How are things with a light moment of the 5th generation. "MiG" of the fifth generation: what will be the new Russian fighter? Easy doesn't mean weak
The fifth-generation multifunctional fighter MiG 1.44 MFI was not inferior in its characteristics to the American competitor F-22 Raptor, but lost in undercover games
The lack of demand for the latest developments that are ahead of their time always causes a certain feeling of regret and dissatisfaction. But it becomes extremely disappointing when it is connected with an advanced domestic development of defense significance, which was brought to the current full-scale model 15 years ago, was in no way inferior to its foreign counterpart, but was not implemented for some incomprehensible reasons. And the result was a lag behind a potential enemy and very significant material and moral costs.
In this case, we are talking about the prototype of the multifunctional front-line fighter of the 5th generation MiG 1.44 (MFI project). After two real flights in early 1999, according to other sources - in 2000, the secret aircraft became an exhibit for long-term storage at the Flight Research Institute (LII) named after. Gromov, and the promising project itself was closed. After many years of neglect, the MFI was openly put on display at the Moscow Aviation and Space Salon MAKS-2015, which again aroused some interest in the MiG 1.44. What was this unique aircraft that was 15 years ahead of the 5th generation T-50 fighter being created today?
creation
Promising fighters of the 5th generation began to be created in the 70s of the last century in the USA and the USSR. Our work on such an aircraft for the Air Force and Air Defense began in 1979 under the I-90 program (“fighter of the 1990s”). In 1981, the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) issued recommendations, according to which, in 1983, the OKB im. A.I. Mikoyan. To this end, a "Comprehensive target program”, which provided for a set of works on the aircraft, power plant, on-board radio-electronic equipment and weapons in accordance with the tactical and technical assignment of the Air Force and Air Defense. In 1987 and 1991, an advance design and a draft design with an aircraft model were defended, respectively, under the MFI index - a multifunctional front-line fighter. On its basis, it was planned to develop variants of a reconnaissance aircraft, a ship-based fighter, and other modifications.
According to the project, the MFI was supposed to have super-maneuverability, fly at supersonic speeds without afterburner, be inconspicuous in the radar and infrared ranges, and be distinguished by a new architecture of on-board radio-electronic equipment (avionics) with high degree integration of all its systems and have improved takeoff and landing characteristics compared to existing models.
Difficulties in creating a promising aircraft began after the inclusion in 1999 of MAPO "MiG" in the Sukhoi Design Bureau and the transfer latest works on a new project. The justification for this was the allegedly high price of MFIs and the statements of M.A. Pogosyan, head of the Sukhoi Design Bureau, about the superiority of their S-37 project over the MFIs.
Despite the official cessation of work on the MFI, according to some reports, in 1999, February 29 of the same or 2000, the first prototype took to the air. However, Pogosyan's lack of interest in MFIs, which already then had a high level of readiness for launching into mass production, and most importantly, the struggle for state funding for "his" company and its C-37 project, with obvious failures with it, led to the closure of the MFI project. And in 2002, a government decree was issued on the creation of a promising front-line aviation complex (PAK FA) T-50, which finally and simultaneously “buried” both the MFI and the S-37.
So, a promising aircraft that actually flew with a high probability of being put into service and put into production, which met the set requirements and in some cases surpassed the American counterpart, was removed “on the shelf” for reasons that are incomprehensible at first glance and quite understandable to specialists. And this despite the fact that in the United States, work on the 5th generation fighter F-22 Raptor ("Predator") continued and in 2001 it was put into service.
Workers in the final assembly shop at the JSC "RSK MiG" enterprise. Photo: Mikhail Voskresensky / RIA
Purpose and main characteristics of the MiG 1.44
MiG 1.44 (MFI) is an experimental prototype of a new generation multifunctional front-line fighter (MiG-35 if adopted). The first flight, according to various sources, was made on February 29, 1999 or 2000. In a number of characteristics, it surpassed the American F-22 Raptor fighter. Stealth was achieved by a special radar-absorbing coating and a special design of the vertical tail fins. One flying copy was created, and four more, in varying degrees of readiness, were at the Sokol aircraft plant.
The main features of the MiG 1.44: canard design, delta wing with high aerodynamic quality, thrust vectoring engines (planned to be installed), flight at supersonic speed without afterburner, radar-absorbing coating, placement of all or most of the weapons inside the aircraft fuselage, wide use of alloys And composite materials, air refueling system, two adjustable air intakes.
Length, height and wingspan of the aircraft - 17.3 x 4.73 x 11.99 m. Crew - 1 person. The takeoff weight of an empty aircraft is 23.5 (18) tons. Two turbojet engines with thrust vector control of the AL-41F type were supposed to provide flight at an altitude (near the ground) at speeds up to 3180 (1500) km / h. The practical range (range, according to other sources) was 4000–4500 km, and the practical ceiling was 20 km. Effective dissipation area (ESR) - less than 0.3 square meters. m.
Standard armament - 30-mm built-in gun GSh-30. A combat load weighing up to 12 tons could be placed on 12 internal and 8 external suspension points, according to other sources - only inside the aircraft. To hit targets, the MiG 1.44 could use: air-guided missiles R-73 and R-77, ground - Kh-29, Kh-31, Kh-41, Kh-55, Kh-61 and high-precision bombs KAB-500 and ODAB- 500.
According to some reports, in the early 1990s, a light fighter with one engine was created on the basis of the MiG 1.44 with the same aerodynamic configuration.
P.S
As can be seen from the above, the closure of the MFI project became a kind of deep “moral wound” for our aviation, resulting in significant financial losses and more than 15 years behind Russia in equipping our Air Force with a 5th generation fighter. According to the current Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces, Lieutenant General Viktor Bondarev, serial deliveries of the T-50 fighter will begin in 2016. To justify the situation with the creation of the Russian 5th generation fighter, the media have repeatedly reported about the almost deliberate delay in the development of the Sukhoi T-50 design bureau. This was due to the desire to take into account the shortcomings that are revealed during the practical flights of the Raptor. But if we take a more strict approach to this, then the current situation cannot be explained otherwise than by the words “a good mine in a bad game”.
In order not to drive the reader into black melancholy, it should be noted that work with the Russian T-50 5th generation fighter is proceeding quite quickly and, most importantly, the aircraft is already showing high efficiency today. And one should not belittle the merits of its creators. But the gap exists, as do those who doubt its superiority over the MiG 1.44. In my time former boss armaments of the Russian army, Colonel General Anatoly Sitnov believed that the T-50 fighter did not have the potential that was built into the "Migovsky" version of the 5th generation fighter.
According to many aviation experts, the work of both famous design bureaus on an equal footing was a boon and benefited our aviation. This practice should continue today. For healthy competition never stood in the way of progress, but, on the contrary, only stimulated it. The fact that not everything is lost is indicated by the messages that appeared in August 2015 about the intention of the Migovites to resume work on a promising light fighter. According to aviation experts, the developments under the IFI project will become the basis of these works. If this is so, then I would very much like to wish them, as the sailors say, "seven feet under the keel."
Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will develop a fifth-generation light fighter. This was announced by the Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov during the 13th international exhibition Arms IDEX 2017 in Abu Dhabi. The development of a new fighter will be the second major military-technical project between the parties.
