families and the F-15 and F-14 and F-22 that all use two engines and two vertical tails.

It made sense, due to the wing's size and sweep, to think it may by an air superiority fighter, which it could not be, due to the construction materials and ensuing wing load.

Morphie is already there... and that little quad pack of Pantsir missiles... it just means you are going to need more missiles to penetrate the enemies defences...

Morfei was not supposed to be a SAM system? I am not very aware of what is going on with that program, do you have recent info?

Of course there will be consequences to the self defence missiles. Either you create AAMs that carry multiple terminal warheads or sub-missiles, or you take advantage of the weaknesses of the very simple defensive weapons being developed. The one USAf is creating appears to have a very simple and cheap seeker and rely on kinetic kill. A plasma shield is needed  

But racing ahead of the low flying drone you are supposed to be providing top cover for is just alerting ground based air defences isn't it?

The geometry of the engagement counts. You are not supposed to direct your UCAVs towards the enemy fighters but to look for gaps in the air and ground defence. Of course in a very deep penetration you are not supposed to offer cover all the way to the target. The logic is that you degrade the AD closer to the front first of all.

Super cruising is about covering larger areas of airspace and being able to chase down enemy bombers stuck at subsonic speeds, and giving height and speed boosts to any missiles you do launch... it has little to do with evading SAMs...

It actually does, because it massively changes the amount of time the fighter remains vulnerable. Kopp did a very nice graphic about it:



This diagram depicts the best case engagement geometry and timelines for an attack using the Small Diameter Bomb against a target colocated with a long range SAM site, or the SAM battery itself. Level turn escape manoeuvres do not minimise the exposure time of the F-35 and in addition present a larger depression angle to the threat. The single best escape manoeuvre after bomb release is to roll inverted, and pull through. Airspeed is constrained to 500 KTAS to minimise nozzle RCS. The difficulty is that even for the best case and worst case SAM parameters for SA-10, SA-12, SA-20 and SA-21 the missile battery gains a robust firing opportunity. Within the ranges of interest the F-35 from this aspect can still be tracked for a missile shot by the 59N6E, 67N6E, 96L6E, 36D6, 64N6E2, 5Zh66 and 1L119 3D acquisition radars and the 9S19, 30N6E1/E2 and 92N6E engagement radars. At this range the aircraft can be tracked by the Vostok E, JY-27, 1L13, 5N84AE and P-18M 2D acquisition radars. A large fraction of these radars post date the initial requirements definition for the Joint Strike Fighter. In the contemporary IADS environment it is therefore abundantly clear that the Joint Strike Fighter cannot survive by stealth alone, as the threat radar technology has evolved considerably over the last decade.

None of these issues arise with the F-22A Raptor as it can release the GBU-39/B from a much greater range, and it can egress almost twice as fast, while it can considerably better aft sector and lower fuselage RCS performance.

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2009-01.html

SAMs will smack a mach 2 target every bit as easily as a mach 4 target if they are manned because they won't be pulling more than 3-4 gs at most and most likely much less most of the time to maintain speed.

Missiles are actually quite challenged vs. fighters, not having wings and not having an air-breathing engines nor the fuel capacity for prolonged engagements. In the graphic, beyond the ranges which are not correct, you can see how much the range and speed of a missile changes as a factor of launch conditions. Lofting or not, they loose speed and when they loose high supersonic speed they stop threatening fighter type targets.

Manouvering is the difference, and the SR-71 is pretty much unable to manouver when operating at top speed... minor course corrections only... in comparison an aircraft like an Su-57 or even a MIG-31 can perform manouvers that would make them more difficult targets.... the 31 can only pull 5 gs but at the height it operates at most planes can't even do that.... the MiG-31 has large control surfaces and the speed it moves at makes it rather manouverable for its size and weight.

Yeah well, if SR-71 cannot manoeuvrer at all then it just makes sense they stopped flying it over SAM sites of course...

MiG-31 was very much improved compared to MiG-25 in terms of manoeuvrability, those LERX for instance help a lot. That does not change that it can turn a few degrees per second at high speed and high altitude at best. Su-57 should be a different thing altogether.

Most SAMs are located near the targets they are protecting so most of the time the incoming aircraft has to go where the SAMs are.

That is why stand-off weapons are used. So that the plane can egress before being inside the no escape zone of the missiles. And this zone is of course smaller, the faster and more manoeuvrable the plane is.

Well to be fair if the S-400 did launch to intercept the SR-71 at max range and the SR-71 detected the presence of an S-400

How could it be locked by the S-400 without noticing the radar?

Not even close at only 1km/s... the S-400 battery would be tracking you so if you turned one degree after 90 seconds

No, I mean 1º/s for 90 seconds. That is 90º heading change, if the shot was calculated at max range (i.e. 600 km initial distance, of which the missile needs to cover 400 and the SR-71 roughly another 200), the missile would fall short. As a matter of fact, a very long shot gives the target plenty of time to react and change direction, even when flying very fast at high altitude.

Because at that speed turning creates huge gs very fast and human beings are not g tolerant...

But planes cannot do high g turns at altitude, they simply cannot generate lift enough for that. For example, a F-16 that can turn 23º/s at sea level and reach more than 9 g in the process, can only do 7.7º/s at 45,000 ft with little more than 4 g. In the first case at 0.7 M, in the second around 1.2 M.

Here you have a lot of EM and other charts at different altitudes to check that:

http://www.checksix-fr.com/downloads/falcon4/Topolo/zip/H-F-F-M-manual.pdf

A target that is not heading towards the SAM itself...

Ok. But then the values you gave for S-300 IIRC are a bit strange, per definition your range against an approaching target is much bigger than against targets that are going away or simply crossing your area. It is a matter of kinematics.

The problem is that speed is not an issue in itself... it only shortens range when combined with manouvering

Yes of course. We suppose the target is aware at some moment and tries to avoid being hit. The sooner it knows it is under attack, the easier it is to escape. That is why we always see that unaware targets are normally the only ones downed on long distance shots.

