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

    GarryB
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    Post  GarryB Fri Feb 05, 2021 6:37 am

    Fine, I missed that "anti-" part.

    That is OK... no problem... not a big deal.

    How about making STOL MiG-31s with J-39 or Su-33-like canards?

    Most of the weight of the MiG-31 is fuel... for STOL you need a sports car.... ie huge power per weight... like a sprinter.

    Such a thing is good for a short range interceptor like a MiG-21 or MiG-23, but travelling at mach 2.5 plus continuously burns a lot of fuel... so much that very few operational aircraft actually do it.

    Canards would not help, as the aircraft would simply be just too heavy... not just for takeoff, but also for landing.

    The Yak-41 was lighter but had similar dimensions:

    And that is the key... Yak-141 max Takeoff weight (presumably with a rolling takeoff) of just under 20 tons... which is 4 tons lighter than the MiG-29s MTOW BTW... compared with MTOW for the MiG-31 of about 47 tons. The MiG-31 carries about 17 tons of fuel...

    A trimaran CVN/TAKRN could handle them, leaving F-18E/Fs & F-15EXs in the dust.

    I would think a carrier based Su-57 would be much easier to get in to service, would cost less to develop, and would be rather more suitable and capable against enemy fighters as well as being good enough against enemy bombers.

    The MiG-31 is better than the Su-57 for interception of B-52 bombers and could be cheaper too because the stealth of the Su-57 would not be a factor.

    Speed and range and the missiles you launch... all of which favour the old MiG.

    General Dynamics F-111 after modifications became Grumman F-14A Tomcat- I didn't know that competing aerospace companies would share their secrets & know- how! Perhaps the USN pressured them to do so, didn't it?

    To be clear most things were modified, but there is a direct lineage from the F-14A to the aircraft the F-111 started out as being.

    It is a bit like a Sukhoi design for a bomber... the Soviets didn't think they could pull it off but they liked the design so they passed the design on to Tupolev to actually build.

    Sukhoi tends to work with Saturn when it comes to engines and in terms of radars and other systems they have their favourite partner too, while say MiG prefers Klimov for engines and other companies for radar, but in this case the original American plane designed for carrier use used big heavy nuclear armed AAMs for shooting down bombers at extreme range... well when the programmes split because the USAF wanted a low flying strike aircraft and the Navy wanted their super interceptor the aircraft designs split up and the company that makes USAF bombers ended up making the F-111, while the radar and big heavy AA missile was adapted and became the F-14 with a different company, but the engines didn't change much.

    Those engines were efficient and good for strike missions, but not so good for a fighter. The new engines on the F-14D transformed the aircraft.... it could launch from a carrier in dry thrust with the new engines because they put out more power in dry thrust than the old engines put out in full AB.

    Top speed didn't change much but acceleration and reliability was much better.

    Most "western experts" claimed the MiG-31 was a copy of a F-14 with the R-33s being copies of Phoenix missiles provided by Iran but that is just bullshit. Iran didn't trust the Soviets any more than they trusted the Americans... there was no way they would give away the secrets of their best fighter and its missiles.

    The claim was to explain why the MiG-31 had such a good radar and missiles, but in fact its radar was much better than that fitted to the F-14...

    The Missiles were inferior in terms of range but possibly with better ECCM performance because of the aircrafts excellent radar and good tracking and illuminating performance.

    Mig-41 however is possible to come in naval vatiants.

    It is very unlikely they would consider a ship based MiG-41 as the MiG-41 will likely be much bigger and heavier than the MiG-31.

    A naval Su-57 and a naval LMFS is much more likely and much more practical.

    The MiG-41 is going to be more like a Fiddler than a Foxbat.


    Because MiG-31 wing are small and extremely thin, canard but also TVC wouldn't help.
    Sturdier wing= bye bye 2.8 mach.

    Exactly.... flying very fast means very low drag thin wings. STOL means thick high drag but also high lift wings... would be a difficult combination to achieve.

