PAK-DA: News

You can just drop sonobouys and listen in from a distance, no need to criss cross. Fly too low and the sub may shoot you down.

You are obviously not familiar with how they work.

First you plot out a grid where the enemy sub might be located... and then you drop dozens of sonobouys in a pattern based on that grid to try to find the sub... you can't just drop one in the water... and boom you find every sub in that sea...

You drop noise emitting and listening sonobouys in patterns around the place to find where all the noise making things are... work out which are whales and which are shagging fish, and which are submarines and then you drop some more sonobouys near where all the subs are and then you use your MAD and sensitive radar to detect a more precise position and drop depth charges or torpedoes to sink them.

A sonobouy falls under a small parachute... you drop them from relatively low altitude so they land where you want them to land and don't get blown miles off course...

I'm with GarryB on this one: as a subsonic flying wing with heavy payload (so room for sensors and weapons) and long-range, the PAK DA would be a perfect basis for an ASW variant.

The new technology they are developing with antenna arrays that can be conformal.... built in to the aircraft structure... and could be sensitive enough to notice a small rise in water level where a submarine is moving underwater would be invaluable. A long wave radar that could penetrate a few hundred metres into the water would be amazing...

The reality is enough to hit hard the arguments without a serious technical basis. Note that the future Tu-22M3M variant aircrafts will come from upgraded aircrafts from previous variants, Tu-22M3 included.

Get over it Eehnie... The Tu-22M0 is a different design from the Tu-22. The Tu-22M0 had a structure for inflight refuelling, but that was removed completely because of a strategic arms agreement. The Tu-22M1 didn't really enter service the main first service version was the Tu-22M2 which had curved air intakes a bit like an Su-24. The Tu-22M3 which became the definitive model with the MiG-25 air intakes and the 25 ton thrust new engines also was not built with inflight refuelling systems at all because the same strategic arms agreement that forced their removal from the prototype meant they also could not be fitted to these aircraft.

Now that the US is escalating things, and the START II treaty has expired and is no longer in force they can now add an inflight refuelling capability to the newly modified Tu-22M3M. They are also removing two crew seats and enlarging the bomb bay and replacing the engines and radar and full electronic suite, so this is not a little patch upgrade... this is like going from Su-27 to Su-34... serious structural changes.

An underperformer Tu-PAK-DA (compared to the modernized Tu-160 and Tu-22) is only real in the dreams of US supporters. Nothing more to say.

You can stick you your guns all you want... these upgraded Backfires in my opinion will basically be Naval Air Power and not so much used by DA... their primary role will be to keep enemy carrier groups away from the Russian coast... for which they wont be operating against the continental US like the Blackjack or PAKDA.

What do you mean with "underperforming"?
The PAK-DA could be subsonic and still be a superior aircraft. Long endurance. Stealth. More weapons.

He thinks that if it is not faster or better or longer ranged than a blackjack then it is a step backwards... he wants hypersonic.

would be a VLO flying wing design like the one hinted for the PAK-DA allow the aircraft to take off and deploy without even low frequency and OTH radars noticing it? I understand this would be a major element of nuclear deterrence, since it would allow it to remain unnoticed and essentially attack anywhere and anytime, very much like a SSBN (especially considering 5000+ km range for the Kh-102)

Hard to say... to build new Blackjacks they needed a forge big enough to build the giant titanium box structure that holds the swing wing mechanism... such a forge could be used to make rather large components... large components means fewer joins, which is rather good for stealthy...

Long range is the main variable that defines the role of Strategic Bomber, but speed is also one of he most importants. A reduction of a 40-50% in the speed from the previous generation is not acceptable, when it affects to things as importants as the survability of the aircrafts, as explained by Mindstorm in this same topic, and the response time in the event of nuclear first strike.

We have been over this to death Eehnie... speed costs money... Bears and subsonic flying wing PAK DAs are much cheaper to operate than supersonic Blackjacks.

The advantage in stealth technologies has a short life until the defensive detection technologies of the adversaries improve (5, 10, 15 years...). A subsonic stealth Strategic Bomber with its stealth advantage lost becomes then a seriously underperforming aircraft. This kind of aircraft will very likely lose its orders in the long term, orders that will return to the Tu-160 and if necessary the Tu-22 would also return to production.

The advantage of a subsonic PAK DA is not its stealth, it is that its internal volume can be huge so it could carry lots of large missiles like hypersonic missiles and low flying stealthy missiles to bypass American air defences... such as they are...

The early variants of the Tu-22 and the Tu-22M variants are technologically related like many sources afirm. Sources that were right also on refueling, unlike you.

I have a western book on Tupolev aircraft that states the only things in common between the Tu-22 and Tu-22M are the main wheels... even the ejection seats are different... on the Tu-22 they eject down... not so great in an accident during landing or taking off...

To think that to recover a system that was removed from an aircraft designed to allow it, even in its late variants after the removal, was not possible (GarryB) or would require major modifications (Militarov) was technologically ridiculous, as the reality proved.

They put an inflight refuellng probe on a MiG-29 which was never originally designed to have one... they can put a probe on anything and put piping to make it work... the point is that they were not allowed to put the inflight refuelling back on until after the START II treaty expired.

The modernization of 6 months includes many other changes far more difficult and critical. The work of the Russian engineers has been refined enough to make the new engine compatible with the 3 aircrafts (Tu-22, Tu-160 and Tu-PAK-DA).