The missiles that can reach 400km follow a lofted trajectory and are intended to fall on the target from above...

See above, lofting is not infinite... missile loses speed, loses lift, loses altitude and the thing only gets worse from then onwards. It will not reach 400 km at max speed even lofting. The key concept is no scape zone, and if we consider the "classical" scenario (you get a radar lock warning before being shot), awareness is a given from the first moment. Then the main factor for the size of that "no scape zone" is the agility and speed of the plane. Of course we realize that passive launching is preferred and that no using it dooms almost any attack not done from fairly short ranges.

But a modern missile like S-400 will normally be used against targets that can out manouver it anyway... the long range 9M96 would be better suited for use against fighters.

True, 9M96 is a highly specialised missile against agile targets... and maybe intended to operate against them very high too.

Most missiles can deviate slightly from their normal flight path but can't turn with a fighter plane.... the fact that they are moving as fast as bullet however means even the most manouverable plane wont have a chance to dodge a missile anyway... moving at 1 km per second or faster it will be a tiny dot and then it will blow past you... no time to see if it is going left or right...

Yes, exactly what I tried to say.

The information was released by the Russian government,

I heard this had something to do with embassy in India IIRC, but we have no evidence, and some figures are questionable. Su-57 with much lower TSFC than F-22 and much more fuel and only 9% more range? That would be way less than a Flanker does... it seemed definitely weird to me they would publish this information at all. Too flimsy for the high-clearance guys that would be allowed to discuss those sales while too detailed for being marketing material.

but it is a frame of reference we can agree on is it not?

Good question... do you have any evidence that they are official?

Imagine they increase the engine thrust of the NK-31 in the way other engines have been improved... dry thrust equal to former AB thrust.... a supercruising Tu-160 would be awesome... and rather potent... and instead of a 2,000km mach 2 dash it could fly mach 2 its entire 12,000km flight range.... without AB...

The info on the new Nk-32-02 says they are only going to make it more efficient, but actually if you make a modern VCE engine in that size you may get to what you say. Aero would not be easy in any case, because the Tu-160 reduces wingspan (and also relative thickness of the wing) when flying fast, and that helps a lot with the drag and therefore needed thrust. A Flying wing that was so aerodynamic would need some serious lift augmentation system to take off and land, canards and what not... not to talk about directional and CoG stability issues.

F-35s would struggle to keep up... even if they could supercruise...

Original meaning of supercruising is > 1.5 M, if the F-35 ever surpases that value even with their new VCEs I am going to have a big surprise. The airframe is calculated for 1.6 M (I don't see any other reason for the hard curt in max speed and is consistent with the weight cut measures taken), some even have been restricted to stay subsonic in peace time operations... F-35 struggles to keep up with any supersonic plane in existence.

That is dead right... it was to prevent any subsequent government or regime in the Pentagon to roll back the F-35 programme.... so the F-15 is the aircraft that benefits....

Hahaha, they must be blaming themselves for not having killed the F-15 too!

Maybe Iran could sell them a couple of airframes...Billion US dollars each...
Hahaha, USN may be interested, now they have been screwed with the F-35 and left without air superiority assets...

Not in a M years- 1st, Iran needs them; 2nd, US won't cancel sanctions, pay that+start making parts; 3rd, F-18E/Fs took their role.
They may be useful to China until she gets = or better fighters for her AWs.

That supersonic flying wing would be interesting indeed and make sense, if they are really willing to substitute Tu-160.

PAK-DA will be subsonic, as was revealed, AFAIK.

they never attempted to take the world altitude record from the MiG-31 which was about 31km.

I heard they flew them as high as 45km: allegedly 1 pilot mentioned it to another military man (he later told it to me) at a DOD sanatorium next to my apartment in what is now Ukraine.

MiG-31 intercepts & their fire control radars locks on them helped the USAF to stop all recon flights close to the USSR.

Recon flights of the USSR stopped when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U2... no SR-71s ever flew over Soviet airspace... it simply was not safe.

flights continued long after that: On Sept. 3, 2012 an article written by Rakesh Krishman Simha for Indrus.in explains how the Foxhound was able to stop Blackbirds spy missions over Soviet Union on Jun. 3, 1986.
That day, no less than six MiG-31s “intercepted” an SR-71 over the Barents Sea by performing a coordinated interception that subjected the Blackbird to a possible all angle air-to-air missiles attack.
Apparently, after this interception, no SR-71 flew a reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union and few years later the Blackbird was retired to be replaced with the satellites.
https://theaviationist.com/2013/12/11/sr-71-vs-mig-31/

From those altitudes, even if not inside the USSR airspace, they were still "over" it.

It made sense, due to the wing's size and sweep, to think it may by an air superiority fighter, which it could not be, due to the construction materials and ensuing wing load.

They thought it was a mach 3 F-15C... they probably assumed it was much much lighter and made of Titanium so they got the numbers wrong.

Morfei was not supposed to be a SAM system? I am not very aware of what is going on with that program, do you have recent info?

My understanding is that Morfei is to be a cross service missile.... being a lock on after launch IIR guided missile it is ideal for vertical launch stand alone systems for the Army and also part of the S-350 system for the Air Force and Navy. In the Navy model it is effectively a vertical launch SEA RAM type missile but much more sophisticated and capable. For the Air Force in addition to ground use with the S-350 system they are also expected to be the replacement for the R-60MK short range fire and forget missile but with more of an anti missile role. It can be carried by light aircraft including helicopters and light planes but also carried internally in weapon bays of new fighters and even bombers like PAK DA where its lock on after launch IIR guidance and two way datalink mean you can launch it at targets coming from anywhere with the weapon bay doors only open long enough to eject the missile.

Of course there will be consequences to the self defence missiles. Either you create AAMs that carry multiple terminal warheads or sub-missiles, or you take advantage of the weaknesses of the very simple defensive weapons being developed. The one USAf is creating appears to have a very simple and cheap seeker and rely on kinetic kill. A plasma shield is needed

The US does not have a good record in regards to cheap.... long range AAMs with multiple terminal warheads makes sense because the main missile carries small missiles great distances to where enemy aircraft concentrations are and then releases them for short range engagements and kills from a safe distance.

