SOCSo now that they have the money why didn’t they just start the Mig 1.42 program back up if they thought it was competitive? As I recall they did claim it was suppose to be faster and stealthier than the F-22 after all. And if it were truely testbed status they’d have flown it more than twice (they only even raised the gear once). Sukhoi managed more with their company funded S-37. That at least I think could be convincingly considered a testbed. If the Mig was a testbed what did it test?
When Russia cancelled the program, MiG flew it as a testbed. Given that they were financially worse off than Sukhoi, only flying the 1.44 twice and watching Sukhoi fly the S-37/Su-47 a ton wasn’t out of the ordinary. The thing to remember about the testbed thing was that it was used as a company testbed, not a RusAF testbed. They wanted to test things related to new 5G fighter designs, the engines, etc, and it fell apart due to both funding and Saturn taking the AL-41 engines back.
Why didn’t they go back to it? When they started looking at the PAK-FA, the MFI design was already over a decade old. Made sense to start fresh and have your best and most prosperous at the time fighter designer take the lead, that being Sukhoi.
Russians cancelled the MFI in 1997 and the official reasons given was cost of the aircraft estimated at $70mil (FY1997 dollars). Now, was it really cost or did the aircraft simply suck? Can one tell after just two test flights?
It was offed due to high cost. Remember that a LOT of programs were offed during that time period: Su-27M, MiG-31B, to name two other big ones. Plus, it wasn’t flown until 2000. They had no idea if the jet was a dog or not when it was cancelled.
AFAIK, the 1.44 tested Al-41 engines although that sounds rather odd to me. Unproven engines tested on unproven aircraft? Something stinks on that claim…
A few points on that issue:
-The AL-41 was meant for the MiG MFI. This is why, due to a shortage of engines available, MiG got the priority (and the engines) for their jet, while the S-37/Su-47 had to deal with modified D30F6 engines.
-The AL-41 was flight tested in a MiG-25 at Zhukovskiy before being fitted to the 1.44, so saying it was unproven is not exactly correct. The Red Star volume covering the MiG-25 has some details on this and photos of the testbed fitted with an AL-41.
-Consider the intake design with its LO aspects. Another engine may not have worked with that configuration.
Basically, the engine was not in fact untested or unproven to a degree, and the airframe was designed for that engine, so there you go. New aircraft flying with new engines isn’t out of the ordinary when the engines have already been bench tested and flight tested. The YF-22 and YF-23 each flew with brand new engine designs, and weren’t tested initially with, say, F100s or something similar. Lockheed did fly the A-12 initially with J75s instead of J58s, but that’s because the J58 wasn’t ready when the airframe was.
SOCComfirmation of Indigineous HQ-9 SAM being deployed by PLA
Those have been around in Google Earth for a while, they’re very easy to differentiate from S-300P series units.
SOCComfirmation of Indigineous HQ-9 SAM being deployed by PLA
Those have been around in Google Earth for a while, they’re very easy to differentiate from S-300P series units.
SOCThe Mig 1.44/1.42 was a fairly major program. It’d be like the US saying at the YF-22 stage “ah this sucks, back to the drawing board”. Been a while since that happened. We’re talking about something that actually made it to flying hardware, not something canned at the mockup stage after all. Commanche would probably fit but it was cancelled because of no money. We didn’t just cancel it and start over.
Comanche does fit, the MFI/I-90 program was axed due to lack of money, and it was done well before the 1.44 ever flew. At the time they couldn’t even scrape up enough cash to get the jet into the air for four or five years. By the time it flew, it was already relegated to testbed status, much like the XB-70.
SOCThe Mig 1.44/1.42 was a fairly major program. It’d be like the US saying at the YF-22 stage “ah this sucks, back to the drawing board”. Been a while since that happened. We’re talking about something that actually made it to flying hardware, not something canned at the mockup stage after all. Commanche would probably fit but it was cancelled because of no money. We didn’t just cancel it and start over.
Comanche does fit, the MFI/I-90 program was axed due to lack of money, and it was done well before the 1.44 ever flew. At the time they couldn’t even scrape up enough cash to get the jet into the air for four or five years. By the time it flew, it was already relegated to testbed status, much like the XB-70.
SOCThe concept art there is, by far, the nicest looking future aircraft I’ve ever seen. Of course it probably won’t look anything like that at all… But it’s certainly sleek.
It’s one of the T-60 artist impressions, nothign to do with the PAK-DA.