Earlier, cooperation with the UAE actually saved the Pantsir anti-aircraft missile gun system, which was recognized by the Russian military as ineffective. For the first time, ZRPK was shown at the international aerospace show in Zhukovsky MAKS-1995 near Moscow. Then the representatives of the United Arab Emirates became interested in him. However, it turned out that the "Shell" was "not ready." There is an idea, but there is no possibility of its embodiment in metal. The Ministry of Defense refused to complete the development of the system due to financial problems. This responsibility was eventually assumed by the UAE, having ordered almost 50 Pantsir air defense systems.
It was this deal that allowed the Tula people to carry out a global modernization of the complex - to bring its performance characteristics to today's level and, as a result, to put the "Pantsir" into service with their own army. At the moment, Pantsir-S2 forms the basis of the near air defense zone of the Russian Armed Forces. IN next year the deployment of the marine version of this system will begin. Its carriers will be small missile ships of project 22800 (code "Karakurt").
The history of the fifth-generation light fighter for the Russian Aerospace Forces is also similar to the path of the ZRPK. The leadership of the MiG Corporation, where combat vehicles light class, some time ago it said that the Ministry of Defense had no need for such an aircraft. The Aerospace Forces, as part of the rearmament program, concentrated on equipment already available: the Su-30 and Su-35 fighters, as well as the latest heavy fifth-generation T-50 fighter. New MiGs were ordered only for the re-equipment of the aviation wing of the heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov.
It is curious that all these machines, one way or another, were created with the participation of international cooperation. Su-30 and shipborne MiG-29K/KUB - by order of India. Su-35 will be brought to China's money. Beijing bought 24 of these machines, which will allow the Sukhoi Design Bureau to polish the fighters intended for the Aerospace Forces to perfection. The same fate awaits the T-50. Although the machine is being created at the expense of Russia, the invitation to the Indian side to participate in the project makes the project less costly. The role of New Delhi, as Russian developers say, is not limited to money alone (Indian investments in the project are $25 billion). India is already offering its own composite materials and electronics.
Cooperation with the UAE is also becoming the driving force behind the development of the fifth-generation light fighter program. The "inertia" of the Russian military in relation to the fighter is understandable. The state rearmament program, for which 23 trillion rubles have been allocated until 2020, is on the decline. The main weapons and equipment have not only been created and ordered, but are also being delivered to the troops en masse. President Vladimir Putin has already warned the defense industry that they will not have to wait for such a generous government order. The country will save. Especially for rearmament, new military equipment is enough, making the VKS one of the most modern in the world. Colonel-General Viktor Bondarev, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces, says that in 2016 the Aerospace Forces received 139 new aircraft. All air units are fully equipped with the necessary aircraft, the share of new aircraft and helicopters is about 55 percent.
Joining the project to create a fifth-generation light fighter UAE changes the situation radically. After all, Russia in this case offers ideas. The Arab side is money. The head of the United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), Yuri Slyusar, says that in the project for light fighter the fifth generation will be attended by the KLA as the parent organization, as well as the Sukhoi company with its developments on the T-50 fighter and RAC MiG with developments on single-engine aircraft. What exactly, the head of the state corporation did not specify.
“Joint development of a fifth-generation light fighter with the UAE is on initial stage. We are now preparing our proposals to the Emirati side. We believe that the car will be successful. We are ready to present our developments to our colleagues,” Slyusar said.
However, already from what has been said, we can assume what kind of car it will be. For example, the participation of the Sukhoi company speaks about the nature of the airframe design of the future aircraft. T-50 for the first time in the Russian aircraft industry is made according to the "carrier-wing" scheme. This is one of important elements making it a fifth generation fighter. All previous Su-30 or Su-35 4++ generation vehicles have a pronounced fuselage to which wings and tail fins are attached. In the T-50, all these elements represent a single monolithic structure. At the same time, the same flaps are made in the form of deflected surfaces.
This version is also supported by the recently published sketch of the alleged view of a promising light multifunctional front-line aircraft (LMFS) developed by RAC MiG, recently published by the Air & Cosmos industry publication. The aircraft is made according to the "duck" scheme and, if not for one engine, would be a copy of the T-50. Slyusar noted that the concept of the new aircraft has yet to be determined: “We have not yet determined the concept of a fifth-generation light fighter. It has not yet been chosen what it will be - single-engine or twin-engine. But the signed agreement allows us to start this work,” added the head of the UAC.
It's even easier to fantasize. The recent presentation of the latest MiG-35 fighter by RAC MiG showed the company's conceptual vision of the internal filling of a promising fighter. So, CEO Corporation Sergey Korotkov told the Zvezda TV channel that during the creation of the ship version, the MiG-29K fighter was designed as a new platform with great potential for building up combat capabilities for a long time based on the use of technologies inherent in fifth-generation aircraft. Therefore, outwardly similar as two drops of water to the classic MiG-29 MiG-35 are completely new fighters with major changes in the design of the fuselage, on-board equipment, as well as the materials used in the production.
For example, the aircraft has been reinforced with a glider made using composite materials, a high-strength landing gear capable of withstanding takeoff and landing at airfields with a ten-centimeter plate divergence, and a new engine of the St. Petersburg company Klimov RD-33MK. Compared to the "classic" RD-33, it not only has increased thrust by 12%, but also has a modern FADEC digital control system.
In the future, these engines will be able to be equipped with an all-angle thrust vector control system, thanks to which the aircraft will be able to be more maneuverable than its competitors and better controllable in all modes - both at speed and in its absence. And not only in the “normal” flight mode, but also in afterburner, which is also considered one of the main requirements for fifth-generation machines. Finally, the Zhuk-A radar station with an active phased antenna array (AFAR) can already be installed on the MiG-35.
And here the second trend can be traced, the MiG-35, like the Su-35, is a kind of “stepping stone” before the fifth generation fighters appear in the troops. The equipment, engines and weapons control system that determine the appearance of the aircraft of the future, allowing pilots to try it today, what is called “taste”, is based on both. Therefore, the confidence of the head of the UAC, Yuri Slyusar, is understandable that new lightweight fighter will work. In anticipation of this, in order to feel the future now, at IDEX 2017, the UAE "signed an agreement of intent to purchase Su-35 fighters."
In the 80s, Soviet designers, perhaps for the first time after the war, ensured such a clear advantage of domestic fighters over American ones, launching the MiG-29 and Su-27 as a response to the F-16 and F-15. We have already talked about super-maneuverability, and besides this, we finally managed to reach an approximately world or even somewhat higher level in engine building ...
It was possible to achieve excellent parameters in radar, which made it possible to see targets in difficult conditions (against the background of the earth, in the mountains, in conditions of interference, as well as inconspicuous targets) better than American airborne radars can. Indeed, the generally recognized lag in the element base, and simply speaking, in radio components, did not at all mean a lag in radio electronics, especially where, in addition to electronics proper, serious science was also needed, for example, issues of processing radar signals, identifying targets in conditions of interference, etc. Here we have always been ahead.