For self defence you just need a small cheap missile with accurate guidance and a decent warhead to destroy the target before it hits your aircraft.

Doesn't need to be fancy... which is what Russia does well.

None of these issues arise with the F-22A Raptor as it can release the GBU-39/B from a much greater range, and it can egress almost twice as fast, while it can considerably better aft sector and lower fuselage RCS performance.

Except for the obvious issue that the GBU weapon itself could simply be shot down and all of that was for nothing.

That is why stand-off weapons are used. So that the plane can egress before being inside the no escape zone of the missiles. And this zone is of course smaller, the faster and more manoeuvrable the plane is.

The manouverabilty of the plane is irrelevant if it does not know it is under attack... a plane that can pull 200 g is not safe if it does not know it is being attacked.

How could it be locked by the S-400 without noticing the radar?

Why does an S-400 need a lock for an engagement?

Does AMRAAM need a lock for an engagement? Is it secretly just an expensive Sparrow?

As a matter of fact, a very long shot gives the target plenty of time to react and change direction, even when flying very fast at high altitude.

Of course... I can see it now... an SR-71 barrelling along at mach 3.2 at 20km altitude and he sees 610km away an S-400 being launched... how much smoke does an S-400 give off when it is launched exactly?

The SR-71 crew will have no idea a missile is on the way and very little idea until the missile goes ARH perhaps 15km away with a closing speed of perhaps 2.5km/s... so less than 10 seconds to impact... in an SR-71 that means you really can't do anything at all except eject.

But planes cannot do high g turns at altitude, they simply cannot generate lift enough for that.

The MiG-31 has large control surfaces and is designed to operate at high altitude as its normal environment.

The faster you go the quicker the onset of g in a turn.... at 1m/s you probably couldn't turn a car hard enough to generate more than half a g... moving at 1km/s the problem is not pulling high g when you turn...

WWI fighters didn't have problems with g most of the time because they weren't fast or powerful enough to generate high g sustained turns... once aircraft became supersonic it became too easy and control limits had to be used to prevent pilots damaging planes by trying to turn too hard.

Ok. But then the values you gave for S-300 IIRC are a bit strange, per definition your range against an approaching target is much bigger than against targets that are going away or simply crossing your area. It is a matter of kinematics.

The numbers I gave are from the weapon makers themselves. Approaching and receeding and crossing targets will effect the distance at which a radar can achieve a steady lock, but once you have a track and can general an intercept point then things really don't change much the intercept point is the intercept point... the missile races to that location to turn on its radar to scan for the target and then go terminal on them... it does not really matter which direction the target is arriving from or how fast it is going as long as it it within the speed performance the missile can engage targets at.

Yes of course. We suppose the target is aware at some moment and tries to avoid being hit. The sooner it knows it is under attack, the easier it is to escape. That is why we always see that unaware targets are normally the only ones downed on long distance shots.

Unaware targets are downed at any distance. When you know there is a missile on the way however if that missile is not emitting and you have no IR systems to track it what manouvers do you perform to evade attack? For all you know it might already be turning hard to get you but your first manouver moves you from the edge of its field of view into a position closer to its centre so it can stop turning and just continue right in to you... Your radar likely wont show the incoming missile until it is very close if at all and by then it will be too late.

See above, lofting is not infinite... missile loses speed, loses lift, loses altitude and the thing only gets worse from then onwards. It will not reach 400 km at max speed even lofting.

The question is is that chart a normal missile that gets a small range increase by lofting, or is that a custom designed missile intended to engage targets to 400km and routinely uses a lofted trajectory. It is shown fired from different altitudes which means it is an AAM, the different launch heights change the performance of the missile dramatically but I would suggest the chances of launching an S-400 from 20,000 ft is rather unlikely and so rather than that chart showing the different range of performances against targets is not relevant for a ground based ground launched SAM designed to engage aerodynamic targets out to 400km.

The operator does not need to fire early so the interception takes place at 400kms... they might wait until the target is an SR-71 closing at 1km/s and is at 420km range so no matter what the SR-71 does... including suddenly slowing down and then try to do a 180 degree turn and run away that they will still be hit by the SAM because his momentum and the time it takes to slow down and turn means he will be inside the engagement envelope of the missile system and be killed by it before he can leave.

The key concept is no scape zone, and if we consider the "classical" scenario (you get a radar lock warning before being shot), awareness is a given from the first moment.

Except approaching Russian airspace he might get 40 radar lock warnings... what type of manouver would you suggest... ejection? Evacuation and then ejection?

Then the main factor for the size of that "no scape zone" is the agility and speed of the plane.

The Agility of an SR-71 is zero and in this case its speed actually counts against it.

I heard this had something to do with embassy in India IIRC, but we have no evidence, and some figures are questionable. Su-57 with much lower TSFC than F-22 and much more fuel and only 9% more range? That would be way less than a Flanker does... it seemed definitely weird to me they would publish this information at all. Too flimsy for the high-clearance guys that would be allowed to discuss those sales while too detailed for being marketing material.

It doesn't say it is the Russian Air Force Su-57... this might be the export Su-57K model.

The performance of the RuAF Su-57 is secret.

Good question... do you have any evidence that they are official?

The people who posted them here said they were....

A Flying wing that was so aerodynamic would need some serious lift augmentation system to take off and land, canards and what not... not to talk about directional and CoG stability issues.

An active wing design that changes shape profile from curved for high lift an flat for low drag at high speed flight is not new... blown flaps and other high lift wing devices are not new either...

Hahaha, they must be blaming themselves for not having killed the F-15 too!

Export sales kept it going...

I heard they flew them as high as 45km: allegedly 1 pilot mentioned it to another military man (he later told it to me) at a DOD sanatorium next to my apartment in what is now Ukraine.

Bullshit.

