let me put it here too …

MiG-29s for Admiral Gorshkov to start arriving this year

Panaji, April 12, 2005 (UNI)

The state-of-the-art MiG-29 fighters, for accomodation aboard the retrofitted aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, will start arriving by the end of this year.

”Staff is currently undergoing training on the aircraft, which will operate from the Goa Naval Base until the carrier arrives,” Western Naval Command’s Flag Officer Commanding in Chief Vice Admiral Madanjit Singh today told a group of visiting mediapersons at INS Hansa here on the sidelines of the ongoing 25-day marathon naval exercises off the Goa coast.

Each MiG-29 costs US dollars 32 million.

Admiral Gorshkov, which has the capacity to accommodate 32 aircraft, would be based at the new state-of-the-art ‘Sea Bird’ Naval Base coming up at Karwar in north Karnataka, he said.

Apart from the MiGs, the carrier will accommodate Sea Harriers and Light Combat Aircraft. The Navy would receive a further boost after induction of the state-of-the-art indigenous Air Defence Ship whose construction has begun at the Kochi shipyard, Vice Admiral Singh said.

The strategically-located Karwar Naval Base, with 6000-ft runway as against 11,000 ft in Goa, is aimed at easing congestion at the Mumbai Naval Base and can accommodate 3000 sailors and 300 officers and scores of civilians.

The above news article from defenceindia. BTW, i hope the early arrival of the MiG-29Ks will also help the IAF to judge better the new series of MiG-29 and help in selecting upgrades for the in-service MiG-29s and those for the 125 a/c requirement.

well the Koolest one definetely is the naval F-22, grrr8 looks …. and ofcourse good performance shud have been expected

but hope the trisonics live, if not for the recce job, it has to be there for hight proile intercepts and other jobs ….

IAF to retire Foxbat spy planes next yr

Foxbat fastest IAF aircraft, can fly in stratosphere at speed exceeding three Mach

New Delhi, April 24, 2005 (Express News Service)

The Indian Air Force can soon breathe easy on an aircraft it had worked hard to keep off the radar since a small fleet was acquired from Russia in the early 1980s.

Its squadron of five MiG-25 Foxbat spy planes, based in Bareilly, will be retired next year. But the Force will continue to guard the legacy of its quarter century of service — thousands of highly-sensitive black and white photographs of foreign war assets and border territories, taken from each plane’s two high-powered spy cameras.

The IAF’s proposed Aerospace Command, when approved, will take over the Foxbats’ job, using satellites and high-altitude surveillance platforms.

The Foxbat is the only IAF jet that operates in the stratosphere at speed exceeding three Mach, making it the fastest aircraft in the Force. Its mission profile, however, has been scaled down drastically. Operating out of Bakshi-ka-Talab by the 102 Squadron, codenamed Trisonics, the Foxbats are now used for training sorties.

The aircraft threw up a huge advantage for the IAF when it was acquired in the 1980s, as it could not be detected by Pakistani and Chinese ground radars. It flew at heights just below outer space, making it physically invisible to enemy eyes and ears. Now, long-range surveillance radars have compromised the Foxbat’s effectiveness.

Foxbat missions were highly specific, the photographs taken by two left-to-right rotating cameras (600mm and 1,300mm) rapidly recorded assets under the plane’s flight-path.

The aircraft continues to be one of the IAF’s most closely-guarded secrets. MiG-25 pilots are not allowed to discuss the nature of missions they went on in the first decade of service. However, some admit that these included high-speed, high-altitude missions into foreign air space.

The Army also often requested the Foxbats’ services in the 1980s to plug holes in intelligence on Pakistani armoured divisions and strategic reserves closer to the border.

In May 1997, a MiG-25 had famously broken into Pakistani air space. A MiG-25 pilot says the mission would have remained a secret if the pilot had not accelerated to supersonic speed — the sound immediately alerting the ground surveillance staff. But its altitude and speed still allowed the aircraft to evade Pakistan’s F-16s and plunge back into Indian airspace.

Sources said an unspecified number of Foxbats have already been retired and the remaining will be gone next year.

k time for this one over here …….

Kazakhstan And Russia To Develop New Satellite Launching System

Astana, Kazakhstan (SPX) Apr 21, 2005
Kazakhstan and Russia have agreed on the development of a new civil satellite launching system using the Mig-31s Fighter and the Ishim missile as a platform from which to launch payloads of up to 200 kg into low earth orbits.
According to the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Danial Akhmetov, Kazakhstan and Russia are studying the creation of a small “space missile” launching system Ishim using a supersonic Mig-31st jet fighter.

Having detached from the carrier aircraft, the small missile reaches a higher altitude and puts a small 160-kilogram-heavy space vehicle into low earth orbit.

The major distinction of the Ishim launching complex is its carrier aircraft “MIG – 31” capable of lifting a missile with compact satellite to a requested altitude, with the satellite being further delivered into the orbit by the missile.

Last March, Prime Minister Akhmetov met with the chief designer at the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering (creators of the Ishim missile), Yuri Solomonov, to discuss this new launch complex.

The Mig-31s would take off, carrying the Ishim missile with its payload, launch the space missile at between 25,000m and 30,000m. The Ishim would then deliver the payload into low orbit.

Named after a river which flows through Kazakhstan’s Capital, Astana, into Russia, the Ishim space missile uses a solid-fuel engine which limits the use of toxic elements used for the construction of classic launchers.

Mr. Solomonov is very bullish about the proposed Russo-Kazakh programme: “We have planes, airfields and our institute can in a short time design and manufacture the new rocket.”

The programme is expected to cost US$1.5 billion over the next 15 years. Prime Minister Akhmetov has instructed state agencies to undertake a comprehensive feasibility study before undertaking the realisation of the programme itself.

Such a programme has extreme potential in offering a very low-cost civil launch system. This is but the latest step taken in bilateral Russio-Kazakh cooperation in space technology.

Noting the timeliness of the civil satellites launching complex being created, experts believe that in the following 15 years, the respective services market can attract up to USD 1,5 billion.

Kazakhstani Prime Minister Akhmetov pointed out that “the new Ishim complex is to enrich the Kazakhstan space program being developed” and commissioned to proceed with the work to create the Ishim launching complex.

Last year Kazakhstan extended the lease of the Baikonur Cosmodrome (where all major Russian launches – since that of the Sputnik – take place) to Russia for a 50-year lease. Kazakhstan has also started developing its own independent Space programme.

Garry,

any pic or drawing of the R-33 successors

well Arthur, but non of the other variants got the modification that the M got like the LERX, 6 x R-33/R37, the wingtip hardpoints etc etc , so in that sense i mean it was the extreme one.

BTW, burger tks once again…i check that site and got some good pic too …… but not one of the 6 x R-33s.

But I’m not going to get any pic of MiG-31M with 3 rows of 2 missiles each on the MiG-31M b’coz, the fact is that its 2 rows of 3 missiles each, as can be seen from this pic.

ooops, I never really got that pic or was lazy in searching 😀 ….. well , after all there are some good guys 😉 who can do the searching for me …. anyway tks. 🙂

But i wanna see how those 6 x R-33/37 can be arranged in 3 rows of 2 missile each.

BTW, is ur pussy dead.

BTW, whats NIIP doing??