It was possible to introduce into the series a helmet-mounted aiming system and highly maneuverable missiles complete with it, which had a rotary nozzle and could turn around on a target literally on a patch. It was precisely because of the lack of such missiles that the Americans refused to introduce such a system on the F-16 and F-15, considering it ineffective. It was possible to increase the flight range. The ferry range of a fighter without external tanks of 4,000 kilometers is impressive. Well, and so on.
Here is what the head of the Lipetsk Aviation Center, General Kharchevsky, then still a colonel, says about this (yes, yes, the same Kharchevsky who drove Putin to Chechnya on the Su-27):
Of course, not everything was immediately implemented on serial machines, but work continued. It was impossible to stop and rest on our laurels, because the Americans are not the kind of people to put up with the superiority of a potential enemy in the air. And to give way to positions in the arms market - even more so.
Preliminary work on the creation of a multifunctional front-line fighter of the fifth generation (MFI) began in 1979. Then it was called I-90 - a fighter of the 90s. That is, the work went in parallel with the Americans. A competition was also envisaged - in the Sukhoi Design Bureau they developed their own version.
Taking into account the need to protect the vast territories of the Union, the Mikoyanites developed two aircraft - a heavy multifunctional fighter and a light front-line fighter (LFI), as was the case in the fourth generation of fighters, and these projects should have been unified as much as possible. They won the competition from the Sukhoi Design Bureau, in 1986 they were entrusted with further work.
Taking into account the fact that the possibilities for improving the light MiG-29 were far from being exhausted, the Customer decided to focus his efforts only on the MFIs. The requirements of the Customer, that is, the Air Force, were very strict for him.
Please note that the designers do not create what God put on their souls: the Customer formulates what he needs and desires, the designers say what they can do (sometimes worse than the Customer wants, and sometimes better), the industry adds that we are for this we undertake, but it will cost so much, and any project is financed only after the Customer will sign terms of reference agreed with all. And in it, in addition to the approximate weight and dimensions, there are many more requirements. Let's remember this.
The aircraft had to have all the features of the fifth generation, which we have already mentioned:
- supersonic cruising speed;
- high maneuverability, both at subsonic and supersonic speeds;
- stealth;
- multifunctionality, that is, the ability to work on both air, and ground, and sea targets;
– improved takeoff and landing characteristics;
– reduction of the cost of a flight hour and ground handling;
- integration of onboard equipment into a single information and control complex with elements of artificial intelligence (so-called expert systems), which, among other things, would not only give recommendations to the pilot, but also “forgive” novice piloting gross errors;
- indication of the tactical situation with the possibility of mixing information, i.e. simultaneous output and mutual overlay on a single scale of images from various sensors (remember the miracle helmet on the F-35), as well as the use of telecode information exchange systems with external sources (this, in in particular, it allows you to combine the radar of several aircraft into one, as it were, virtual, but more powerful radar.I will not load readers with terms like "antenna aperture", very simplified, if, for example, enemy stealth "flashes" by chance at least one aircraft - everyone will see. A similar system was implemented on the MiG-31, and then it was also introduced on the MiG-29 and Su-27).
It was also planned to introduce a device for assessing the physical condition of the pilot: in the event of a loss of consciousness, it would automatically bring the aircraft into a safe mode.
A quick-mount springboard was also provided, which made it possible to take off from short sections of the runway that had survived the bombing.
And even access to the cab is via a 250mm wide retractable ladder rather than a traditional portable ladder.
There were many more requirements, more specific, some of which even now, after many years, are amazing.
Work on the creation of domestic processors for the aircraft was carried out in Zelenograd, the AL-41F engines with thrust vector control were developed by Lyulka Design Bureau, aerodynamics were designed with the participation of TsAGI, new way reducing visibility in the radio range (by two orders of magnitude!) - plasma - was developed at the research center. M. V. Keldysh, a new ejection seat and an anti-g suit - in the Zvezda Design Bureau, etc.
Please note that stealth was provided in all three ways: without sacrificing aerodynamics and super-maneuverability, somewhere they used forms characteristic of stealth (sloped keels, S-shaped air intakes, so that the perfectly reflecting engine blades were not visible to the locators); somewhere - absorbing mastic, and somewhere - and plasma. Why is plasma not everywhere? The same paradox of “blindness” of stealth: after all, plasma absorbs not only enemy radiation. These three methods were supposed to provide acceptable stealth without compromising other parameters.
Lyrical digression. By the way, in the article about the shortcomings of stealth, I forgot to mention one more thing: during the execution of a combat mission, or "mission", as the Americans say, it is necessary to turn off the state identification system "friend or foe." What for? You are flying over enemy territory, and someone "his" asked you. Your respondent, of course, said: "I am mine." And although they did not understand this coded answer, the enemies saw it perfectly. They concentrated all the power of their locators on you, and... You say, it's unlikely? Not at all, especially if you democratize another Middle Eastern country together with the French or the British. Indeed, for the purpose of secrecy, they do not always need to be notified about the next mission. It turns out that if you do not warn them and turn off the system, you risk being shot down by "friends", and if you do not turn it off - by the enemy.
The fighter was supposed to outperform the American F-22A Raptor, which was being developed at the same time, information about which was already leaking through various channels to our designers.
The aircraft received a working index MiG-1.42, and the first, somewhat simplified version for testing - MiG-1.44. Version 1.46, significantly improved in terms of characteristics, was worked out and was being prepared for construction. These three versions should not surprise anyone: after all, some specific decisions are made only on the basis of the results of testing the first samples, and the best thoughts may appear later, and sometimes some subcontractor can develop the desired node only after a few years, but for now you have to make do with it. , what is. The F-22 is still being finalized, as, indeed, any other aircraft, even those in the series.
The first experimental aircraft was ready in the early 90s, and most necessary equipment for the first flight (engines, for example), subcontractors delivered at the beginning of 1994. Let's not forget that the so-called "perestroika" with "conversion" led to the fact that many subcontractors were more puzzled by pots, pans and other survival than direct duties. And where to go if the first person of the country and the CPSU talks about "universal" values and disarmament? In the MiG Design Bureau, the role of "pots and pans" was played by lawn mowers, named factory wits, as is customary in aviation, by the names of the authors: ShiZa, that is, Shifrin-Zaleev. I don’t know how they were with super-maneuverability ... This was in the second half of the 80s. In the 90s, consumer goods in the country were no longer of interest to anyone, and "survival" was carried out by leasing or even selling off production facilities, suburban recreation centers and pioneer camps that belonged to defense industry enterprises.
And as a result, the first flight took place only in May 1999. This is despite the fact that the Chinese offered their participation in the program, subject to the transfer of a license for its production.
Bullying
It started back in the 80s. I remember that I was surprised to read numerous publications in the press, mainly the one that is now called liberal: completely indignant, accusatory, hysterical ... Now these vile tricks of juggling, half-truths and outright lies with calling black white and vice versa, are already well known, take at least a similar current persecution of the Superjet, and then this was the first time, and it turned out to be very unexpected. After all, the business of designers - from private to general - is to create aircraft, and not to "shit in the comments."
I managed to find one article in the archives. Alexander Zhilin, Bluff, in Moscow News: http://datarhiv.ru/73/131. He, unlike other journalists, has something to do with aviation, but, nevertheless, the techniques do not shine with originality - an accusatory tone and juggling:
“The new Russian “fighter aircraft of the twenty-first century” was presented with pomp. In fact, this aircraft does not exist.”