The US would love to take away some world records from the Russians and revealing a height ceiling of 45kms would mean nothing in terms of problems for the US... The Russians tracked them from take off to landing in SE asia when they flew them on recon missions... they know exactly how far and how fast and how high they can operate...

Besides the US never flew the SR-71 over the Soviet Union... if they could fly at 45km altitude then the Soviets would not have been able to shoot them down they have no SAMs or fighters that could reach... only the ABM system around Moscow could get them...

If the SR-71 could get anywhere near 30km then the S-300P and S-300V would be able to engage targets at 35km altitude...

flights continued long after that: On Sept. 3, 2012 an article written by Rakesh Krishman Simha for Indrus.in explains how the Foxhound was able to stop Blackbirds spy missions over Soviet Union on Jun. 3, 1986.
That day, no less than six MiG-31s “intercepted” an SR-71 over the Barents Sea by performing a coordinated interception that subjected the Blackbird to a possible all angle air-to-air missiles attack.
Apparently, after this interception, no SR-71 flew a reconnaissance missions over the Soviet Union and few years later the Blackbird was retired to be replaced with the satellites.
https://theaviationist.com/2013/12/11/sr-71-vs-mig-31/

From those altitudes, even if not inside the USSR airspace, they were still "over" it.

The SR-71 never once crossed into Soviet Air space... it never happened. The highest the SR-71 ever went was 85K feet an the fastest it went was about Mach 3.3. Claims of higher altitudes and faster speeds are just bullshit.

Satellites had already replaced the U-2 over Soviet air space, the SR-71 was never used over Russia ever.

[quote="GarryB"]

I heard they flew them as high as 45km: allegedly 1 pilot mentioned it to another military man (he later told it to me) at a DOD sanatorium next to my apartment in what is now Ukraine.

Bullshit.

Correction with clarification: as I now better recall what he said, 40 km high. I assume it was on a MiG-25/31; it could be some other recon plane.

The SR-71 never once crossed into Soviet Air space... it never happened.

I didn't say it had. They “tickled” the border on occasion, but never crossed it, the Soviet captain related. So twice a week, through the last burst of cold war tension during the Reagan years, the world’s fastest aircraft staged a secret supersonic ballet above the forbidding coasts of Novaya Zemlya and the White Sea.
https://www.airspacemag.com/airspacemag/secret-mission-old-mig-180975336/

GarryB wrote:They thought it was a mach 3 F-15C... they probably assumed it was much much lighter and made of Titanium so they got the numbers wrong.

Yeah, or they knew that to be bullshit, but used the possibility to scare some politician to release more funds...

My understanding is that Morfei is to be a cross service missile....

Well, that is a lot of information you have, for a missile I can hardly find anything concrete about... I will keep searching

The US does not have a good record in regards to cheap....

Reading the word "affordable" repeating in their media releases puts an automatic grin in my face by now

long range AAMs with multiple terminal warheads makes sense because the main missile carries small missiles great distances to where enemy aircraft concentrations are and then releases them for short range engagements and kills from a safe distance.

They could also be used to attack the target from several approaches to make defensive manoeuvring even more difficult (increasing pk in the end)

Doesn't need to be fancy... which is what Russia does well.

True, it may be a hugely powerful DEW or simply those 30 mm time fuzzed rounds fired from the onboard cannon... why not guided rounds from a higher calibre, low ballistics cannon??

Except for the obvious issue that the GBU weapon itself could simply be shot down and all of that was for nothing.

Don't be so nasty with them...

Actually the SDB has a nice characteristic of being very compact and having a very nice range, a tactical plane can carry a significant amount of them... it does not mean that it is necessarily going to work against an AD as redundant as the Russian one or against S-400. In any case the idea was to illustrate that supercruising does play a role in attack missions too, and we know in such cases Su-57 would carry much bigger and longer ranged weapons.

Why does an S-400 need a lock for an engagement?

You are not satisfied with facing prehistoric SR-71 with modern day S-400, you want to make it face the whole Russian IADS, preferably a future one totally covered with a continuous field of view against aerodynamic targets...

in an SR-71 that means you really can't do anything at all except eject.

Yeah, and better do it quick in fact...

The MiG-31 has large control surfaces and is designed to operate at high altitude as its normal environment.

Yes, as said the MiG-31 is a substantial improvement over the MiG-25, but that is because the performance of the later is even worse, little above 1 º/s at high altitude and high speed. Turning radius in the order of tens of km. Lift coefficient for the MiG-31 is not known to open sources yet, so any calculations are based on estimations. Probably less than 3º/s at best.

The faster you go the quicker the onset of g in a turn.... at 1m/s you probably couldn't turn a car hard enough to generate more than half a g... moving at 1km/s the problem is not pulling high g when you turn...

Yes, it is all that in the flight models I linked. The highest you fly, the fastest you need to go to reach a number of g, and the wider the turn you make. Those models end at 45 kft, imagine a plane designed for 3 M (low lift wing) and huge fuel fraction at 70 kft... air is too thin, probably you will not get more than 3 g. In dense air you are right, in thin air not.

WWI fighters didn't have problems with g most of the time because they weren't fast or powerful enough to generate high g sustained turns... once aircraft became supersonic it became too easy and control limits had to be used to prevent pilots damaging planes by trying to turn too hard.

That is exactly what allows a plane like MiG-31 to fly more than 20 km high... huge lift created at > 2 M. With its massive wing load, it struggles to sustain that altitude even without manoeuvring. Service ceiling has a reason, being it too thin air to keep the plane in level flight.

The numbers I gave are from the weapon makers themselves. Approaching and receeding and crossing targets will effect the distance at which a radar can achieve a steady lock, but once you have a track and can general an intercept point then things really don't change much the intercept point is the intercept point... the missile races to that location to turn on its radar to scan for the target and then go terminal on them... it does not really matter which direction the target is arriving from or how fast it is going as long as it it within the speed performance the missile can engage targets at.

Will keep an eye on that. But as you yourself argued, if target flies towards the SAM and it is cooperative, then you need to add the distance flown by it to the range of the missile. And subtract it when it is retreating. If the manufacturer says it is 150 km against a retreating target, then it is much more against an approaching one...

