PAK-DA: News

For the first time stated that the PAK DA will be replaced including and Tu-22M3, which indirectly confirms our vision of the concept PAK DA - all-mode supersonic bomber representing a something between a Tu-22M3 and Tu-160.

Wrong...

The mention of the Tu-22M3 does not make it a supersonic bomber somewhere between the Tu-160 and the Tu-22M3... just as the original plan of replacing the Tu-95 and Tu-160 does not make it a subsonic swing wing jet bomber with some reduced RCS capabilities.

The mention of the Tu-22M3 is simply obvious logic... the Tu-160 and Tu-95 in their upgraded M models have been adapted to theatre roles as well as their previously exclusive strategic nuclear roles... as such they will already be able to perform the mission of the theatre Tu-22M3 in conventional and nuclear attack roles.

Any replacement for the Tu-160 and Tu-95 will therefore obviously be able to perform the roles of the Tu-22M3 as well... so instead of 100 Tu-95s, 16 Tu-160s, and 60 odd Tu-22M3s they will able to use 160 odd PAK DAs to perform the missions of all three aircraft and perhaps produce a few more with less stealth capability as Tu-142 replacements too.

That doesn't mean the PAK DA will have the speed and performance of all the aircraft it is replacing... it really means payload and range first and foremost as the strategic and theatre performance will be mostly related to range and the weapons it can carry. (likely long range stealthy missiles but also hypersonic scramjet powered missiles too.)

GarryB wrote:That doesn't mean the PAK DA will have the speed and performance of all the aircraft it is replacing...

Max speed of the PAK DA has been pegged at Mach 2 .

According to this author... because as the part I quoted points out he is expecting a Tu-160 like aircraft that is slightly heavier than the Tu-22M3.

TTX Aircraft : Weight - about 125,000 kg Fuel weight - up to 50,000 kg Range - 12500 km Radius - 6000 -9000 km (probably with refueling) Max Speed ​​- 1.5-2 M Cruising - more than 1 M

I have not seen this information released officially and think this is just speculation on the author of the article.

At 125 tons this speculated design is not that much heavier than a fully loaded Tu-22M3 and would seem to me to represent a B-1Bski that was a bit more like the Tu-160... something I would see as rather a step backwards.

From most other reports I have read the PAK DA is going to be a flying wing which means it will be subsonic only unless it has a horizontal tail surface to allow it to pass through the sound barrier safely.

Personally I would love to see an enormous flying wing with horizontal tail surface with 4 NK-32 engines upgraded to 5th gen in the 30 ton class power range that would enable the stealthy flying wing to supercruise at very very high speed and high altitude, but odds are it will more likely be subsonic and carry very long range stealthy subsonic cruise missiles or medium range hypersonic cruise missiles.

Long range and low RCS suggest flying wing... to keep costs and complexity down a fixed wing would make it cheaper though sophisticated flight controls like the upper intake of the PAK FA and other innovations could be applied along with a wing that is adaptable and thrust vectoring engines that allow the aircraft to be trimmed in flight to maximise performance in terms of aerodynamics and in reducing drag and RCS.

A horizontal tail would allow the design deal with the serious shift in cg during the flight transition from subsonic to supersonic flight while highly variable cycle engines and extremely low drag should allow high supersonic cruise with scramjet propulsion using bypass air.

Of course speed will be dictated by wing sweep and materials rather than engine power, though a lightened design could allow a reduction in weight by removing one engine and allowing the cavity left to operate as a scramjet high speed cruise engine to maximise range at high speed with minimum fuel burn.

It could supercruise 10,000km at mach 1.8 because of its low drag and ability to trim with thrust vectoring engines, but for the 6,000km near enemy airspace... 3,000km in and 3,000km out, it could accelerate with its scramjet to much higher speeds for a relatively short period...

Its a perculiar situation. Perhaps any lower speed Pak Da can replace the Bears.
We don't really know if its a subsonic, or a Mach 1.5 to 2.0 tops plane.

My concern is that the B1-B is fine for America, because it has bases all over the World. Russia does not, so it has to factor in travel time to destinations...

The other concern is that if the/ a variant of the Pak Da is to form part of Russia's nuclear triad, it
would help to have similarity in terms of response time to America's aircraft deployed missiles.
Ofcourse it means Russia spending more on planes, but probably means it can spend less on subs, ships and ICMBs etc in this area.

I wonder what could be done with an enlarged Pak Fa, with buddy refuelling, for rapid response long range attacks? (I know its payload would be relatively tiny.. but its stealth and its fast).

Perhaps the argument is that Pak Da will be a relatively lower cost version for most uses. Then the true Tu-160 replacement will be some sort of prompt global strike, hypersonic plane, which will be arriving later...?