Well, yes, till does not exist. Everything happens for the first time, but Zhilin did not know? Maybe it was necessary to represent the MiG-3, which already does not exist, or the MiG-29, which still exists? Further, he is disappointed that instead of 1.42 he was shown 1.44:
"as the pilots and engineers of the LII told me, this" fighter "cannot take off in principle."
The article was written in January 1999, the plane took off after 4 months. Who “told” him and what, I don’t know.
“a real 1/42 fighter should have a completely different swept wing”
If he does not have CIS, then the king is not real! not the fifth generation! Iron logic. This option was worked out, the designers abandoned it, since the vortex aerodynamics, which was involved there to an even greater extent than in the fourth generation, was more effective than the CIS. Who knows better: them or the journalist? We traditionally understand everything about football, fishing and women. Oh yes, and in cars too. Journalists "understand" everything in general, and have the audacity to lecture anyone. We already know from the very first article in the cycle that CIS is a sign of the third generation, but not the fifth. Experience shows that the whole world has abandoned it. And a lot of options were worked out and even blown through the pipe, here are some of them:
“These engines, by the way, according to the staff of MAPO MIG, are only being developed”
So maybe it was necessary to put some old stuff instead of promising ones? Right now, PAK FA is also being tested not with "native" engines. We give the request “+ Zhilin + PAK FA” and make sure that Zhilin for some reason is not outraged about this.
"the plane shown in Zhukovsky will take off in February."
So you wrote a little higher that he fundamentally can't get up in the air! Where is the logic?
“The question is: why, if this is not a STEALTH, but just a prototype for flying over the AL41F engines, which do not yet exist.”
There are no coatings on it, you see, which means it’s not stealth. Here you can’t refuse logic :) And what for to spend the money that you are so worried about on coverage, if the plane needs to be tested for the time being, and not to bomb the adversary? Hide from your own locators, so that if the pilot has to eject, it would be more difficult to find him? Look, serial F-22s are still flying without coverage, as we saw in the photo, and nothing :) I repeat, it would be better for Zhilin and Navalny to go there, to deal with the budget cutters there :)
As for "it was created to fly around engines," only an amateur could write such nonsense. No one in their right mind creates a new aircraft to fly around new engines - why take the risk? The engines for the PAK FA, for example, were quietly flown around on the proven Su-27, and there was only one new engine, the second was the old, proven one. If anything, you can return home on one and see what happened to the new engine. There is a photo of this flying laboratory on the Web. The same is true for the engines for the MiG-31, which were flown on the MiG-25. Etc. So 1.44 is one of the real MFI options.
He blurted out a little at the end of the article: "we will wait for the presentation of other new Russian military equipment of the twenty-first century." And further, albeit in tongue-tied language:
"Certain circles in the government (Ministry of Finance), the aircraft industry literally took hostility to the proposal of Yevgeny Shaposhnikov to create a body that should manage and control the activities of the aviation industry."
And then UAC (United Aircraft Corporation) appeared, and all subsequent general designers of the MiG were for some reason(!) Representatives of the Sukhoi company ...
Who is Zhilin, and who benefited from this persecution? I found information about him on the Ekho Moskvy website. The very presence of a person on this site already says something, right? It is written there:
"Columnist for the Moscow News newspaper, head of the Center for the Study of Public Applied Problems of National Security"
I don't know of such a center, but, as a rule, such crackling names are loved by grant-eaters who work for US money, and who just now fell into hysterics about the new law on NGOs. I type in Google the query "Center for the Study of Public Applied Problems of National Security." The very first line in the issue is "Compromising Information": Zhilin Alexander Ivanovich. Dossier.
I click on it. Google, instead of opening the page, writes: "Warning - visiting this web site may harm your computer!" Interestingly, Yandex opens this link without any problems or warnings. Strange, right? After all, it also reports suspicious sites.
And the 19th was developed under Stalin, when hack work, to put it mildly, was not encouraged ...
And once again I would like to draw your attention to the fact that any project, except for those that the design bureau initiates on its own, for its own money, is approved by the Customer, in this case, the Ministry of Defense. This applies to both the MiG-29 and the MFI. The same two engines on the MiG-29 were specified by the Customer in the TOR, for reasons of reliability. It turns out that the critics are pouring mud not so much on the Design Bureau as on the USSR Ministry of Defense, although they themselves do not understand this.
Besides, what makes up the lion's share of the price in a modern fighter? Oddly enough, this is not the plane itself (“glider”, as the aviators call it), and not even the engines, but the so-called “board”, the on-board equipment in total. And this is not the MiG developing, these are purchased products. So the design bureau designers could have little influence on the price.
"Nevertheless, new head KB was not interested in the further development of someone else's project, despite the failures of their own S-37 and the high level of readiness of the MFI, which could already be put into mass production on the Sokol. As a result, in 2002, a government decree was issued on the creation of the PAK FA, which finally buried both the MFI and the S-37.
Result? PAK FA was created, successfully tested, promises to be a good aircraft, but ... a quarter of a century later ... And the MiG Design Bureau for the entire time of its existence under the control of representatives of the Sukhoi Design Bureau has launched practically nothing new into the series, except for the improvement of the MiG-29. Even the combat training MiG-AT lost the competition to the more expensive Yak-130. Guys, do you need a "textbook" or a cheap attack aircraft? I understand that for some Columbia, the Yak-130 can even be an ideal attack aircraft to fight the drug mafia, but is it needed in Russia?
The question involuntarily arises: what did the Mikoyan Design Bureau do under the leadership of Poghosyan?
Why did I say that Zhilin blabbed a little, and highlighted in bold part of the quote from Wikipedia? In addition to those who pay the grant-eaters, there was another interested party: competitors. Namely, the leadership of the Sukhoi Design Bureau in the person of the then General Designer Mikhail Petrovich Simonov (hereinafter referred to as the MPS). Anyone who has read the book of test pilot Valery Menitsky "My Heavenly Life", the chapter "Confrontation", knows what it is about. (It seems to be indecent to speak badly of the deceased, but if we are talking about people of such a high rank, then you can’t throw out a word from a song, sorry, Mikhail Petrovich). There, in the same chapter, it is well told about the training battles between the MiG-29 and Su-27, and Menitsky's considerations about the ratio of lungs and heavy fighters well coincide with what academician Georgy Sergeevich Byushgens said: “It is strange that we make more battleships than cruisers.”
Here is the opinion of the MiG test engineer http://fan-d-or.livejournal.com/ on this topic, which coincides with the words of Menitsky, obtained through personal communication and published with the permission of the author:
The story is this - having grabbed the failed T-10 project and completely losing to a competitor, the Ministry of Railways began to pull out the T-10 not so much by processing equipment, but by creating its own pocket lobby at the top of the Air Force and the corresponding departments of the Central Committee. With the help of this lobby, he began to very methodically and competently put pressure on his competitor throughout the field - in order to intercept government orders and close funding for himself.