Your radar likely wont show the incoming missile until it is very close if at all and by then it will be too late.

This far from clear. If you check what the Russians do with the Su-57, they gave it a 300º field of view, probably to make sure no missile can approach unnoticed. I think a modern AAM can be see between 30 and 50km at least... if your radar is on

That is one of the big advantages of fighting in the European theatre for Russia, they will have many radars monitoring the air space at all altitudes, amount them some extremely powerful, telling their fighters when they are under attack by AAMs and where the enemy carriers are. Barring some very advanced EW being applied, I assume Russian fighters would not easily be caught unaware.

The question is is that chart a normal missile that gets a small range increase by lofting, or is that a custom designed missile intended to engage targets to 400km  and routinely uses a lofted trajectory. It is shown fired from different altitudes which means it is an AAM, the different launch heights change the performance of the missile dramatically but I would suggest the chances of launching an S-400 from 20,000 ft is rather unlikely and so rather than that chart showing the different range of performances against targets is not relevant for a ground based ground launched SAM designed to engage aerodynamic targets out to 400km.

That chart refers to AIM-120D using different launch altitudes and speeds. But laws of ballistics are the same for all, so as a general principle applies to any missile with a rocket engine. What I wanted to illustrate is the massive loss in speed the missile suffers at the end of its range. Keep in mind the target in that chart is flying very high, in more dense air the braking of the missile due to drag would be much stronger.

Except approaching Russian airspace he might get 40 radar lock warnings... what type of manouver would you suggest... ejection?   Evacuation and then ejection?

Hahaha, yeah that is true

The Agility of an SR-71 is zero and in this case its speed actually counts against it.

You are right, the same is said about the MiG-31 BTW, which is a combat plane and needs to face enemy fighters. If not for the presence of an IADS, some funny things could happen with the MiG-31 too... so yes, never go too fast if you don't see where you are going...

It doesn't say it is the Russian Air Force Su-57... this might be the export Su-57K model.

Would they make it with less fuel or screw the engines on purpose? AL-31F has already a much lower TSFC than F-22.

The people who posted them here said they were....

Ok... I myself will keep those charts in quarantine...

An active wing design that changes shape profile from curved for high lift an flat for low drag at high speed flight is not new... blown flaps and other high lift wing devices are not new either...

Never implemented en masse.... but you are right, there are couple of tricks that can and probably will need to be used. Electrification and miniature fans are also a resource to be taken into account to increase the lift of the wing.

Export sales kept it going...

See? I mistake they did not repeat with the F-22

Correction with clarification: as I now better recall what he said, 40 km high. I assume it was on a MiG-25/31; it could be some other recon plane.

The world record altitude for a jet powered manned aircraft is about 31km... and because of its shape the SR-71 couldn't get anywhere near that.

Yeah, or they knew that to be bullshit, but used the possibility to scare some politician to release more funds...

No, I don't think so... The F-15 got a lot of funding and was a very rushed programme because they had heard rumours of the new Soviet jet... when they saw new jets at an airshow in the Soviet Union they got all confused, but they were thinking the MiG-25 was much more capable a fighter plane than the F-4 which was their standard fighter of the time.

Well, that is a lot of information you have, for a missile I can hardly find anything concrete about... I will keep searching

Morfei is part of the S-350 system... four missiles fit in each 9M96 tube... that means the Air Force will have it on the ground, it has been mentioned as the same option for the Navy with their Redut launchers. Models of a stand alone launcher with only Morfei missiles has been shown by the Army too.. who will likely choose Pantsir-SM and keep BUK as their equivalent of short and long ranged S-350... and it has been mentioned for the airforce for internal weapon bay carriage because it is lock on after launch... they wont need cumbersome launchers that open weapon bay doors and push the missile out side the weapon bay so its seeker can scan for a target and get a lock before launch. It has been mentioned for internal carriage for strategic bombers too...

Reading the word "affordable" repeating in their media releases puts an automatic grin in my face by now

After they have said it a billion times 1.5 trillion for a light single engined cheap fighter becomes reasonable.

their solution might eventually be similar to the Su-57 + multiple S-70s where an F-35 operates with a flight of drones using the F-35s JSTARS ability to find targets and manage the battle and the drones can carry all the weapons and have the amazing dog fight skills etc etc... that was how they planned it all along and the Russians just copied them and implemented it first...

They could also be used to attack the target from several approaches to make defensive manoeuvring even more difficult (increasing pk in the end)

Indeed, some noisy obvious attacks, with some sneaky stealthy attacks from other directions... or even what appears to be a sitting duck right up until the last second when it turns and opens a salvo of heavy fire and starts accelerating to high speed and pulling 60g turns... like a missile.

True, it may be a hugely powerful DEW or simply those 30 mm time fuzzed rounds fired from the onboard cannon... why not guided rounds from a higher calibre, low ballistics cannon??

Or a directed EMP beam weapon, or bomb...

Actually the SDB has a nice characteristic of being very compact and having a very nice range, a tactical plane can carry a significant amount of them... it does not mean that it is necessarily going to work against an AD as redundant as the Russian one or against S-400. In any case the idea was to illustrate that supercruising does play a role in attack missions too, and we know in such cases Su-57 would carry much bigger and longer ranged weapons.

And that is the other irony... the systems that HATO develops to defeat a powerful IADS network (Russias) means the equivalent systems Russia makes to have similar performance gives them a massive advantage in defeating HATOs much weaker... patchy air defence...

The thing is that HATO has Meteor, but even if all Russian AWACS platforms are shot down they are not critical to the running of the Russian air defence network.

On the other hand R-37M and any future scramjet powered R-77 will tear through the core air defence of HATO by taking out JSTARS, AWACS, and inflight refuelling aircraft... HATOs performance will be crippled...

You are not satisfied with facing prehistoric SR-71 with modern day S-400, you want to make it face the whole Russian IADS, preferably a future one totally covered with a continuous field of view against aerodynamic targets...