GarryB wrote: and would seem to me to represent a B-1Bski that was a bit more like the Tu-160... something I would see as rather a step backwards.

That will not happen because Russia is making efforts to restart production of the Tu-160's motors; a reworked version, the NK-32M, which will have a longer lifetime. A greatly improved gas generator has been bench tested successfully and production examples will be available by 2016 .

Besides, various Russian scientific institutions, among them TsAGI (Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute), have been working on technologies of undoubted interest to designers working on the PAK-DA. In particular, TsAGI did intensive wind-tunnel testing on the Sova future hypersonic vehicle (capable of reaching a speed of Mach 5) and collaborated on domestic and European projects on future supersonic business jets, with the focus on sonic boom suppression and drag reduction. What remains to be seen , is, how is work allocated to these institutions in the best possible manner .

Lt Gen Victor Bondarev had already stated in August 2012 that work on developing the PAK DA has started . Subsequently the RuAF announced that it had approved an early design of the PAK-DA and that industry could go ahead with adapting the design .

Perhaps any lower speed Pak Da can replace the Bears.
We don't really know if its a subsonic, or a Mach 1.5 to 2.0 tops plane.

Speed costs money and burns fuel and makes a plane bigger than it needs to be.

Very high speed makes planes very expensive to buy and operate.

Having said that a new type of engine can open options that were not previously even dreamed of.

For instance a fully developed 5th gen version of the 25 ton thrust NK-32 that perhaps generates 30-35 tons of thrust starts to get interesting... the Tu-160 was developed during a period where long range low speed cruise and high dash speed required a swing wing as a solution. These days different wing shape options are now available so that the weight and complexity of swing wing is no longer needed.

A ramjet is a hollow tube through which air passes... fuel is added and burned creating thrust. A scramjet is just the same thing but where the fuel is burned at supersonic speed so it can operate at very high flight speeds without sophisticated intakes that slow the incoming air to make it subsonic.

Fitting a slightly enlarged Tu-160 with a fixed wing shape of a more sophisticated design with two NK-xxs with 35 tons thrust with the space between then used as scramjets able to operate at very high speed offering high thrust performance would be very interesting.

The NK-xx engines would be used to get airborne and as the aircraft accelerates and climbs the scramjets can be started to boost power and speed.

The main issue is that hypersonic speed would require brand new structure materials and surface skins that can resist high speed flight for very long periods.

Personally I prefer the large flying wing with a horizontal tail surface... actually something that looks like the F-23 but with the cockpit pushed back to the wing... the wing greatly enlarged and the entire aircraft enlarged and the tail surface flattened so the whole aircraft is flat. Thrust vectoring would be used for stabilisation. The horizontal tail surface would allow supersonic flight as it needs an ability to shift its cg as it accelerates through the speed of sound.

Could still have NK-xx engines and scramjet engines but instead of hypersonic speed I would go for supercruising at mach 2.2-2-6... this would allow the aircraft to move around rapidly... would make it rather difficult for current and planned aircraft to intercept it but not require exotic new materials.

The aircrafts primary weapons will be very long range cruise missiles including stealthy ones and hypersonic models.

Stealth of the bomber would not be critical as it is a stand off attack aircraft in the strategic role and would be supported in theatre missions by jammers and other platforms and could carry a very heavy guided bomb load over short distances with a reduced fuel load...

This should result in a lower cost but still very viable bomber aircraft that could replace the Tu-95, Tu-160, Tu-22M3 and also the Tu-142 MPA... and if it has very very long range and can supercruise all that way at mach 2.6 then it could be used as a replacement for the Mig-31.

It could even be considered as a commercial airliner for long range flights.

Once hypersonic flight is perfected with cruise missiles then I would look at using such engines in bombers and fighters.

Ofcourse it means Russia spending more on planes, but probably means it can spend less on subs, ships and ICMBs etc in this area.

Hopefully having one type replacing a range of aircraft types they will actually be saving money rather than spending more.

I wonder what could be done with an enlarged Pak Fa, with buddy refuelling, for rapid response long range attacks? (I know its payload would be relatively tiny.. but its stealth and its fast).

Might be useful some time down the line as a Su-34 replacement would would hardly replace the Tu-22M3 let alone a real strategic aircraft.

Keep in mind that the bomber is likely to get through because by the time it gets there all the SLBMS and ICBMs will already have smashed the enemy.

The huge benefit of the bombers is that they can be used in conventional wars and can also be deployed but also called back so you can threaten by putting them on alert and even getting them into the air without actually committing to anything.

Then the true Tu-160 replacement will be some sort of prompt global strike, hypersonic plane, which will be arriving later...?

That could work too... perhaps the replacement for the Tu-160 is a big slow flying wing that can carry a huge hypersonic missile on its back that can fly 10,000km at mach 5.

