PAK DP prospective long-range interceptor

I suspect they mean terrible in the sense of not great... carrying four missiles for a plane that has a MTOW approaching the 120 tons of the Tu-22M3 is pathetic... unless they mean 40 missiles and I really don't think they do.

They are pulling numbers from their asses... but what impression are they trying to create.

Russia can't make good planes?

HATO needs a super plane that out performs it in most regards?

A MiG-21 can carry more than four missiles...

Seems an odd source to get such a scoop.... would think if the figures were released for real it would be TASS or RT or Sputnik revealing them... and I get the sinking feeling that getting real information about new Russian weapons is going to become harder and harder like it was during the cold war.

Makes you wonder why they stopped making them and didn't bother making any other really fast planes...

Possibly because the SR-71 and family were so mind bogglingly expensive that even the US couldn't afford to operate them and kept cancelling them and then putting them back into service and then cancelling them.

If they were paid for out of the USAF budget they wouldn't exist... it is not an accident they were run by the CIA like the U-2 was.

Developed means putting into service, so no... they didn't develop a better interceptor than the MiG-25 let alone the MiG-31... the F-14 was a frankensteins monster based on the F-111 which as its designation suggests was supposed to be a carrier based fighter but was way too heavy.

Its radar and heavy long range AAM eventually evolved into the F-14 and Phoenix... the missile was better but the radar was inferior to the set fitted to the MiG-31.

The YF-12 can reach mach 3.3, while the MiG-31 2.8. It had better energy retention with the delta wings too. Its only disadvantage over the MiG-31 was slightly lower payload and not enough space for a large radome.

To be fair it was a proposal that never achieved the performance claims attributed to it... had they built it it would have sucked funds from more important projects and not really made the US any safer.

The Russians will have learned quite a bit from their scramjet experience and the aerodynamics of the plane will be aiming a bit higher than just Mach 3 I suspect.

The physical shape of the SR-71 seriously limited its height performance capabilities... otherwise it would be an obvious candidate to break some of the records the MiG-31 set regarding ceiling.

When US SR-71s flew over flights to snoop they were tracked from takeoff to landing... their near vertical climbs on takeoffs together with their flight speed meant the enemy knew exactly what was coming, and with those aircraft speed was absolutely everything... flying at full speed an SR-71 has a turning radius so big it can't pull a 180 degree turn and remain inside the state of California...

Its long forward fuselage creates problems at higher altitudes where the long neck does not create enough lift to support the weight and essentially the nose of the aircraft would stall leading to the airplane descending... it holds speed records but no altitude records AFAIK.

The flight speed of the MiG-31 and MiG-25 were engine limited because they both have the fastest operating turbojets.

Burt Monroe... a kiwi who modified an Indian motorbike to run at very high speed found conventional tires deform and collapse at very high speeds so they have to be modified because the rotational forces on the tires at top speed are enormous and not something conventional tires were designed to tolerate.

Jet engines are the same and the rotational speed of the blades inside a jet engine as it travels at mach 2.8 plus create enormous forces on the blades that damage them beyond repair.

The jet engines in the SR-71 idle at top speed with bypass air getting fuel injected directly into the airflow essentially operating as a ramjet.

Clever design but not exactly practical because the outer skin formed the fuel tanks and when cold on the ground the gaps between panels you could get your finger into so when it was on the ground fuel pissed out all over the place... it got airborne and refuelled immediately and then climbed and accelerated as fast as it could to seal off the fuel tanks.

This required a very special fuel with a very high flashpoint so it didn't burst into flames on the ground.

When it finished its flight it had to do circuits of the airfield at low speed to cool down to avoid injuring the ground crew when it landed.

Idolised in the west... it wasn't any safer than the MiG-25 in the recon role... ie a MiG-23/F-4 Phantom probably couldn't get either, while a MiG-29/Su-27 or F-15 or F-14 would.

MiG-25s would eat SR-71s for breakfast... with their IRST they can detect SR-71s at 120 miles or more and a head shot with an R-40T or R-40TD and the SR-71 was dead meat.

S-300s and even S-200s would probably also bring it down because it was fast enough to be expensive but not fast enough to be safe... most of its work was against third world countries or flying in international airspace along borders looking into the territory it was supposed to be observing.

I think the MiG-41 is needed now more than ever... its higher speed and its improved radar and avionics will expand the number of threats it can deal with and its longer range together with the higher speed will allow it to deal with targets further away from friendly forces.

The iskander from the ground flies at mach 7 or so and can reach targets 500km away but burns up energy manouvering to evade interceptors on its way to the target.

An air launched version the Kinzhal benefits from being launched in flight at about mach 2.5 and probably 18km altitude.... this means instead of using energy to start moving and get airborne and climb through the thickest part of the atmosphere the rocket fuel is used to accelerate the missile to higher speeds and higher altitudes meaning it can fly at mach 9 and hit targets 2,000km away.

Flying at mach 4.2 the very same missile should be able to go even faster and climb higher and therefore go further... without any modification.

A faster higher flying longer ranged plane extends the performance of existing weapons and makes future weapons even better.