    The only ship based mach 2 aircraft in service is Granit and Onyx.

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    Post  Tsavo Lion Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:12 am

    Canards would not help, as the aircraft would simply be just too heavy... not just for takeoff, but also for landing.
    wouldn't EM CAT be powerful enough to launch it? Perhaps different, less fuel consuming engines could be fitted?
    How about navalizing smaller MiG-25s with their cockpits modified for 2 crew? it could also have MiG-31 avionics & AAMs.
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    Post  limb Thu Feb 25, 2021 9:00 am

    I always wondered why the Russians never made a dedicated bomber out of the MiG-31 and instead out of the Su-27. For bombers raw speed, electric power to power countermeasures, and heavy loadout is more important. I guess they would have considered the Su-27 to be a better low altitude performance aircraft, but low altitude penetration has always been a NATO circlejerk fantasy thats more like suicide in a real conflict, so its a useless feature.
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    Post  kvs Thu Feb 25, 2021 9:28 am

    The Su-34 and Mig-31 have nearly the same max weight and dry weight. But the Mig-31 can carry 4+ tons more fuel. Looks
    like it was prioritized for speed over payload. Precision bombing that enables high altitude bombing runs is not something that
    was all too prevalent back during the 1980s. Even America with its high priced precision bombing solutions is not invested in
    high altitude bombing. This is not mere delusion on the part of the planners. If you want long range attacks then there
    are missiles and their carrier aircraft such as the Tu-160 and Tu-95.
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    Post  magnumcromagnon Sat Mar 06, 2021 10:03 am

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    Post  LMFS Sat Mar 06, 2021 1:31 pm

    Very good camera on that video, you can see the amount of tail deflection needed on the MiG-31 to create and even to keep a nose-up attitude, compared to modern unstable planes like the Su-57.
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    Post  Hole Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:06 pm

    MiG-31BM/Κ Interceptor/Attack aircraft: News - Page 32 28087310

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    Post  magnumcromagnon Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:16 pm

    Hole wrote:MiG-31BM/Κ Interceptor/Attack aircraft: News - Page 32 28087310

    And there's all that room near the back where they can place a booster rocket stage(s) to greatly increase the range.  Should go from a in theater intermediate range threat to a ALICBM. If the MiG-31K platform can handle the extra weight then they should really pursue this development eventually.
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    Post  GarryB Sun Mar 07, 2021 8:10 am

    Or low earth orbit to space...

    I believe the anti sat missiles or delivery systems are longer.
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    Post  dino00 Mon Mar 08, 2021 10:08 pm

    Features of aerial hunting: MiG-31 found a new application

    Crews of unique fighters began to learn how to repel ballistic missile attacks


    The "combat aircraft" MiG-31 became ballistic missile hunters. Now the crews will regularly practice intercepting warheads during exercises. Thanks to their unique radar, high speed and powerful weapons, the vehicles are ideal for dealing with such targets. This is especially true after the treaty on intermediate and shorter-range missiles ended

    As the sources of the military department told "Izvestia", last year new exercises for intercepting targets-imitators of ballistic missiles were included in the combat training program as an experiment. Based on the results of the work, it was decided to extend the practice to all divisions of the MiG-31 interceptors.

    The first to test the new element of combat training were the crews of the fighter-interceptors of the Central Military District. As previously reported in the Ministry of Defense, at a recent exercise in the Perm Territory, the MiG-31BM repulsed a group raid of a simulated enemy aircraft, after which they flew to the Astrakhan Region and worked out the use of missiles against supersonic targets imitating ballistic missiles
    .


    https://iz.ru/1134114/roman-kretcul-aleksei-ramm/osobennosti-vozdushnoi-okhoty-mig-31-nashli-novoe-primenenie

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    Post  LMFS Mon Mar 08, 2021 10:42 pm

    Important news, the Zaslon-AM radar was not supposed to be so capable against hypersonic targets like BMs. And also means the R-37M are capable against such targets, and on top of that I suppose the new multimissile will have an even better performance in that regard. Also the operational concept of the PAK-DP gets clearer with this info
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    Post  Isos Tue Mar 09, 2021 12:31 am

    The window to shoot down such target is just few seconds. I doubt it has a real usefulness to try tobuse mig-31 for that.