Even one on one the S-400 doesn't need a lock on an SR-71... it does not need to mark it with a radar beam for an S-400 missile to track like an SARH missile.

Turning radius in the order of tens of km.

At speeds near Mach 3 a turning radius of 500km is normal if you don't slow down... that is why I said the SR-71 can't turn a 180 degree turn and stay inside the state of California...

The highest you fly, the fastest you need to go to reach a number of g, and the wider the turn you make.

Altitude is not that important... flying faster to maintain altitude means airflow over the control surfaces is energetic and effective for those aircraft strong enough to take the forces involved.

Those models end at 45 kft, imagine a plane designed for 3 M (low lift wing) and huge fuel fraction at 70 kft... air is too thin, probably you will not get more than 3 g. In dense air you are right, in thin air not.

Thin air reduces the effectiveness of conventional control surfaces, but high speed air flowing over the control surfaces would make them too effective at lower altitudes anyway.

That is exactly what allows a plane like MiG-31 to fly more than 20 km high... huge lift created at > 2 M. With its massive wing load, it struggles to sustain that altitude even without manoeuvring. Service ceiling has a reason, being it too thin air to keep the plane in level flight.

Its service ceiling in with 6 of the heaviest AAMs used in the world.... four R-33 and two R-40TD, or four R-37M and two R-40TD... It can also carry 9 tons of bombs in the bomber version to 20km altitude.

An unarmed model holds the world altitude record of about 31km.

Will keep an eye on that. But as you yourself argued, if target flies towards the SAM and it is cooperative, then you need to add the distance flown by it to the range of the missile. And subtract it when it is retreating. If the manufacturer says it is 150 km against a retreating target, then it is much more against an approaching one...

That is true, and for AAMs it is normally rather more generous because the launch aircraft is often flying towards the target it is launching missiles against... which adds to range too.

The point of the big heavy IR guided Soviet AAMs is a receeding target is harder to get a radar lock on and a small WVR missile doesn't have the range or energy to chase down a fast receding target...

The western mantra of firing both missiles at a target to increase hit probability only applied to bomber targets normally because firing both means firing the IR guided first so it doesn't get distracted by the other missile so the target needs to be close enough for an IR lock which negates the range advantage of the radar guided missile.

Were the target to turn or if the intercept involved an approach from behind then the IR guided weapon often had better range than the radar guided missiles...

A low flying F-111 loaded up with bombs and flying very low and very fast is an ideal target for an IR guided missile from behind and above...

This far from clear. If you check what the Russians do with the Su-57, they gave it a 300º field of view, probably to make sure no missile can approach unnoticed. I think a modern AAM can be see between 30 and 50km at least... if your radar is on

If you are scanning the airspace around you constantly then you are asking to be fired at... and the R-27E models used a lofted trajectory so your radar might not be looking high enough to spot it...

Barring some very advanced EW being applied, I assume Russian fighters would not easily be caught unaware.

Especially as they transition from upgraded 4th gen avionics to all pretty much 5th gen.... with the + + additions to their 4th gen fighters... that are effectively non stealthy 5th gen fighters.

You are right, the same is said about the MiG-31 BTW, which is a combat plane and needs to face enemy fighters. If not for the presence of an IADS, some funny things could happen with the MiG-31 too... so yes, never go too fast if you don't see where you are going...

The difference is that a MiG-31 is essentially a heavy fighter... the SR-71 is a bomber/civilian airliner type in terms of manouver performance... you wont ever see them loop the loop or do mock dogfights.

Facing an enemy fighter a MIG-31 could climb above the altitude any western fighter operates at bar only a few and accelerate to a speed that western fighter can't match for more than a minute.... and it can carry modern capable missiles that could shoot down any fighter plane...

It is not going to out dog fight an enemy fighter but it can just run away... as mentioned a receding target is not easy and it should be able to outrun most HATO IR guided missiles simply because most move at about the same speed the MiG flys at.... about mach 2.5... the MIG-31 can fly at Mach 2.5 all day and mach 2.84 for about 5 minutes.... they have said new materials have increased its max flight speed too...

Never implemented en masse.... but you are right, there are couple of tricks that can and probably will need to be used. Electrification and miniature fans are also a resource to be taken into account to increase the lift of the wing.

Didn't the MiG-21 have blown flaps, where high pressure air from the engines is piped through the flaps to improve performance on landing?

The VSTOL aircraft all used high pressure air piped through wings and fuselage at the nose and tail and the wing tips to control the aircraft in the hover where the conventional control surfaces did nothing...

The world record altitude for a jet powered manned aircraft is about 31km...

they could have decided not to claim a better record to hide MiG-25/31 true capabilities, or just didn't bother to claim it.
http://csef.ru/en/oborona-i-bezopasnost/423/boj-v-blizhnem-kosmose-na-kakih-vysotah-sposoben-voevat-rossijskij-mig-31-7462

GarryB wrote:Morfei is part of the S-350 system... four missiles fit in each 9M96 tube...

9M100?

There is no news about this system since 2013 or so, and its role seems covered by Pantsir... I will read further in the forum and keep my eyes open, but it seems dead by now...

their solution might eventually be similar to the Su-57 + multiple S-70s where an F-35 operates with a flight of drones using the F-35s JSTARS ability to find targets and manage the battle and the drones can carry all the weapons and have the amazing dog fight skills etc etc... that was how they planned it all along and the Russians just copied them and implemented it first...

Yeah, as usual the Russians copied them and even had the gal of making the solution operational several years before...

Well, they already have this loyal wingman thing ongoing, these days they shortlisted 4 suppliers... and still all the solutions we have seen seem toys compared to Okhotnik. They are subsonic, small airframes that may help by taking some of the missiles that otherwise would end up being for the F-35 alone. I don't know what they will end up doing and I don't care much, what is clear is that their operational concept of F-35 working unsupported inside IADS has ended up being just pure embarrassment.

And that is the other irony... the systems that HATO develops to defeat a powerful IADS network (Russias) means the equivalent systems Russia makes to have similar performance gives them a massive advantage in defeating HATOs much weaker... patchy air defence...

