VVS Russian Airforce Force: News #2

We keep hearing about the MiG-41 as being a newer faster MiG-31, but they might be going more radical and it might be more of an SR-71 like platform with a much larger aircraft to allow internal weapons and a large internal weapon supply that is designed to fly very fast and be a Tu-22M3 sized aircraft...

It could also be the first reveal of the PAK DA, but equally there are lots of other things it might be that they have managed to keep secret.

They seem to be talking about something entering service which means the MiG-41 and PAK DA are less likely because it will take some time for testing.

Maybe they are talking about an airship that can operate at enormous altitudes rather than enormous speeds, that can carry heavy payloads over enormous ranges... but not very quickly.

Most airships move at a top speed of about 100km/h at best so they don't win any speed records, but their ability to carry very heavy weights of unusual shapes and sizes perhaps without disassembly, from where it is made to where it is needed without roads or rail lines, runways or ports... imagine building that arctic base using an airship to deliver 1,000 tons of equipment at a time direct from Russia...

Conversely you could have an airship operating over a battlefield at 30km or higher altitude with radar and IIR sensors and optical sensors monitoring things and being a communications repeater for units and even controlling drones of all types using line of sight communications that would be tricky to jam or interfere with.

If you made it big and flat topped like a flying wing you could have an landing strip on top for operating UAVs from, and of course its capacity to carry guided bombs with glide kits would be enormous... you could carry 20 tons of ordinance as ballast and operate for a month and as you spot targets you can hit them... as you use up your ballast you operate higher in the air and safer... when your ordinance ballast is used up you can run some of the hydrogen keeping you in the air through fuel cells to generate electricity and the byproduct will be water which you can capture as more ballast, so loss of lift from consumed hydrogen and added water ballast would compensate for the used ordinance.

Equally you could compress some hydrogen gas so it is not a lifting gas any more and you could use it as fuel for a gas turbine engine for electricity. Solar panels giving more energy into the system and of course burning compressed hydrogen will generate water ballast too which can be put through a fuel cell with electricity from the solar panels to release they hydrogen for more lift if you need more.

Solar panels are becoming more efficient and lighter all the time and batteries and gas turbines and electric motors are all improving too, plus fuel cell technology and composite materials and computing power etc etc... the age of the airship will return.

All the reports mention:

“These will be completely new aircraft, based on new principles, with new aerodynamic and combat qualities,” he said.

So I don't think it will be an upgraded or modified existing aircraft.

The last time they promised a new aircraft they showed the Su-75... so I am looking forward to this.

Not getting my hopes up too high...

A-100 is not brand new, though it is the most likely of the three to be going into serial production next year.

Maybe it is a PAK xx that is a new recon design for a long endurance AWACS/comms aircraft... perhaps airship based, perhaps drone (Sukhoi S-62) or maybe a new modification of the M-17/M-55 with all composite structure and new engines... perhaps still subsonic but using a ramjet when at altitude?

Something to look forward to.

This is all good but I think they should increase production numbers for the Su-57 and build an actual flying prototype of the Su-75 before venturing to another aircraft design. Also, accelerate development of unmanned wingman drones like the S-70 Okhonik and Grom