We managed to save the money - and to carry out the design cycle thanks to the ambitions of the Siberians (SibNIA - V. Z.)- because here in the center no one should have known about the actual underground work (if they had known, they would have been punished very severely for squandering state funds). Therefore, everything was removed from sight - it was not difficult to keep a leak inside the design bureau, but someone from science would blurt out if this was done at TsAGI.
This dirty game began long before perestroika - from the beginning of the 80s. Naturally, with the collapse of the country, the loss of control over the industry and the lack of money from the Customer, the opportunities for playing dirty increased many times over - and the created lobby got the opportunity to break through to power in the new government. This turned out to be fatal for the MiG - which, by the way, was the first in the industry to move to the creation of a holding company and invested considerable funds from foreign activities (repair and modification of MiGs in foreign countries) in the creation of a completely new aircraft plant at the site in Lukhovitsy: back in the early 90s RSK The MiG relied on the production of extremely popular short-haul aircraft, and in order not to reinvent the wheel, it undertook to put the Tu-334 on the wing, which at that time was very good in terms of performance characteristics and promising for the market.
It was under 334 that the Lukhovitsky giant was being built - for which equipment was purchased, and while the buildings were being built, the equipment in boxes was stored on the sites.
If these plans were realized, then the lid would be dry: the competitor would gain economic independence and would no longer need state funding, which he even had in those years, albeit drop by drop.
Therefore, an unprecedented raider attack was launched - namely, a classic Raider seizure: first - discrediting in the eyes of society (for which absolute lies were used - for example, about IFIs and about budgetary theft), attacks through a controlled lobby in the government - sent by prosecutorial checks, paralyzing work by definition.
In parallel with obtaining funding, the Ministry of Railways launched an attack on the concept of "small" - they say, they are only capable of fighting over a short-range drive. Although, in fact, according to the strategic layout, the MiG was optimal for the Western Group of Forces - in the same place in Europe there were airfields at every intersection, autobahns instantly turned into a runway, fuel was at hand everywhere - and the goal of a front-line fighter was to cover their tanks from attacks by adversary attack aircraft.
But the Ministry of Railways bought a warrior with a range - and they began to insist that such a machine was vital.
When the T-10S took to the wing, the second phase began: here the idea was persistently carried out that the MiG should be immediately sent to the reserve and urgently re-equipped the entire Air Force with the "correct" cracker - this despite the fact that the Su-27 could not be used except for a couple of types of explosive missiles knew how, and the MiG was a full-fledged fighter, not only in the air, but also on the ground.
A legend was put into circulation that a "large" fighter was needed, and not "small" ones - despite the fact that the T-10S could do nothing but vaguely understood air defense functions.
The persecution of the "small" ones was carried out precisely with an eye to the upcoming competition for a promising fighter of the 90s - and the 29th was deliberately withdrawn from this niche - in order to increase the chances of dry ones, which had a "large" aircraft in development. For this reason, the TK itself in the competition turned out to be oversized - it was deliberately adjusted to fit the existing dryers ...
The very idea of demonstrating the MFIs is the result of attacks on the Mikoyans in the air party! And these attacks - many years - and forced to expose the car, almost ready from the very beginning of the 90s, before the eyes of the political leadership ...
The first flight took place solely as a result of vile persecution - when the purchased swindlers began to spread the legend of the "plywood MiG". And no counter-arguments could dispel this opinion in the party: "MiG is a black hole that sucks the budget for cutting."
The very fact of lifting the car in those conditions is a feat. Well, let's say, Lyulka's engines were brought to working condition themselves - they had a reason for this, since it was the only promising program, and if you close it, then you generally have to lie down and die. But how steering machines - a completely new type, for EDSU - were able to persuade them to finish, it's just fantastic.
The Zhilinskaya article is actually a hysteria from a team of lobbyists that LOST the round. And its goal is to put pressure on the government in order to cut off the rest of the funding on the topic and thereby finally dump the opponent on the carpet bled. In the previous round, it was not possible to defeat - despite all the insinuations, the project turned out to be more alive than dead, and after the publication of the experimental sample, it became clear that the groundwork definitely exists, which means that if the topic of a promising fighter is financed, then it is her, and not glib promises dry. So they tried to make him official - knowing the difficulties that the Mikoyans had with subcontractors.
Through the same lobby, the top management in the company began to be twitched - the generals began to be changed like gloves - and they all came from (and puppets) dry (you can look up the Internet archives and see for yourself).
Through the same lobby, as well as directly - through bribery of customers - contracts for the supply of MiG-29SMT over the hill began to be broken. It was on this basis that the dry docked with Boeing - which at that time were expelled from their country for a dirty game against competitors in military orders (also found on the net).
Having lost the market for defense orders at home, Boeing leaned overseas - and back in the 90s rebuilt the RC (research center - V.Z.) here, collecting all the cream of the destroyed aviation industry into it. Can you imagine what kind of spy nest was created?! There was no need to bribe anyone - it was enough to listen to what they were talking in the smoking rooms: after all, the people, having moved to the Boeing Information Center, did not lose touch with their native design bureaus and institutes: ((((((
Naturally, the dry ones helped the Boeings a lot here - from which the drunken project, aka RRJ, was born. He is SSJ. For the guaranteed success of the SSJ, it was necessary to finish off the Tu-334 - which was done, fortunately, no one could interfere.
Well, how it all ended - we see now: Pogosyan himself landed in the chair of the General MiG. Which meant the final submission of a competitor.
It is clear that now the RSK will not do anything to the detriment of the dry: the enemy is defeated and helpless ...
The main projects - the fighter "five" and the regional are completely killed. This happened at the turn of the decade - and allowed to enter the T-50 and SSJ.
And Putin is here, as you can see for yourself - well, no sideways: he got the pro-Sukhov lobby in the government in a completely finished form, but as the prime minister, he doesn’t care with whom to work with. His head ached in those days about other problems ...
As a result, a fair part of the MiG designers, from the hunger of the 90s, went to China to work. Needless to say, they were received there with open arms, and we once again gave a lot of valuable knowledge to dangerous competitors? And not only in aviation, but also in space, and...
In China, the MiG design team worked on a rotational basis. This, by the way, helped a lot in the most troubled years to preserve the intellectual backbone of the Design Bureau - the people went to the Celestial Empire with a team of a hundred people (a full-profile design team - from a general view to technologists) and received funding from the Chinese at the level of world standards, and then through six months they were replaced by others.
My classmate is Lenya Sutugin [Leonid Georgievich Sutugin - deceased. 2002, son Deputy Georgy Sergeevich Sutugin, General Designer of the Design Bureau named after Mikoyan for ground equipment] - in sub-perestroika times, he ended up in the chair of the head of the brigade general types, told me how it was there and what ...
Only the J-20 is in no way here - because our lads "super-seven" built it.
It is clear that Chinese designers went as apprentices, gaining invaluable experience - so they made the notorious quasi-five (essno, how they could and what they understood).
... I just recently began to understand that the technology of raiding in the States has been worked out to virtuosity and is described in business books in great detail.
I used to think that Simonov's raids on the Mikoyanites were a brilliant improvisation - but now I'm more and more inclined to believe that they were simply taken from literature, which, for obvious reasons, was completely unknown to us.