    S-400/500 are better for that.
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    Post  Hole Tue Mar 09, 2021 11:39 am

    The timeframe remains the same for aircraft and ground based missile systems. The Woronesch radars will give them a few minutes warning time and the aircraft will already be in the air and pointing in the direction of the threat.

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    Post  magnumcromagnon Tue Mar 09, 2021 3:22 pm

    Hole wrote:The timeframe remains the same for aircraft and ground based missile systems. The Woronesch radars will give them a few minutes warning time and the aircraft will already be in the air and pointing in the direction of the threat.

    Indeed IAD's means powerful command posts at your disposable. The Agat Panorama TsM command post in it's export variant can track targets from 4,800km away and relay information across an area that is 9,600km in diameter. That's more than double the width of Australia.
    MiG-31BM/Κ Interceptor/Attack aircraft: News - Page 32 Panorama-TsM-CADCP-4S
    MiG-31BM/Κ Interceptor/Attack aircraft: News - Page 32 Panorama-TsM-CADCP-1S
    MiG-31BM/Κ Interceptor/Attack aircraft: News - Page 32 Panorama-TsM-CADCP-2S

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    Post  mnztr Tue Mar 09, 2021 8:40 pm

    magnumcromagnon wrote:
    Hole wrote:MiG-31BM/Κ Interceptor/Attack aircraft: News - Page 32 28087310

    And there's all that room near the back where they can place a booster rocket stage(s) to greatly increase the range.  Should go from a in theater intermediate range threat to a ALICBM. If the MiG-31K platform can handle the extra weight then they should really pursue this development eventually.

    Then it starts to turn into a strategic weapon and all the agreements come into play. If they want more range probably better to just strap on the drop tanks and send the tankers out for the return journey. Then you are already getting to some insane ranges

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    Post  magnumcromagnon Tue Mar 09, 2021 9:39 pm

    mnztr wrote:
    magnumcromagnon wrote:
    Hole wrote:MiG-31BM/Κ Interceptor/Attack aircraft: News - Page 32 28087310

    And there's all that room near the back where they can place a booster rocket stage(s) to greatly increase the range.  Should go from a in theater intermediate range threat to a ALICBM. If the MiG-31K platform can handle the extra weight then they should really pursue this development eventually.

    Then it starts to turn into a strategic weapon and all the agreements come into play.

    No it wouldn't. Uncle Sham doesn't have ALICMB's nor even just ALBM's (beyond makets and demonstrators) and they're not explicitly written in the current START Treaty. The same reason why Poseidon, Kinzhal, Zircon, Burevestnik (and arguably Avantgarde) aren't either. Both sides have to have them in service in their respective arsenals to justify their strategic reduction. There's also no limitation on tactical warheads which Uncle Sham refused to even attempt to negotiate, so load each one with a single or many 'tactical' warheads and you wouldn't violate any specific treaty.

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    Post  GarryB Wed Mar 10, 2021 10:51 am

    The MiG-31K is an excellent platform for launching an air launched Iskander missile to deal with enemy ships and aircraft carriers.

    Air breathing ground launched cruise missiles would be cheaper and simpler than tying up MiG-31s for attack missions though.

    MiG-31BMs are tied into an IADS that would give them advanced warning of approaching high altitude high speed weapons and the fact that in about 13 minutes they can move 750km to launch their missiles makes them a rather flexible and long reach system for dealing with incoming ballistic missile threats.

    It also means they can position themselves in ideal positions for dealing with low orbit satellites too...

