If Russians wanted to proceed with STOVL concept, they would have not sold the documentation. Yak-141 was a good plane, but couldn`t match capabilities of Su-33 or MiG-29K, not to mention Su-57! So, it`s time to proceed with CATOBAR and get fully capable carrier.
They sold it because the americans were prepared to pay money for it.
The Americans wanted engine technology that allowed a 90+ degree engine nozzle deflection angle with an engine operating in full AB... something they didn't have.
(The AV-8 does not have AB).
BTW that image posted with the carrier showing three red rings is misleading. The bottom two with the MiGs in front of them are the short take off run positiions but the long takeoff run is much further back level with the rear of the island. The rectangles in the deck for the blast deflectors for jet engines shows where the rear take off position is. It is raised to protect other aircraft on the deck from jet wash, so you put an aircraft on all three positions with all three jet deflectors up... launch the front two aircraft and drop their jet deflectors so the rear aircraft can take off, then reload the three launch positions... or just the front two if you have planes to land.
Russians didn't pursue concept because they couldn't even afford to pay for food, not because it was inferior
They dropped the concept because VSTOL aircraft are complicated, expensive, fragile, and offer lower performance compared with a fixed wing equivalent.
If they had to have 20K ton ships then VSTOL is the only option. They went for 50K ton plus which makes MiG-29s and Su-27s an option.
They tested it... the biggest problem was that a huge powerful jet engine blowing hot air down on the surface of a ship means when you get low enough and that hot air enters the engine intakes you get a sudden loss of power because the hot air has already had much of the oxygen burned out of it and it is already hot and thin so it generates an instant engine stall... the absolute last thing you want in a vertical landing.
A rolling landing was the only real solution with relatively high forward speed to keep the intakes clear of hot air... and vertical takeoffs were pointless because they also burn too much fuel and limit payload.
So the result is a rolling high speed takeoff and a rolling moderate speed landing... so WTF is the point making a VTOL aircraft if it never lands vertically.
The vertical landing attempt caused an engine stall and crushed the rear fuselage spewing aviation fuel all over the deck and causing a big fire....
VSTOL is dead in a fixed wing fighter jet.
And they sold documentation because they were corrupt scum
The money they made kept them afloat at a time when no one was getting paid... and has led to the west building a serious white elephant and spending trillions to do it.
Without that the US probably would not consider the vertical take off as necessary requirement of the f35, and it would means that the F35 will become a usable airplane, instead of the current financial /technical disaster.
Without that internal lift fan and all the internal piping for stability jets the F-35 would be a much better aircraft... potentially a 5th gen F-16... light and nimble and relatively cheap but with high performance.
Russia cannot obtain funding for both STOVL and dedicated carrier based fighter at the same time. No money!
They probably could... but they should not.
I suspect for helicopter carriers they will use the Ka-52K for air defence and attack roles, but for proper air support they are better off with a Kuznetsov or larger carrier with fixed wing fighter bombers.
They sold tech for peanuts and 30 years later they will still be doing LHD/STOVL approach Japan style (if they are lucky to get even that done)
They also sold them an incomplete SA-12 battery and Tunguska...
The money they made they created S-300VM and Tunguska-M1, which are significant improvements that would otherwise not have been funded.
Hey, I think that is an interesting idea. Today's electronically scanned radars do not need the traditional AWACS dish antenna, see below this proposal for a Russian naval AWACS:
Actually I was thinking that if the PAK DA is a flying wing then two large arrays on the wing leading edge and a large array along the trailing edge could be used as an AWACS platform. Further the bomber model could use such an enormous array for jamming and ESM functions.
For AWACS use a simple flying wing design (folding of course) with radar antenna embedded in the aircraft skin in the leading and trailing surface edge for 360 degree scanning.
What about CODs? Helos may not be enough, so tiltrotors will need to be developed!
Cats will make the AWACS platform able to be quite heavy... a version for air to air refuelling that could also be converted to the transport role is fairly straight forward.
Different roles and he was talking about resupply.
Except that it is much more efficient to simply put resupply material in a ship that sails alongside the carrier and passes material over via crane rather more rapidly and cheaply no doubt...
Those doubting STOVL in the Russian service should see this:
Can't do anything a fixed wing aircraft can't do, and slower.
Much cheaper and much less vulnerable to the biggest killer in the world of aircraft... IR guided missiles.
(the Harrier was a seriously crappy plane by most accounts...)
It is not a bad plane but it seriously handicapped by its propulsion... it is better than a Helo.
It is not better than most contemporary fighters.
A few S/VTOVL UAVs + KA-31s/tiltrotors controlling them can do the job of 4 AWACS planes normally carried on CVNs.
No.
A radar is all about altitude and distance... a Ka-31 operating within 200km of the Kuznetsov gives away its position... a Yak-44 can operate 500km away from the carrier and process all the information on board so it can beam information to ships and aircraft... the Ka-31 beams the information to a ship for processing and the ship then sends the information to other ships and aircraft... revealing its position...
the Ka-31 will be visible and the ship processing its data will be visible.
A Yak-44 could operate higher see further and process its own data.
I doubt their new STOVL will be much different from the Yak-141, saving them years & a lot of $ in development.
Yak-141 never entered service... those specs are estimates and projections.
If enemy air-power is coming after your ships then nuclear war is 5 minutes away.
Waste of money for obsolete PR bullshit...
Yeah, because only NATO and the US have air power.
They won't have a CVN built by 2025 anyway, if ever.
Interestingly, China had full access to old steam catapults on HMAS Melbourne but decided not to build them for her 1st CV:
Steam cats are high maintenance and fiddly... if you don't know what you are doing you will lose aircraft... which are expensive.
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(the Harrier was a seriously crappy plane by most accounts...)
Russia moving forward.