The NK-32 is very very similar to the NK-25 engine they developed for the Tu-22M3. Same thrust in full power, similar dimensions and weight, but made independently so the NK-32 doesn't fit the Backfire and the NK-25 doesn't fit the blackjack.

They are modifying the Tu-22M3M so the NK-32 will fit it... that way the NK-32 will be used in both the upgraded backfires and the standard and new Blackjacks.

They are also upgrading the NK-32 to improve performance but they wont change its shape or design in a way that it can no longer fit in a Blackjack or Backfire... that way when the improved NK-32M is ready with improved design, better thrust and more fuel efficient and more reliable... they can put them both in the Blackjack and the Backfire. They are developing a new engine called PD-35 I think that will be based on the NK-32M for very big aircraft like the new PAK TA transport aircraft... perhaps also for the Il-96... where two would replace the four used currently on that aircraft.

They would also use two on an 80-100 ton payload transport and four on an AN-124 replacement and possibly 6 on a new super heavy transport to carry around space rockets and shuttles....

Advantage of the PAK-DA is that ALL NATO AD-systems are operating in short radar wavelenght, exceptions are the over the horizon radars. So the PAK-DA will be nearly invisible for NATO radars in the next 20 years, because introduction of new systems requires time. The new american counterpart the B-21 is exactly the same design like the PAK-DA...a subsonic flying wing design! Maybe PAK-DA will be obsolete in 30 years, who knows!? You don't know, I don't know!

Just to add... I would think OTH radars are pretty fixed large exposed targets... I am pretty sure if war is expected a Russian Kilo class sub with some Calibr missiles could attack the OTH radar and destroy said radar well before the PAK DA gets there...

Regarding speed.... I have recognised that a high speed fast bomber is expensive... it is useful... but Russia does not need the PAK DA to be fast because the Tu-160 already is... if that is what they wanted then cancel the PAK DA and just make more Blackjacks.

There is merit in having a supercruising long range bomber however... for most fighters flying faster than the speed of sound requires AB which burns up fuel rapidly and dramatically shortens range.

If you could get a bomber to fly supersonically in dry thrust... even if they need to use AB to exceed the speed of sound but can cruise supersonically in dry thrust that would dramatically increase performance and make it much much harder to intercept.

In fact the only aircraft with a decent chance of intercepting such a target would be an F-22 which can also supercruise, and a MiG-31... the F-35 would be in enormous trouble and only have a very limited range of interception of such a target.

An Su-35 and MiG-35 could probably intercept them too but only because they can carry very long range missiles (R-37M) and the former has long legs anyway.

Conversely a subsonic PAK DA would have enormous internal space for lots of large bulky weapons... which would be more useful I guess than being able to supercruise... I would say supercruise gives a serious advantage, but would be much easier to achieve with the Blackjack.

With careful design they might be able to make a flying wing with no joins in its width... that would make it very stealthy for short wave radar and also stealthier to longer wavelengths too... but the critical thing is that this is a Russian stealth bomber... it wont be used for a first strike mission... by the time it gets to its launch positions near the US all OTR radars will either be destroyed or blinded by the ionising radiation in the atmosphere...

About the Tu-PAK-DA the time will talk. In the refered to the payload and range, subsonic and supersonic aircrafts of the same size have a similar relation between the Empty Weight and the Maximum Take-Off Weight (the difference affects to the payload and to the range by the storage of fuel):

You can't compare a Tu-160 with an Il-96 and an An-22 for payload range performance.

First of all because the Il-96 and An-22 carry vastly heavier payloads... the Tu-160 on a strategic mission will be carrying 12 Kh-102 nuclear armed cruise missiles... weighing perhaps 2 tons each... that is 24 tons payload... An-22 carries what 80 tons?

You are comparing Load vs Payload.

The PAK DA will perform different roles... it is intended as a short range theatre bomber to replace the Tu-22M3M, where the enormous fuel capacity of the aircraft will not be used... a large weapon load is much more valuable so it will offset fuel to allow a heavier payload. In the strategic role however range is very important but the payload will be nuclear armed cruise missiles that are not that heavy, so the payload will be lighter which means rather more fuel can be carried.

The fuel performance of a Tu-160 is based on full fuel and reduced payload half over half the flight range and zero payload on the return flight.

So if they manage to make it cheaper to operate / less delicate than the 160 and sufficiently stealthy for OTH and other EW radars it could make sense in that role, if not I don't see the big advantage compared to the Tu-160

It is going to be cheaper and simpler but also more stealthy.

It wont need a huge titanium box structure to house the swing wing mechanism... it will likely only use two engines compared with four in the Tu-160, though they might be 34+ tons thrust engines instead of 25 tons thrust engines... that is a comparable thrust increase from the Al-31 to the new Saturn engines for the PAK FA.

This might further dramatically improve the flight performance of the Tu-160... super cruising in dry thrust might lead to flying at mach 1.3-1.4 in dry thrust instead of mach 0.7 in dry thrust.

Such an aircraft would be a near impossible target to intercept in an F-35.

In comparison the PAK DA should have the internal space for all sorts of bulky weapons the Tu-160 cannot carry... the Tu-160 has very long large bomb bays but is pretty much restricted to a standard payload of Kh-102 type weapons... a PAK DA could have an enormous bomb bay because it does not need to be slim and supersonic.

Remember that design for the so called hypersonic transport aircraft that was put out a while ago... think of that as a subsonic bomber...