    Creating a layer of defence from very high speed enemy missiles means for instance an manouvering hypersonic threat missile will have to start manouvering earlier which will use up more fuel and slightly reduce performance with a small chance of getting a kill... even if it fails it is a chance... the first of many hopefully.

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    Post  Hole Wed Mar 10, 2021 12:20 pm

    A crime that this lovely baby wasn´t in production for the last 30 years. So many roles to play: AD, now ABM, ASAT, Kinzhal carrier, a recon/bomber and SEAD/KEAD version would be nice, too.

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    Post  GarryB Thu Mar 11, 2021 2:50 am

    I rather suspect that the MiG-41 will be a different shape and design because the speed requirements are different, but I also think systems and components from the new aircraft could be fitted to the MiG-31 to keep it relevant and make it more potent, so radar and new weapons and new engine options could improve performance to the point where it could continue to be used in different capacities in different roles.
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    Post  Backman Thu Mar 11, 2021 4:30 am

    GarryB wrote:I rather suspect that the MiG-41 will be a different shape and design because the speed requirements are different, but I also think systems and components from the new aircraft could be fitted to the MiG-31 to keep it relevant and make it more potent, so radar and new weapons and new engine options could improve performance to the point where it could continue to be used in different capacities in different roles.

    It would sure be nice if they would give us more info on the Mig 41. We really have no idea what its going to be
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    Post  magnumcromagnon Wed Apr 07, 2021 10:05 pm

    "Attacked from a height of 20 km": Exercises to intercept carriers of hypersonic weapons were held in the Arctic

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    Post  limb Thu Apr 08, 2021 6:33 am

    What can an AWACS radar on an E-3 do that the Zaslon-AM can't other than 360 degree coverage?
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    Post  George1 Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:45 pm

    MiG-31BM, serving in the Arctic, received a new navigation system for use in the Arctic. This was reported by the press service of Rostec.

    https://en.topwar.ru/181769-dlja-poletov-v-arktike-mig-31bm-poluchili-novuju-navigacionnuju-sistemu.html

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    Post  George1 Fri Apr 16, 2021 2:33 pm

    Russia’s MiG-31 fighter jet was scrambled to escort a US RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft over the Pacific Ocean along the southeastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

    https://tass.com/defense/1278827

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    Post  Finty Mon Apr 19, 2021 12:40 am

    Not so much news, but it's about the 31...

    Secret Mission for an Old MiG

    Air and Space wrote:

    There’s a famous Russian saying: Something new is something old that everyone has forgotten. Consider the MiG-31 fighter, a seemingly obsolete 40-year-old warhorse that may be on the verge of a dangerous second act, or even a third.

    The -31, whose forte back in the 1980s was chasing U.S. SR-71 spyplanes at enormous speed 12 miles above the Soviet Arctic, has officially been repurposed as a delivery vehicle for the Kinzhal (“dagger”), one of the family of hypersonic missiles Vladimir Putin is counting on to get Russia back into the global arms race.

    But that’s the less intriguing job. What’s really roiled defense aviation geeks for the past two years is a photo, posted by unofficial snoops, of a MiG-31 carrying a mystery missile that looks even bigger than the Kinzhal. And the Kinzhal isn’t small: It weighs half a metric ton and can fly 1,200 miles.

    Observers speculated that this newer, larger missile was meant to be shot upward at U.S. and allied low-Earth-orbit satellites. An April 2020 article by British scholar Bart Hendrickx posted in The Space Review flushes out this hypothesis following clues from Russian defense contracts and terse official statements. His conclusion: The MiG-31 is knee-deep in a secret Kremlin anti-satellite plan dubbed Burevestnik, the storm-riding bird memorialized in a 1901 epic poem by Maxim Gorky.

