MiG-31BM/Κ Interceptor/Attack aircraft: News

The whole point about supercruising is the fly fast without burning too much fuel so that a large percentage of flight can be in supersonic dry thrust.

For the Mig-31 it is kinda irrelevant because it was designed to fly at Mach 2.4 all the way out and all the way back in an interception with a flight radius of about 750km, so in actual fact it will be flying much faster than an F-22 would be, so the speed advantage for the latter is gone.

There were plans to fit the Mig-31 with a large belly mounted rocket that could be used to launch satellites... I rather suspect such an arrangement could also be used with a weapon to shoot down satellites too.

Russian rocket performance is actually very good, and the Proton is a sound and reliable rocket.

The problem is that everyone focuses on the failures... especially when they are spectacular.

A good example is the US Space shuttle... it had a totally awesome record, and then two separate incidents, that have tarnished the record of what was a very successful program.

Even with two fatal accidents the Space Shuttle had a very good record... much better than was expected, which was something like a fatal accident every 100 launches or something.

Even with the two fatal launches the only thing wrong with it was the high cost of each launch.

Otherwise a very very successful program.

Russian rockets are so good even the US buys them for their future planned rockets... the Saturn IV is gone and if they want to get to Mars with more than robots they will need a new big rocket and that new big rocket will be using Russian rocket motors.

MiG-31 could be developed in a strike fighter like F-15E?

It certainly could but there would be no point.

They are not making any more Mig-31s so they ones they do have in service will be covering large empty areas of Siberia as an interceptor.

Why turn the Mig-31 into an F-15E when it will never come across any ground targets in Siberia?

Equally why waste money changing the Mig-31 into a long range strike aircraft when the Su-34 is already entering service and the Tu-22M3s are being upgraded to Tu-22M3Ms?

Which model of F-15E has a combat radius of 2,000km with a 24 ton payload without inflight refuelling?

The last figure I heard said either 60 or 100 would be upgraded by 2020, which suggests if needed the rest could be upgraded after that, or not.

Either way they have been in use for the last 20 odd years with minimal maintainence and support because of funding issues. The ones that don't get upgrades will not be worth converting into strike aircraft.

The new Aerospace Defence Forces might find a whole bunch of money and give them a decent upgrade... nice big AESA radars, redesigned bellys for 8 RVV-BD missiles and a new 8 pylon wing for long range scramjet powered R-77s and short range 9M100 missiles.

Actually three fitted side by side under the Mig-31M, so actually they should go for 5 abreast for an upgrade.

It doesn't matter if the two outside missiles stick out a bit... the Tornado and F-15 both had conformal positions there for Skyflash/Sparrow missiles... it is not like such a weapon arrangement would suddenly become high drag.

The main issue would be the undercarriage because the way the wheels move forward and retract where the airbrakes are.

I am pretty sure the Mig-31M is no wider than previous models, it is just that the R-37 has slimmer fins and could be located closer together.

In fact I would think if the undercarriage and airbrake were redesigned to retract up and in from the side you could probably fit 6 abreast.

The obvious question is could you redesign the undercarriage that way and what effect would it have on the air brakes performance.

Of course a redesign of the undercarriage could do away with the airbrakes and the twin vertical tail control surfaces could be used for air brakes instead... the advantage would then be that the airbrakes would not need to be deployed during take off to retract the undercarriage.

With much less fuss 6 weapons on the belly and retain existing undercarriage arrangement and extra wing pylons for more weapons would make sense... especially if they are very long wing pylons able to take twin tandem missile arrangements. The R-77 and R-33 and R-37 are all pneumatically thrown downwards before launch so carrying them in tandem would not result in launch damage to the rear weapon but it would reduce drag.

6 wasn't jam packed...