Russia is being very smart in their  military planing. They neutralize not only current US solutions, but their future ones too. It is only logical NATO will develop some kind of air defence because with Iskander their chances were already shaky, but after Tsirkon and Kinzhal their vulnerability has become simply untenable (not to talk about to what Russian reaction will be to the end of INF) and they are scrambling left and right to get some sort of decent, serious AD, be it US, European or Israeli made. So Russia creates Su-57, puts a even more stealthy unmanned S-70 to support it and then creates weapons like Grom or Kh-59MK2 with huge ranges and/or warheads. There is a long list of new Russian developments that place the US planers in check now and for the foreseeable future.

Even one on one the S-400 doesn't need a lock on an SR-71... it does not need to mark it with a radar beam for an S-400 missile to track like an SARH missile.

If it turns on its radar it will be detected from so far than even a SR-71 may avoid it...

At speeds near Mach 3 a turning radius of 500km is normal if you don't slow down... that is why I said the SR-71 can't turn a 180 degree turn and stay inside the state of California...

In the MiG-31 is like ten times less, but still significant.

Altitude is not that important... flying faster to maintain altitude means airflow over the control surfaces is energetic and effective for those aircraft strong enough to take the forces involved.

At high altitudes the dynamic pressure is actually low. Altitude in fact limits seriously the lift and therefore turning performance of planes. Below you have values for the MiG-31 from Yefim Gordon I think:

Thin air reduces the effectiveness of conventional control surfaces, but high speed air flowing over the control surfaces would make them too effective at lower altitudes anyway.

Yes, the concept of corner speed.

Its service ceiling in with 6 of the heaviest AAMs used in the world.... four R-33 and two R-40TD, or four R-37M and two R-40TD... It can also carry 9 tons of bombs in the bomber version to 20km altitude.

Charts for MiG-25 show the substantial limitation in altitude for increased weights:

Facing an enemy fighter a MIG-31 could climb above the altitude any western fighter operates at bar only a few and accelerate to a speed that western fighter can't match for more than a minute.... and it can carry modern capable missiles that could shoot down any fighter plane...

The problem I refer is in absence of tactical information. It has a big RCS that can be seen for very far away, while other planes don't. I don't know how far the Zaslon-AM can see a modern LO or VLO fighter, but it is quite probably far closer than the MiG itself can be detected. Because of its high altitude and speed of flight, it could actually be attacked from very far away and therefore remain unaware of the incoming missile until activation of the missile's seeker at a distance (at that speed and with the marginal turning implied) which is not enough to avoid it. Maybe they carry the IR missiles for self defence in such cases, I don't know.

Didn't the MiG-21 have blown flaps, where high pressure air from the engines is piped through the flaps to improve performance on landing?

Interesting, I will check that

they could have decided not to claim a better record to hide MiG-25/31 true capabilities, or just didn't bother to claim it.

Improvements in materials and engines, if they tried the record again with another stripped down MiG-31 they might improve the record by a few thousand metres, but I doubt it would be a huge jump in performance.

Such performance is only useful if in service normal weight aircraft can repeat it and normally they can't because they have to carry self defence equipment and other stuff that weighs them down and reduces performance but also keeps the plane safe.

The US has every reason to get records for the SR-71... it was never going to fly over the Soviet Union anyway and any higher performance they could achieve along Soviet borders would be detected and recorded by the Soviets anyway... they would just be denying themselves the world record for no reason.

I did like the video, though the MiG-29M from the 1980s was a single seater design so the current MiG-29M2 and MiG-29KR and MiG-35 have a newly designed airframe shared between them designed for short strip operations and for being interchangeable between single and twin seats.

9M100?

There is no news about this system since 2013 or so, and its role seems covered by Pantsir... I will read further in the forum and keep my eyes open, but it seems dead by now...

S-350 system can use the 9M100 missile... four fit in each 9M96 tube... 12 9M96 missiles or with only 9M100 then 48 missiles can be carried (12 x 4) per vehicle.

For the Army there is talk of a Morfei vehicle that does not carry 9M96 missiles...

And the Russian Navy has Redut that has 9M96 missiles and also 9M100... and as recent reports talk about 400km range then they also can carry the 400km range missiles of S-400 too.

lol1 Yeah, as usual the Russians copied them and even had the gal of making the solution operational several years before...

Totally sneaky of them.... it is like the Chinese stealing our 5G technology and actually getting patents on it first and producing it first even though we invented it all...

I don't know what they will end up doing and I don't care much, what is clear is that their operational concept of F-35 working unsupported inside IADS has ended up being just pure embarrassment.

It was supposed to fly over S-300 and S-400 batteries with impunity killing them with cheap bombs, but it wont even go near Syrian airspace...

Russia is being very smart in their military planing. They neutralize not only current US solutions, but their future ones too. It is only logical NATO will develop some kind of air defence because with Iskander their chances were already shaky, but after Tsirkon and Kinzhal their vulnerability has become simply untenable (not to talk about to what Russian reaction will be to the end of INF) and they are scrambling left and right to get some sort of decent, serious AD, be it US, European or Israeli made.

The costs would be enormous... I rather suspect they will just say that any fight with Russia will go nuke fairly early on.... lets just ignore their superiority and say we will just build nuclear missiles in case there is a conflict... it is much cheaper... and our equipment and systems are still good enough against Libya and Afghanistan... we should still be able to crack small countries if we work together in a coalition of the willing...

If it turns on its radar it will be detected from so far than even a SR-71 may avoid it...

But the SR-71 is a recon plane... if it needs to look at the target the S-400 is defending it needs to fly near it... plus if that radar turns on and spots the incoming SR-71 which immediately changes course to fly around the S-400 battery... that change of course might take it directly over an S-400 battery sitting next to it... which keeps its radar turned off and receives target data from the first battery with its radar still operating... it should be able to launch its missiles based on that target data too... and the SR-71 would have no idea...

In the MiG-31 is like ten times less, but still significant.