The meaning of creating a lobby and intercepting the media even in the pre-perestroika USSR was to create an unfavorable social background - for the Mikoyan people this was an absolute surprise, and they were disastrously unprepared: before that, the practice of behind-the-scenes struggle was limited to the offices and corridors of ministries at the level of industry leaders - and then access to a wide mass of small ranks in the Air Force and outside the system in general (draining into the public press of fairy tales about how dry good and how brilliant they are, having come up with this, having come up with that).
And this mythical monster, created in the mentality of the party, is invincible by definition. It's like a bad fame about a village girl - they say she slept with everyone, all the guys tell each other about it, and no one has a shadow of an idea that she has never kissed anyone in her life, and not that she would have climbed into the hayloft . Once put into circulation, a lie acquires fantastic details in a self-sustaining mode...
Here is such a version. Of course, I do not undertake to either confirm or refute it, for lack of facts. Unfortunately, I can’t ask anyone from the Sukhoi Design Bureau about this, and not give the other side the floor somehow not comme il faut. But comments are open to everyone, please. And I’ll make a reservation that the designers of the Sukhoi Design Bureau here, of course, do not sideways, they do their job, and they do it well ...
When preparing the article, I was advised not to recall all this dirt, otherwise, they say, Mikoyan will also be reminded of dirty deeds with competition. But how then to explain why the MiG MFI project was closed? Answer: “The reasons for abandoning MFIs are its redundancy for Russia, both in terms of financial and technical standards.” But what about PAK FA? Isn't he redundant? History has already told about financial measures: if it is necessary that the aircraft be better than the F-22, then its price cannot be an order of magnitude less than the 22nd. And by technical standards - again, history has already judged. Compare MFI data with the closest competitors:
Normal takeoff weight, tons | ||||
maximum takeoff weight | ||||
Max Speed | ~2766 (2.6M) km/h | 2100 km / h (2.0 M) (according to other sources 2600 km / h (2.42 M) | 2125-2600km/h (2.0-2.45M) | |
cruising speed | 1850 km/h (1.78 M) | 1300-2100 km/h (1.1-2.0 M) | ||
Wingspan | ||||
As you can see, quite comparable characteristics. And the price of PAK FA is announced: "at least $100 million." "... he is so healthy not at the behest of the realist designers, but at the behest of the customers who have been swept up by the pro-Sukhov propaganda."
Here is such a sad story with the first Soviet fifth-generation fighter...
Afterword. Although I am an unbeliever, sometimes you involuntarily think, maybe the current persecution of the Superjet is retribution from above for that persecution? I will make a reservation that I am by no means an opponent of the Superjet: a lot of labor and money have been spent on it, and it must and will fly. Moreover, the Tu-334 was developed in the Union, with the expectation of a market in the form of the huge USSR and the CMEA countries (the total population is about 495 million people), and in such a market it would easily pay off, which cannot be said about the current 145 million. That's why the Superjet is made in a fair share of imported equipment, since they manage to use the world's airport logistics without extra costs (deliveries of spare parts around the world, etc.). And the Carcass in the current conditions is not adapted for export, and therefore it is unlikely to pay off ...
In addition, I do not know which of the machines indicated in this photo report about KnAAPO, and which are used, among other things, for the production of combat Su-35 and PAK FA (only the replacement program on the machine) fall under the "dual-use products" prohibited for Russia ". Or maybe not only Boeing used us, but we also stole some unique equipment from it for the production of not only the Superjet, but also the PAK FA?
In the next article I will try to talk about the S-37, also known as the Su-47 Berkut.
Vladimir Zykov
Anatoly Kvochur, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR, tells about Russian aviation in the past, present and future, about the uniqueness of domestic fighter aircraft, about the leading characteristics of foreign military aircraft and military doctrines of different countries, about the possibility of achieving international parity in aviation and much more. Hero of Russia, chief designer of the "Aircraft Research Center", lieutenant colonel of the reserve. He is called in the West the "Russian flying legend" and is included in the top ten test pilots of our time.
T-50 (PAK FA) cool, but unarmed. About the fifth generation secret fighter
“A person does not have wings and, in relation to the weight of his body to the weight of muscles, is 72 times weaker than a bird. But I think that he will fly, relying not on the strength of his muscles, but on the strength of his mind,” said N. E Zhukovsky, father - Founder of national aerodynamics. Thought is primary. It is the intellect and scientific imagination of aircraft designers that make unique aircraft take off, which are being improved with the movement of world scientific and technological progress.
Aviation technology is one of the fastest growing industries, especially in the military-industrial complex. And in the world of geopolitics, the wording "who rules in the sky - rules on earth" has been tacitly established. The recent operation of the Russian Aerospace Forces in Syria partly demonstrated this formula in action, raising even more acute issues of developing the defense and combat capability of countries and the struggle for leadership in the air force. Let's try once again to figure out "who is who" in modern military front-line aviation.
Russian aviation after the collapse of the USSR
- Anatoly Nikolaevich, I would like to start talking about our Russian military aviation in the context of changes after the collapse of the USSR and the current state. What happened during this time and what are we moving towards now?
- Really promising aircraft were created. "Su-35" is already on the way out. "T-50" - several years of testing. These are all positive developments, because in the mid-1990s no one could even think that such a thing could happen. A clear trend towards the beginning of the exit from the spin, as our "corkscrews", specialists in corkscrew tests, has been identified somewhere since the mid-2000s. And now the implementation is taking place, so there are clear shifts. From an aviation point of view.
But aviation is such a complex thing, such an industry that only in the Soviet Union could they make powerful planes and helicopters on their own. But when the Union split, a significant part of the aviation industry (for example, aircraft factories) remained abroad. In particular, the largest enterprise "Motor Sich" (now Zaporozhye Joint-Stock Company"Motor Sich" is one of the largest in the world and the only enterprise in Ukraine for the production, testing, support in operation and repair of 55 types and modifications of economical and reliable engines for dozens of types of aircraft and helicopters for various purposes, operated in 106 countries of the world - auth.), largest design department(KB) Antonov, where they made excellent aircraft, including the largest in the world (An-124, An-224, Mriya).
Many enterprises of the aviation industry remained in the south-east of the USSR, now it is a separate state. For example, in Tashkent there is the largest plant that produced the Il-76 military transport and civilian aircraft, as well as Il-78 tankers. There are many such examples.
What does this mean for us, for Russia? This means that industrial cooperation somehow works, but is lame, because it is no longer a relationship between enterprises, but between states. The price of the issue is growing, it is necessary to maintain interstate relations, but they are developing hard, difficult, in any case.
We have competitors - while it is clear that the competitors did not have such changes. In France, which is one of the leaders in the aircraft industry, for example, everything is fine in general. The UK continues to work. The Germans turned on very actively - since they once had aviation industry, with which they nearly took over the Soviet Union.
And it's all being restored. This is our competitor. We have lost a lot of time. And time in competition is one of the determining factors. This is not only money, but lost ideas, missed opportunities, and most importantly, specialists who left the industry.
Fifth generation aircraft
- The President of the Russian Federation spoke about this - and the meaning of the statement boils down to the fact that although we lost time, it gave us a chance to create technologies taking into account the latest developments and surpass foreign partners in some way.