The MiG-31 wont suddenly become rendered useless, it will continue to operate in places were it makes sense to operate it where the extra speed and range of the MiG-41 don't matter...

Making MiG-41s for the PVO aerospace defence forces would free up MiG-31s to be used near the front lines for shooting down enemy AWACS and JSTARS and even inflight refuelling aircraft or transport planes at extreme range.

The new systems and equipment can be tested in the MiG-31s and if successful and an improvement they could be operationally deployed to improve the performance of the fleet.

The conflict in the Ukraine proved the importance of artillery and CAS aircraft and attack helicopters and also proved armour and helicopters are not dead on the modern battlefield.

Further experience operating with and against drones will also be valuable experience.

B-52s have used water injection for takeoffs for almost a century and the MiG-25 had alcohol injection... it was nicknamed Restaurant because of all the alcohol it carried for that purpose...

Of all projects the PAK DP is what I am most excited for. Imagine a combined cycle turbo-ramjet powered fighter 90 feet long, as long as the tu-128, with slender swept back wings. Whatever it is will be glorious. Apparently they want this thing to go nearly into the mesosphere. Personally I'm guessing it will have a ceiling similar to hypersonic weapons so maybe about 40km ceiling, 120000/130000 feet. Mach 4. A monster, essentially, with extremely long range missiles with four smaller homing missiles that detach when near a bogey.

But frankly I can see why this isnt the primary focus. I also think with discussion of mig31 fighters being upgraded even with new fly by wire system it means a massive upgrade at that and that they will be flying 15 to 20 more years.

Not sure this new aircraft is going to be very stealthy... its design requirements of high speed and heavy long range missiles means it needs a huge powerful radar... which is going to make any stealth measures pretty pointless.

The focus will be speed and range and payload capacity first... high speed means it can fire its missiles at targets further from their targets which makes it more likely it will be shooting down platforms before they release their standoff weapons.

Range means it can also engage targets further away from their targets and works together with speed to mean you are more likely dealing with aircraft rather than missiles that have already been launched.

At such flight speeds internal weapons makes sense and that will reduce drag and improve stealth but again for speed and range reducing drag is rather more important than stealth.

Turbofans can't operate fast enough to form the primary propulsion at mach 4 or even mach 3.

The SR-71s engines run at idle speeds when flying fast, it uses bypass air in the turbofan as a ramjet... those big pointy nose cones sticking out the front of the engines moves at higher speeds forward so the airflow does not go through the turbofan, it goes around the turbofan where the bypass air goes... no spinning blades... just airflow and fuel injection and burning for thrust.

A good new engine for the PAK DA will be a different type of engine optimised for very high flight speeds that will possibly be a low bypass turbojet for raw thrust, but with a design where air coming in to the engine bypasses the turbo jet at higher speeds and it acts like a ramjet instead.

Engine power is not critical... a turbojet and a turbofan burn fuel in the airflow at subsonic speeds so the current engine... the air flows in at mach 2.83 when flying at top speed... well that is not true... according to reports the top speed has increased it used to be 3,000km/h but currently it seems to be 3,500km/h due to various improvements so it is probably a mach 3 plane currently, but that has been its limit due to the limits of the rotational speeds of the blades in its jet engines and its design.

To stop the engines choking on supersonic air the intakes contract at high speed to reduce the airflow and slow it down to subsonic speeds when it goes through the hot section where fuel is added and burned and is directed out the rear with bypass air coming through and burning more fuel in the after burner.

For a ramjet the airflow needs to be slowed down so the fuel can be burned but with no moving parts there are no problems with blades spinning too fast and breaking.

With a scramjet engine... even a very small one the airflow is not slowed down... the air goes in and is compressed and heated... fuel is added and burned and it leaves generating thrust.

The PAK DA might have a small scramjet engine in addition to cheap simple current technology engines, where the standard turbofans or turbojets are for takeoff and landing and climbing and descending and then the ramjet or scramjet is lit accelerating to super high speeds... might even be a single turbofan or turbojet and two ramjets or two scramjets, but obviously it would be more elegant if you can have multimode engines that operate as a turbojet and ramjet...

It is more about efficiency... a good ramjet is not supercruising in dry thrust but will give much better high speed flight performance than the most amazing turbojet or turbofan engine... because they simply can't operate at mach 4... rotational speeds would rip the blades apart.

With Scramjet engines or engines that can operate in scramjet mode there would be no supercruising, but the fuel performance would be as good or better than turbojets at lower speeds.... which would mean a huge increase in flight range.

Currently the MiG-31 has a flight radius of about 720km at mach 2.6, and about 1,500km at subsonic speeds... the core difference is that when flying fast it goes a shorter distance but it reaches 720km in about 13 minutes... at subsonic speed the same distance would likely take 3 times longer, or its new radius would take 6 times longer to reach.  In terms of an interceptor flying at full speed means being 6 times faster.

But frankly I can see why this isnt the primary focus. I also think with discussion of mig31 fighters being upgraded even with new fly by wire system it means a massive upgrade at that and that they will be flying 15 to 20 more years

There are things they could test on the MiG-31 that will be for the MIG-41 that could massively improve performance... just with engines and new light weight heat resistant materials...