The MiG-31 is not trying to penetrate defended air space... it might fly out to an interception area in the middle of nowhere and just fly around scanning for cruise missiles and low flying bombers trying to sneak through... it might be subsonic when it launches its missiles, or it might be linked with four other MiG-31s each flying 200km apart forming a virtual radar 1,000km long detecting targets from ground level up to high altitude and out to 300-400km depth...

At high altitudes the dynamic pressure is actually low. Altitude in fact limits seriously the lift and therefore turning performance of planes. Below you have values for the MiG-31 from Yefim Gordon I think:

Did you read that?

... about the sixth line down is the radius of a U turn for the MiG-31 and the F-14A.... the latter being considered a modern capable dog fighter at the time....

At heights of 5km and 10km at mach 1.4 the turning radius of the MiG-31 is 4.7km and 6.6km, compared with the F-14A at 14.9km and 9.1km... (I suspect that latter number is wrong and perhaps should be 19.1km), while at 17km altitude at mach 2.2, the turning radius of the MiG-31 is 34.4km while the F-14A turns in a radius of 54.8km

I am not suggesting the MiG-31 is a super fighter, but those figures are much better than for the F-14A which is a dogfighter and not just an interceptor...

Of course the next line down shows the Specific Excess power... which of course the MiG-31 wins simply because it is designed to operate at much higher speeds than the F-14....

Note the line above shows the F-14 actually "turns" at more degrees per second by quite a margin at lower speeds, but the turn radius shows the MiG uses less space to turn...

Maybe they carry the IR missiles for self defence in such cases, I don't know.

No. R-40TDs are for SR-71s and bombers, while R-60MKs and R-73s are for use against cruise missiles... the problem is that the R-60MKs limit the flight speed because they were designed to fly at Mach -2.5 for only a few seconds... not for an hour on a plane. The R-73s don't have those problems but only one to a pylon reduces their numbers carried...

The problem I refer is in absence of tactical information. It has a big RCS that can be seen for very far away, while other planes don't.

Their RCS is irrelevant... they will be scanning for cruise missiles continuously. The airspace they will be operating in would be out of range for US stealthy aircraft, and most of the airspace will be covered by ground based radar. A low flying F-22 or F-35 simply wouldn't have the flight range to sneak that far in...

GarryB wrote:The MiG-31 is not trying to penetrate defended air space... it might fly out to an interception area in the middle of nowhere and just fly around scanning for cruise missiles and low flying bombers trying to sneak through... it might be subsonic when it launches its missiles, or it might be linked with four other MiG-31s each flying 200km apart forming a virtual radar 1,000km long detecting targets from ground level up to high altitude and out to 300-400km depth...

The MiG-31 would be very useful to attack AWACS and similarly valuable planes in enemy air space. Also to intercept bombers and attack planes before they enter Russian air space and release their weapons. It is precisely this speed and altitude that allows it to do so, as far as it has an accurate view of the tactical situation.

Did you read that?

Yes, the MiG was designed for supersonic flight and is clearly better than the F-14 in that regard. The F-14 with is wings folded back probably has poor CL.

I am not suggesting the MiG-31 is a super fighter, but those figures are much better than for the F-14A which is a dogfighter and not just an interceptor...

Yes, we are not seeing subsonic turning performance of both planes... I guess the MiG is not that good at that, low overload tolerance and very high wing load.

Note the line above shows the F-14 actually "turns" at more degrees per second by quite a margin at lower speeds, but the turn radius shows the MiG uses less space to turn...

The overload capacity of the F-14 is much higher, but its excess power at supersonic speeds seems low, so it cannot sustain a turn as tight as the MiG-31... interesting results that show the results of designing a specialised supersonic interceptor, especially the high-speed performance of the propulsion sets it apart.

and R-73s are for use against cruise missiles...

Are you sure? We know the R-73 can intercept AAMs, it would certainly be an interesting insurance, in case some enemy manages to put a missile in range to hit the MiG.

LMFS wrote:
The MiG-31 would be very useful to attack AWACS and similarly valuable planes in enemy air space. Also to intercept bombers and attack planes before they enter Russian air space and release their weapons. It is precisely this speed and altitude that allows it to do so, as far as it has an accurate view of the tactical situation.

Yes, the MiG was designed for supersonic flight and is clearly better than the F-14 in that regard. The F-14 with is wings folded back probably has poor CL.

Yes, we are not seeing subsonic turning performance of both planes... I guess the MiG is not that good at that, low overload tolerance and very high wing load.

The overload capacity of the F-14 is much higher, but its excess power at supersonic speeds seems low, so it cannot sustain a turn as tight as the MiG-31... interesting results that show the results of designing a specialised supersonic interceptor, especially the high-speed performance of the propulsion sets it apart.

Are you sure? We know the R-73 can intercept AAMs, it would certainly be an interesting insurance, in case some enemy manages to put a missile in range to hit the MiG.

I think that,if i have intended them correctly, the two line above, showing the sustained and the maximum turn rate, give a good explanation of the different turn radius.

MiG-31 has not any practical way to perform an instantaneous turn but has a much more better sustained turn one than F-14, so when it came to close a
the loop it is at advantage.
And no, F-14 is not a dogfigther at all, it can pull just a maximum of 6,5M, less than F-15A/B (7,7G).
At supersonic speed it could however beat even an F-16, that was just not designed for operate in this range.

And no F-14 is not a dogfighter at all,..

I would say they r heavy fighter-inteceptors- they defeated Libyan Su-22s & MiG-23:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Sidra_incident_(1981)#Incident

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW8X7VK-Kdk

Dogfights r not done at supersonic speeds; F-14s could slow down & spread their wings wider to decrease turn radius & become more maneuverable.
Even the F-111 had to be agile to fly fast & low while avoiding the terrain below.

I agree with you, still I would not risk neither of two planes in a true furball.
Aerial combat manouvering is however perfectly fine for both until they can maintain an advantage in speed and quote toward a more agile opponent.
Also because thank to their huge range they can desengage and try again at will.