    Why the MiG-31? To start with, it’s big. You might say huge. It took off for its first mission in 1981 weighing 42,000 kilos (92,400 pounds), one-and-a-half times the mass of the Sukhoi Su-27, its Soviet contemporary, and toting four R-33 missiles, which were just 10 kilos lighter than the Kinzhal. The -31 is also one of the fastest airplanes flying today. It cruises as fast as Mach 2.4 (1,840 miles per hour at sea level, or a little unde 1,600 miles per hour at altitude), and can rev above Mach 2.8 in hot pursuit. It ranged 1,250 kilometers (776 miles) even before mid-air refueling was added in the mid-1980s.

    The MiG-31 flies at extreme altitude—66,000 feet—to minimize air resistance. Closer to the ground, it can still make Mach 1.2. Its R-33s can (in theory) hit targets 300 kilometers away. The blend of speed and lethal firepower earned the “Foxhound” respect from its NATO opponents back in the day. A squad of four -31s was enough to keep pests away from 900 kilometers of border.

    Again, in theory. No one ever tested them.

    The MiG-31’s cardinal flaw was lack of versatility. It deterred against airborne attack on the Soviet homeland, a far-fetched scenario even in the you-blink-first ’80s, and arguably kept the Blackbird scrupulously out of Soviet airspace. But with the advent of multi-purpose fighters, like the Su-27 and U.S. contemporaries F-14 and F-15, the MiG-31 was decisively mono-functional. “It’s more like a surface-to-air missile than a plane,” says Michael Kofman, director of the Russia Studies Program at Washington defense think-tank CNA.

    Too big and clumsy for use in dogfights or localized post-cold war conflicts, the Foxhound languished while other Russian weapons systems switched to earning their keep through export. Four decades on, the MiG-31 has never fired a shot in anger—or earned the Kremlin a ruble from any foreign sale.

    Present-day conflicts may be another story as “blinding” the enemy’s eyes in the sky becomes a critical factor in battlefield dominance. Shooting at satellites from fighter aircraft is not exactly a new idea either. The U.S. Air Force did it successfully at least once back in 1980s Star Wars days, clocking a dummy target with an ASM-135A missile launched by an F-15 (“The First Space Ace,” April/May 2018). The Soviets’ planned response involved mounting a modified MiG-31 with a 79M6 missile. It got through a few test flights before perestroika put all such efforts on a long pause. The Kinzhal, if Russian propaganda is to be believed, boasts a range of 1,200 miles, which just happens to be the maximum altitude of a low-Earth-orbit satellite. So it doesn’t stretch credibility (too much) to believe that the enormous Missile X at Zhukovskoe was a cousin of the Kinzhal modified for space attack.

    If one is aiming for orbiting targets at that prodigious distance, starting with a mobile platform 66,000 feet up offers considerable advantages. You save boatloads of energy—and cost—launching from that altitude. No less important, the MiG-31 could shift satellite killing to a 24/7 regime, says Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. “Ground-based systems may have to wait for a day until the satellite passes within their range,” he explains. “Air launch gives you more flexibility.”

    Many critical U.S.-NATO satellites circle beyond Kinzhal/Missile X’s reach in geostationary or medium-Earth orbits (where the GPS constellation is). But the low-Earth-orbit tier is also packed with assets that need closer proximity for higher-resolution images of a given tactical theater, Kofman says. Troops on the ground have come to rely on these connections, rather like the average citizen on their home internet. “We’re pretty dependent on space-based assets for precision-guided weapons, real-time target-tracking, a lot of the backbone of modern conflict,” he says.

    Russia’s military needs to connect a lot of dots, and spend a lot of rubles, before the MiG-31 can realistically crack this backbone. But its ability to carry massive new weapons has at least earned the aging system one more reprieve. In 2015, Moscow’s defense ministry announced it would upgrade 130 aircraft to the latest -31BM modification by 2030. The monster roars on.


    The rest is here
    https://www.airspacemag.com/airspacemag/secret-mission-old-mig-180975336/

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