- It's true. In the part that while the Americans were developing themselves, assuming that there was a protracted crisis in the USSR, they were inventing and building something. It turned out that this was not entirely successful. And, for example, the F-22 Raptor, the 5th generation American fighter, was conceived and started around the same time as our 5th generation MiG aircraft, which was called "Project 1.42". He did not have a serial name, but this aircraft was created and he had a flight. I have been a part of this process since I was appointed lead test pilot for the project in 1987. In 1992, he was rolled out, in 1994 he made his first flight, although according to plans Soviet Union in 1989 the plane was supposed to fly.
F-22 flew a little later, but there is a different approach. We had a definite leading organization and cooperation that should deal with this. The Americans, by using a significant part of the planet's resources, and not just their own, could afford to create a different approach. They have six companies, major developers of military aircraft, participated in the project competition.
According to the results of the competition, these six companies were divided into two associations, each of which was allocated funds from the budget for the construction of 2 copies of the experimental aircraft YF-22 and YF-23, which then participated in the competition, already according to the results of the achieved characteristics. In addition, both of these aircraft, such as the YF-22, were equipped with different engines.
The planes were the same, but with different engines. As a result, the YF-22 and YF-23 models were chosen. YF-22 won, and the winning corporation expanded at the expense of the losers.
The first real F-22 combat aircraft flew in 1997. At that time, “democratic changes” were rapidly developing in our country. We could well compete with him. But as soon as our "counterweight" weakened, they apparently also relaxed, which happens quite objectively, and, as it turned out, they missed a lot.
In particular, the F-22, for example, was recognized as an unsuccessful project, about one and a half hundred aircraft were produced, as about 700 were planned. At present, the production of this aircraft has been discontinued. This fighter was given approximately the same requirements as ours: low visibility, super maneuverability, operational manufacturability and cruising supersonic (supersonic speed in non-afterburning engine mode - ed.). Everything was implemented to one degree or another, but the aircraft was considered unsuccessful.
- They found themselves in a situation where they have practically no aircraft of the 5th generation.
- That one is unsuccessful, and they did not start building the other in time. Russia, with a time shift, has created a fundamentally new T-50 fighter, which can become a very competitive combat vehicle. In addition, tests are being completed and mass production of the Su-35 aircraft has begun at my native aircraft plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur - this is such an intermediate version, a highly optimized, improved copy of the Su-27.
With super-maneuverability, huge flight ranges, with a qualitatively new onboard sighting and navigation system, with complex weapons, etc. This gives us hope that parity can be restored.
- There is evidence that the F-35 is also recognized as an unsuccessful project. Australians led by various technical parameters our two aircraft ("T-50" and "Su-35") with American ones (F-22 and F-35). Russian fighters were ahead by a wide margin. The result is the F-35, a third generation aircraft with elements of the fifth.
- Here I can express my point of view in this way. Firstly, the F-35 aircraft is implemented in three versions: land, vertical takeoff and landing, short takeoff and landing, for basing not only on aircraft carriers, but also on aircraft carriers without ejection take-off devices and braking machines with cables for engaging the hook.
Secondly, in the USSR, a similar aircraft was also built, flew, landed on aircraft carrier cruiser- in general, full-scale tests were carried out. It was called "Yak-41". The Yakovlev Design Bureau is the only design bureau that has mastered vertical takeoff and landing technologies. This is a unique design bureau that developed, tested and put into mass production the Yak-38 aircraft, which was operated on aircraft-carrying cruisers.
Based on this knowledge and technology, when in the Design Bureau. Yakovlev, my good friend and comrade, Alexander Nikolaevich Dondukov, who for some time was a leading engineer, then deputy chief designer for the MiG-29K carrier-based aircraft, began to create a vertical take-off and landing aircraft using approximately the same technology as the F-35 (this lift motors arranged differently, etc.).
He ("Yak-38" - auth.) could be supersonic, its design was supersonic. Moreover, the engine, as in the F-35, could include a forced mode, with heavy loads, temperatures and high thrust. When the country (USSR - ed.) stopped in its development, this project was discontinued.
I suppose that our technologies "leaked" abroad, because the Americans did not have such knowledge in creating vertical take-off and landing aircraft. They used the Harrier - it's a British aircraft, and the UK is a very strong country in terms of aircraft construction. I was familiar with two English test pilots who built and tested this aircraft.
A lot of intelligence was invested in this aircraft by both design engineers and test pilots. When I flew it myself, I realized how easy it is to operate, it didn’t even require special knowledge. Easier than a helicopter. True, he does not have supersonic. So all this knowledge was transferred to the Americans. At one of the air shows in Farnborough, English colleagues in the profession, veterans who participated in the Harrier tests, said that they were participating in the F-35 project.
How unsuccessful is he? A number of aspects must be taken into account. Firstly, there are always "difficulties in growth", which are resolved as the aircraft matures, as well as when it is tested in serial operation. Secondly, it is a matter of military doctrine, of this or that state.
We have a completely defensive doctrine: we must protect our country, people, industry, science - everything that the state lives on. And we do not need to land on aircraft carriers, sail and fly somewhere to other continents. The United States has a different doctrine - the doctrine of global domination. Today they have, in my opinion, 17 aircraft carrier ships, and we have one. And they need planes that they could bring on aircraft carriers, whether it be to Vietnam, or to Cambodia, or to the Middle East.
Of course, they are unlikely to enter the North Sea, somewhere from the Arctic Ocean, because it is difficult. We see different doctrines. Accordingly, different projects of aircraft. They are like this (vertical takeoff and landing - ed.) an aircraft is needed, but we, in my opinion, are quite satisfied with such aircraft carriers that we now have, such as the Admiral Kuznetsov. If a sufficient number of normal aircraft are based on them, if there are more of these aircraft carriers, then we will be able to cover our shores in the Far East at the approaches. Such is my understanding.
USA Fighters
- Anatoly Nikolayevich, in continuation of the conversation about US fighters ... The Americans are investing unrealistic efforts, money, overcoming a lot of difficulties in order to eventually, roughly speaking, spread the F-35 around the world, for their closest allies (Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and etc.). In connection with the aggravation of the conflict in the East China Sea, the United States intends to rearm Japan and South Korea, for example, with these latest aircraft, replacing their existing F-15s and F-16s. Do you think such efforts will have an effect?
- Here it is not clear to me why Japan needs the F-35, which in fact does not have aircraft carriers. After all, this aircraft has optimal characteristics to take off from the ship. And if it is intended for such operations that do not require a ship, but an airfield is enough, then it carries the extra weight inherent in a vertical take-off aircraft, extra equipment.
This is very suboptimal, because the price of the issue in terms of effective cost for the Japanese will greatly deteriorate. That is, the price will be high, and its efficiency will be worse than even the modernized F-15, because the F-35 does not have good supersonic sound, it cannot raise a lot of weapons.
Yes, he has some signs of stealth, this is not a completely stealth aircraft, especially if you hang the weapon on an external sling.
- The F-35 is available in three versions - and they are all vertical takeoff?
— No, not all. There is a short takeoff, vertical and there is a purely land aircraft. The one that cannot land on an aircraft carrier is lighter, in theory it should have better supersonic characteristics, and so on. But in any case, in my opinion, it is difficult to fit good characteristics into such a design.