Does anyone know which design bureau is going to be primarily responsible? Tupolev don’t seem to have had anything to do for some years – are they still ‘alive’ so to speak? As they certainly have the experience.
Tupolev has produced a few new Tu-160s, upgraded the older ones, and done soem work with the BEAR and BACKFIRE over the past few years or so.
SOCThe concept art there is, by far, the nicest looking future aircraft I’ve ever seen. Of course it probably won’t look anything like that at all… But it’s certainly sleek.
It’s one of the T-60 artist impressions, nothign to do with the PAK-DA.
Does anyone know which design bureau is going to be primarily responsible? Tupolev don’t seem to have had anything to do for some years – are they still ‘alive’ so to speak? As they certainly have the experience.
Tupolev has produced a few new Tu-160s, upgraded the older ones, and done soem work with the BEAR and BACKFIRE over the past few years or so.
SOCThe ones in Alaska on the other hand are not. Yet Russia says not a word about those.
Nor do they mention the AEGIS BMD issue. That’s the part that gets me. We could position AEGIS ships in the ocean to take out a lot of inbound ICBMs, and really put a hole in Russia’s deterrent capability, but ten silos in Poland is what they’re focusing on. Face it, they care not one bit about the actual hardware. When they heard that “the Americans are putting ten ABMs in Poland”, it wasn’t “ten ABMs” that made them mad, it was “in Poland”, and not because of any mythical ability to wipe out their deterrent capability, but because for the first time since WWII we and not them were putting troops IN POLAND. This is all about spheres of influence and nothing more. Russia was toying with the RS-24 to begin with, as well as the MaRV thing, well before the ABMs in Poland concept. The whole “well we’ll just put Iskanders in Kaliningrad” is what they’re tossing out for the public to grab onto as some sort of response. The Russian government doesn’t care what we do with our ABM programs, if they did you’d see them complaining about the AEGIS BMD system.
SOCspada-2000s work well in medium altitude.
…and are short ranged enough to be flown around easily.
SOCWhy, oh why cant the Moderators keep this thread on track?? 🙁
Because I’m working with a retarded internet connection right now limiting my web access. I’ll clean it up when I can get to it in a more reliable setting (in theory tomorrow).
SOCSure it was, they designed a whole one-off aircraft just to test engines and flight control systems :rolleyes:
Do you really believe that? It was an embarressing turkey of an aicraft that achieved nothing.
Ever heard of the BAe EAP? Similar concept. Yes the MFI program achieved very little, but there is no evidence to suggest that the production representative 1.42 wouldn’t have been a quality aircraft. The F-22 isn’t a carbon copy of the YF-22 either, did you ever realize that?
SOCTo make this more interesting, I heard an interview today with a Palestinian advisor to the Hamas guy running the Gaza Strip. He claims that it is Israeli sympathizers that are firing the rockets to get Israel to attack Hamas. Not that I buy it, but it was amusing to actually hear it said.
They also claim that Israel was not abiding by the terms of the ceasefire anyway, with regards to supplies being sent in, presence/operation of border crossings, and some other details that I forget.
SOCEver heard of SAMs? A fighter does not “stay” high up, it does move with ~15 km per minute. Loitering over a threat area does make even a MKI a “stationary” target to deal with.
Normally true, yes. But take a single HQ-2 site out of the equation and Pakistan’s SAMs are ineffective at medium to high altitudes. AAA is also negated for the most part. In that type of environment you’re better off at higher altitude.
SOCWho in thier right mind would want to show off a turkey?
What turkey? The aircraft flown was not representative of the actual production configuration and was meant to serve as a flight control and engine testbed only.
SOCIs finally the 40N6 (or whatever name) missile coming? :confused:
They might be talking about integrating one of the 9M96 series finally. The missile has been test fired but apparently not deployed. If you ask me the 40N6 thing might be a hoax or a misinterpretation.
Check here:
http://geimint.blogspot.com/2008/07/s-300p-detailed-analysis.html
Russia tested a 48N6 series weapon to 400 kilometers back in the 80’s. No need for a 40N6 or whatever it is.
So, what are they testing? A 48N6DM3?
Technically it’d be a 48N6DM2 if it is a 48N6DM modification, the 250 km DM having followed the 150 km 48N6 and 200 km 48N6D. In export terms, 48N6D is the 48N6E2, 48N6DM is the 48N6E3. So a new weapon could be 48N6E4.
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