That will not happen because Russia is making efforts to restart production of the Tu-160's motors; a reworked version, the NK-32M, which will have a longer lifetime. A greatly improved gas generator has been bench tested successfully and production examples will be available by 2016 .

I have said before this would be worth it... developing a new next gen bomber engine means they can upgrade their Tu-160s and Tu-22M3s and perhaps even fit two to their Bears if they wanted...

Even just minor upgrades will improve performance of existing aircraft.

Possible PAK DA design


http://paralay.com/t60/pakda226.jpg

Ogannisyan8887 wrote:Possible PAK DA design


http://paralay.com/t60/pakda226.jpg

lol it's already similar enough to GazB's ideas

Maybe the Russian design bureaus are reading this forum??  

Oh god please no.

I can hear the "B-2 copy" whining already.

B-2ski.  

Just a boring subsonic flying wing with engines half sticking out because it seems Russians are too stupid to mount them internally...

This very amaturish modification of that boring flying wing with winglets is my best attempt at describing what I would like to see... a flying wing with the butterfly tail of the YF-23...

The tail surface would allow the cg of the aircraft to be maintained as it passes through transonic flight to supersonic speeds... a supercruising stealthy bomber is rather more appealing than a boring subsonic one.

Note to make it supersonic the wing sweep angle will likely need increasing.. I didn't bother with that...



By adding a tail area you greatly increase the internal volume for fuel and internal weapons as the engines are shifted well back.

Note also to be realistic the main undercarriage would need to be shifted well back too.

Any source confirming this design ?

I don't think this is how things are going to be.

But don't think it will be much different if the stealth is a mandatory criteria. since stealth theory is the same the thing is who will do things first.

PS: if only they could be inspired by a manta ray

This design is not that impressive... the air intakes and engine exhausts will most likely be on top of the aircraft rather than below to hide them from ground based radar and lower flying aircraft.

Over the years they have put out a range of interesting alternative long range bomber designs... most of which look rather more promising than a B-2B.

Sujoy wrote:The designers will NOT make the same mistakes with the PAK DA design as was done with the B 2 .

I wouldn't read too much into the shaping because by the time the PAK DA makes it's debut RAM will reach new levels altogether .Ergo, you do not need to pay a penalty on the design to make it stealthy .

Essential to remember that even till this date very little is known about the active & passive stealth features of even the PAK FA though few details are coming out like the  Gold coating of the cockpit .

What mistakes were those? Apart from only building 21 and correspondingly making each airframe retardedly expensive  

Gold canopy coatings are nothing new, we've known they inhibit EM energy pass-through for decades now. The EA-6B, for example, had them...and not because it had any illusions about being stealthy. Besides, if you have an LO aircraft without something like the gold treatment, you've wasted your money. It'd be bigger news if it wasn't found on the PAK-FA.

Also, RAM is not the panacea everyone thinks it is. RAM is typically very tricky to work with, as the composition and thickness are dictated by the intended hostile wavelengths. Also pretty worthless against a VHF-band metric wavelength radar, as the thickness you'd have to apply would basically bury the airframe.

RAM is like ERA for a tank.

It is better than nothing, and can be rather more easily upgraded over time... unlike the basic structure of the main armour.

As technology improves the performance of RAM will only get better... ie more effective, cheaper, easier to apply, less toxic, wider range of pastel colours to match the sky...  

I rather suspect they will likely be working on aircraft skin based radar antenna arrays that allow them to detect incoming radar from any direction and to use active cancellation and other techniques to fool enemy radar in addition to stealth.

Of course at the end of the day the primary strategic weapon will be a 5,500km range cruise missile, so stealth wont need to be that important... even just the flying wing form with existing RAM technology might be enough. Future work on hypersonic scramjet engines should enable long range high speed cruise missiles be developed to further enhance their effectiveness.

SOC wrote: What mistakes were those?

Northrop  went forward with an unstable design and relied on inspections to find and rework defects once in production . That’s why the B 2 requires  thousands of  fixes after every flight .  

The airframe of the B 2 is shaped in such a way that instead of having the reflected energy scatter in all directions it will bounce back on just one or two directions . So far so good . Right ? However, in order to make a useful difference , pretty much  every straight line on the entire airframe has to be aligned in the direction of the few selected spikes thereby making the design of everything  incredibly difficult from access panel and stabilizers to landing gear doors.

Observe the overwing engine nacelles . The B2 in order to achieve a continuously varying curvature uses a compact, smooth blended external  geometry   .  This design causes a significant demand for high predictive ability and computational capacity .

As was seen in Serbia the B2 never operated without EW escort aircrafts .

