Soviet Copies or identical conclusions?

This is intended, as a bit of a case study, I have no intention to undermine design credibility or accuse anyone of plagiarism. But I found something interesting the other day that stirred some thoughts about Cold war rivalries between the USSR and the USA. I find it most interesting.

The main point

The American F-X programme to find a new advanced fighter began in the 60s; the eventual winner was MDD with the F-15. The equivalent Soviet programme had its official state requirement issued in 1971 and designs began to appear shortly afterwards. The winner of the Soviet PFI (perspektivnyy frontovoy istrebeetel) or advanced tactical fighter competition was Sukhoi with it’s T-10 which became the Su-27. Mikoyan competed with a heavy Mig-29 design, but lost. The final Mig-29 design was chosen later in a follow-on programme for a new massed-producible light fighter.

My point is that the North American/Rockwell proposal for the USAF F-X programme of the late 60s has a lot of Fulcrum and Flanker lines to it. In fact the resemblance is uncanny in parts. Did the Soviets take a leaf out of their book?

Refer to this link

http://www.aircraftdesign.com/naa-fx.jpg

Another point

The Tu-160 has a design almost identical in parts to the B-1, although a lot bigger obviously. The original design studies from both Tupolev and Myasishchev were radical to say the least, ranging from the massive cranked delta wings to wing-in-body swing-wings, and some looking like giant darts with similar wing designs.
Tupolev was eventually chosen to go forth with its proposal, and this design underwent many changes before the final configuration and preliminary design and full scale mock up work began in 1975. At this time the American B-1 programme had flying prototypes of the B-1A and that design had originated years earlier as part of the AMSA (Advanced manned strategic Aircraft) programme; again borne in the 60s. Again, was the American B-1 an influence, or was this just a huge coincidence in engineering?

More points

The American A-X had designs on the board in 1970 and this included the Northrop A-9. The Soviet Su-25 programme began development in 1968. Is the resemblance between the losing A-9 design and the ‘Frogfoot’ again just coincidental?

The A-9 in the link below

http://www.paulnann.com/images/pn_w2057.jpg

And a classic – the Buran shuttle

NASA has this on the history.

“The Russian Shuttle Buran (“Snowstorm” in Russian) was authorized in 1976 in response to the United States’ Space Shuttle program. Building of the shuttles began in 1980, with the first full-scale Aero-Buran rolling out in 1984.”

It is hard not to believe at least here that the Soviets did copy (to a point) the design. And why not when the US had proven the design and concept in flight tests earlier and the first successful American manned flight was in 1981.

Link

http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/rsa/gifs/buran_an225.jpg

And finally, an interesting piece of news I uncovered

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/russia-space-general-01m.html

It seems that the Russians are keen to bring Buran back to life.

Look forward to some thoughts.

Regards, Glenn.