A spokesperson from UAC hinted at some technologies that have never been seen before making a debut in the Pak-DP.

Things that spring to mind would be internal weapons carriage simply for practical purposes which would improve stealth but also reduce drag, and combined variable cycle engines (ie an engine that can operate as a turbofan and a ramjet) would allow it to be fuel efficient at normal speeds and very high speeds.

I would assume a very powerful radar or multiple radars including perhaps photonic radar would be valuable to such an aircraft too.

New generation IR sensors would be useful too.

As for the missiles , so far I have heard after the K77 there's a new class of Mach 6-8 400-600km Air to Air weapons in development.

That would be the Article 810 which is a replacement for the R-37M.

I always thought the active radar homing 9M96 missiles of the S-350 SAM system would be interesting for internal weapon bay use and as an air to air missile... it is very compact and offers very good performance.

I would think an air launched S-500 and S-550 would be useful for anti satellite use too.

This is Mig31 Part 2. If it excels it could be a hit with India or China. It will definitely have to be larger than a conventional jet but with RAM and stealth shaping ,

Its very low drag aerodynamic shape to reduce drag would be very good for stealth, but I don't think they should waste too much effort and money on something that is going to glow on IR sensors and be broadcasting powerful radar signals most of the time.

I suspect the real surprise will be some new AAM that carries mini air to air missiles as a payload.

Think of the R-37M for a minute... 400km range but in a lofted trajectory mode so it is launched at high speed and high altitude.

Imagine for a second you take away the 60kg HE warhead and replace it with these new 10kg ARH missiles the Russian Army wants to intercept artillery shells and rockets fired at convoys and armoured units... strap 6 of them around the body of the missile in a semi conformal attachment... the main missile still has its nose mounted radar and 400km away you detect a group of B-52s approaching... or maybe you don't, maybe ground based radar detects them and sends you their coordinates... you fire one missile and it is lofted up to 40-60km altitude... maybe even replace the rocket motor with a scramjet motor that scoops air up as it flys so you reduce the fuel load by three quarters because it does not need an oxidiser component any more.

Flying most of the way at 60km altitude when it gets to 380km away it turns on its radar and drops its nose to a 20-30 degree angle and starts scanning for targets... it detects 8 targets... four might be B-52s and four might be cruise missiles that have already been launched, so the missile immediately assigns four mini missiles to the cruise missiles and releases them and gets locks and they chase down those cruise missiles... falling from 60km altitude and with its own rocket motor and moving at mach 6 plus with the precision of an ARH seeker odds are those missiles are going to get shot down, but the remaining two mini missiles might not have enough HE energy to bring down a B-52 so two of them might be directed at one B-52 and the body of the missile might go for a second B-52... the space and weight freed up by reducing the fuel weight with a scramjet motor means you could probably carry an extra three or four mini missiles, but they will hit what they can hit and transmit their results to the launch platform so it knows how many missiles to launch to follow up.

You might have different types... one with 10kg missiles with 3kg warheads and ARH precision for direct impact to take out cruise missiles and fighter sized aircraft, but equally you might have some 10kg missiles that are gliders and just fall from altitude with a 6-8kg warhead for taking on heavier aircraft like bombers... one hit should cripple a bomber, but then you might have some 20kg missiles that have 10-15kg warheads that are gliders too for hitting heavy transport planes and bombers and inflight refuelling aircraft and of course AWACS platforms and JSTARS types.

Being a scramjet it might fly at 40-60km altitude but you could just as easily make it zoom climb as it approaches the expected intercept area and have the mini missiles fall from 80-100km at very high speeds.

For the target what sort of evasive manouver do you perform when the threat is coming down vertically ... a direction your sensors likely wont cover properly.

Equally an IIR seeker could be added that looks for targets and threats passively during its entire flight towards the intercept area and if a threat is detected some interceptor missiles can be released early to intercept those too.

Everything gives off IR energy.... everything above absolute zero that is... which means everything.

Hiding your IR signature is not about making it freezing cold, it is about making it the same temperature as the background temperature.

In Asian countries where the temperature can hover around body temperature for very long periods thermal imagers are not as useful as they are in snow and ice.

A human being will glow white in a thermal imager because a thermal imager is generally tuned to body temperature... when the ground and trees and stones are the same temperature actually finding a human is very difficult.

The thermals designed to hunt tanks look for the hotspots of engine exhausts or hot barrels when guns have fired a few rounds... thermal sleeves and layers of rubber over the outside of the tank conceal any real hotspots that might give it away.

Of course DIRCMs deal with IR and EO seekers by directing laser beams at optical ports to blind the sensor (if not damage it).

For an aircraft flying at mach 4.2 the air friction heating of the leading edge surfaces means it will be visible on IR sensors... rather than trying to cool those surfaces your best bet is to simply have a DIRCM system on board that dazzles or destroys the optical systems of missiles trying to see it.

Either that or launch small self defence missiles to shoot them down before they hit you.