Netted Radars uses more than one receiver and more than one transmitter in a network. Since the B2 rely partly on deflecting RADAR pulses, receivers located off the line of pulse transmission will be able to detected deflected echoes. By illuminating a target area using multiple transmitters and linking multiple receivers into a coordinated network, the chances of detecting the B2 increases drastically. While it is possible that no single receiver may record a strong or steady echo from any single transmitter, however the network as a whole is bound to collect enough information to track the B 2.

Its Official PAK-DA will be subsonic  

Bondarev: promising aviation complex long-range aircraft will be subsonic

Promising aviation complex long-range aircraft (PAK DA) is subsonic, it differs from the existing long-range aircraft such as the Tu-160, is that it will carry more weapons, told reporters on Tuesday, Chief of the Air Force, Lieutenant General of the Russian Federation Victor Cooper.

"PAK DA will be subsonic, his difference is that it will be bigger than the Tu-160, and weapons will be much more serious. All other tasks will be to decide missiles," - said Cooper.

At present, Russian strategic aviation forces, which are part of the 37th Air Army of the Supreme Command, include the Tu-32 bomber 95MS6, 31 95MS16 Tu-13 bombers and Tu-160. They are capable of carrying more than 850 long-range cruise missiles.

It is assumed that the new bomber will have a high level of combat power and will be able to overcome the modern anti-aircraft defenses. The car will be equipped with the newest complex of electronic warfare and precision-aircraft weapons.

Previous Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov reported that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev decided to establish in the territory of the Kazan Production Association named after Gorbunov new modern factory. It is expected that there will be the An-70, and in the future PAK DA.

Bigger than Tu-160?!?!!


Yeah right.

Also where did Victor Cooper come from o.O

The Design choice of a Bigger than Tu-160 but Subsonic Aircraft indication the kind of battle they anticipate in the future which is regional conflict where On Station Persistence and Larger Payload is a bigger factor than combat speed.

Also indicated RuAF does not anticipate a full scale nuclear war where high combat speed is of greater value.

Also Subsonic Aircraft will be cheaper to procure in large numbers a factor that needs to be accounted when you have to replace Tu-22M3 , Tu-95MS and Tu-160 with a single type.

I think Tu-160 , Tu-95MS and Tu-22M3 atleast the first two will serve till atleast 2040 with upgrades atleast that is what they indicated so they will still have a decent fleet of Supersonic Bomber for a long time.

Tu-160 already has massive range. If you went with a subsonic design, without the swing wings and huge afterburning engines, the weight and volume savings you would have would already offer a handsome range increase, and there is always refueling.

A bird bigger than a Tu-160 would indicate putting a lot of eggs (missiles) into one basket, plus IMO there would be practical issues, like airfield compatibility.

Flying wing is almost a given for this design , So Long Range ,Stealth, Persistence over Battle Field and Larger Internal Payload is what the design choice they have opted for.

Good for Gulf War kind of regional conflict but not good for full scale nuclear conflict where speed of aircraft would matter.

TR1 wrote:Also where did Victor Cooper come from o.O

I presume they are referring to Commander of the Air Force, Lt. General Viktor Bondarev (Victor Cooper LOL!)

Yeah I guess its a bad translation, but I am scratching my head as to where "Cooper" came from.

Worst Russian name ever.

I suspect they have decided to go with a huge payload as well as range and stealth.

By requiring stealth they need enormous internal capacity which means this aircraft will need to be huge... likely more so because the future cruise missiles will likely include very long range subsonic missiles but also large hypersonic missiles too.

As a bonus this means very large theatre range capacity for weapons and generally low operations costs with subsonic flight speeds.

I would say that even just supercruise in a tailed flying wing design would help it get to target areas much faster and improve its ability to evade interceptors, but the choice of subsonic speeds means large high bypass turbofans can be used rather than the much more powerful NK-32 type engines which should enable the IR signature to be greatly reduced at the cost of subsonic speed flight limitation.

Of course if they are planning to introduce Zirconium and Brahmos II then having the plane fly at very high speed is just a bit redundant and expensive... much more sensible to fly down the Atlantic to North Africa and then launch hypersonic 5,000km range missiles at targets from unexpected directions... perhaps targeting AEGIS class cruisers stationed to defend the US from ICBMs and SLBMs.

In many ways this solution is like a stealthy Tu-95SM16 which makes a lot of sense in terms of usefulness and operational costs.

I am looking forward to seeing it in the air over Moscow for a May day parade...

Yeah I guess its a bad translation, but I am scratching my head as to where "Cooper" came from.

Worst Russian name ever.

What were Russian Shoe Makers called?

American shoe sellers were called Al Bundy....  

How long we would see an upgraded Tu-22M3M and Tu-160M in service any official word on that ?

I read for Tu-95MS it would be till 2040.