In my understanding, the F-16, a single-engine aircraft, is more ideal. He has been living for almost four decades and feels great. But it was created precisely as an airfield-based aircraft with all the consequences. In my opinion, even the American land version of the F-35 did not become better than the F-16. And maybe even worse.
- The F-35 also has one engine. Does this mean "goodbye, afterburner supersonic"?
— It could be. This was also planned for us when I was on the creation of a fifth generation fighter. The plane was supposed to fly without afterburner and on those engines in 1987 yet. The point here is not this, but the fact that, having undertook to make a universal single-engine aircraft, the Americans, in my opinion, did not succeed in this or that properly.
As they used to say, a fighter-bomber - what is it? This is a fighter minus a bomber. I flew a fighter-bomber in the army almost 40 years ago, I really liked it. But it's still at the expense of some other qualities.
Another thing is that a modern combat aircraft, taking into account the technologies that mankind already has at its disposal, of course, must be multifunctional. But this does not mean that any boxer can equally be a Greco-Roman wrestler, perform well in karate, and so on, because these are different cultures. It's impossible. There must be some kind of main function. The rest can be good, but auxiliary. If this is a fighter-bomber, then it is still a fighter first of all. In my opinion, the F-35 did not turn out very well as a fighter.
"Multipurpose Fighter"
- Anatoly Nikolaevich, they say that in Russia until recently there was no concept of a "multifunctional fighter" at all.
- It was created, I participated in this project, but there was devastation in the country. For example, there was a unique MiG-31M aircraft. This is an aircraft with a supersonic cruising speed of 2500 km/h. There are no analogues! American combat aircraft do not reach this speed at all. And this one has cruising speed! Maximum - 3000 km / h. At the same time, the MiG-31M could lift only 10 tons, which is a very typical huge load. Of these, 6 large semi-fuel missiles, approximately 700 kg each with a firing range of 300 km. There was a powerful locator that worked at a distance of 300 km. That is, it was necessary to see the target, launch a missile at it, which requires speed, aircraft altitude, an appropriate sighting system and guided missiles. All this was created as a single system.
We flew this aircraft, got all the excellent performance about 20% above the base model. And what happened? In 1994, we completed the last combat work, MiG specialists received a congratulatory letter from the president, and 2 months later the plane was laid up - and it never flew again ... And no one explained why. Anyone would say it's absurd. After all, an airplane is a huge cooperation. For example, about 40-45 thousand people worked at the Gorky plant, where 5 types of different classes of aircraft were produced. Then he stopped...
The MiG-31 was a leadership project, because it is high-tech things related to steel welding, titanium welding, which few people could do at that time. And these projects got up.
- Now, as far as we know, the MiG-31 project has been reanimated, there is a MiG-41 project.
- Yes. In the State Duma of the Russian Federation, there were 3 or 4 high-level hearings initiated by the Defense Committee. There is an opinion there that it is necessary to resume the production of MiG-31 aircraft. But, of course, at a qualitatively different level than 25 years ago. This issue is being resolved. I can say on my own that there are no analogues to this aircraft yet. The only thing is that the Chinese "imperceptibly" how they made an aircraft carrier will be able to create something like that. But it will be just a slap in the face of Russia. Because if we, having such a technological backlog, such personnel in due time, we will lag behind those who start from scratch, like China, for example. And it's the same as building a house - and leaving to live somewhere in a hut.
- There was information that during the period of stagnation and the catastrophic situation at the enterprise, the specialists of the MiG Design Bureau were forced to leave to work abroad, primarily to China.
“I heard about it too. There were also prosecutions, because these are specialists who are few in the world. They were placed in conditions of forced cooperation with foreign firms. They were left here doing nothing - this is one aspect. The second aspect is that the state did not have any clear understanding of what is possible and what is not. However, there were cases of suppression. How systemic they were, I do not know anything.
- In the end, it came to understanding what is possible and impossible?
“I think those who were put in charge of our secrets understood this, naturally. An important factor there was still political will. But a lot, in my opinion, information somehow left the country.
- What is your professional opinion about Chinese fighters?
- In China, in my opinion, the only fighter is ours. They launched their own projects, they practice a lot in this. Something they copied from the MiG-21 or MiG-19. At some stage, I visited exhibitions in China several times (in Zhuhai - ed.) and, let's say, these planes did not impress me. It was all aspiration. But they made them and so on. It must be understood that this is a process of their successive approximation ...
The Chinese nation is a nation that, of course, can master any high technology, including information technology. And the fact that they rolled out a carrier-based aircraft to their new aircraft carrier - I watched the landing of this aircraft - I can say that this is a rating of "5+" on a 5-point scale. Very clean landing. The plane looks like a Su-33. Very similar. It can be seen from the style of approach that he is a very good pilot and, apparently, he has a very good Information Support. He landed very cleanly, stopped, immediately began to clean up, fold the wings on the rollback - as we once knew how. It was the first landing! And she's always tense. And the plane itself is like a beautiful model, clean, neat, painted and, it seems to me, that it is light even in relative values. So they have mastered it. How it was, I don't know. But it is so similar to our Su-33 that only a completely blind person will not see the resemblance.
- It is known that the Chinese are actively working on a fifth-generation fighter.
- Yes. They have two fighters. One big, one small. Both are single-engine, but the engines are different and of different dimensions. Approximately like the MiG-29 and Su-27. Only at a new level - technological and ideological.
Chinese aircraft of the 5th generation are being tested, as can be seen in the open press. When I saw this for the first time, I thought that the props, the layout, the Chinese are misinforming the world community. But a year later the plane had already flown. That is, it turned out that everything was not so. Suddenly. It's unexpected for me.
- What can you say about the fifth generation Chinese fighter?
— What can be said? China is the world's factory. They have something of their own, but, for example, they were not at the forefront in the field of microelectronics. Southeast Asia and Japan have become the best developers of modern microelectronics.
Now there is a lot of Chinese everywhere. And they have all the electronics with which you can make combat complexes. They have production - and it doesn’t matter if they themselves invented it when there was a research search, or they bought this technology from someone. It is a fact. They now have open access to this technology and can improve, to make out microns, as they say. They have the largest factories on this. Therefore, all electronics are made in China.
Our situation is not like that. And let's imagine that these technologies are embodied in a combat sighting and aviation complex? Quite.
- How then to interpret the fact that they are testing their fifth-generation aircraft, but are negotiating with our Sukhoi Design Bureau to purchase Su-35 aircraft?
- If we supply these aircraft, then, probably, we can only rejoice. But the fact is that our technology is leaving with our aircraft. They have already built more Su-27s than ours. And the Su-27 is one of the most outstanding fighter aircraft projects in the world. As a direction, as a concept, as a project.
The Chinese, when creating analogues on the Su-27, had problems with the engines, which was more difficult for them than the airframe itself. They have been mastering the engine for a long time, and I assume that they could already master it. But for a super-maneuverable aircraft, like the Su-35, thrust vector rotation is required - this is an even more difficult technological task.
However, if the industry is constantly working, if engineers are constantly improving, designers are growing, then it is not Gods who burn pots, and they can learn this. For example, the Israelis had the Lavi project, but the Americans stopped it because they were losing the aircraft market. Then this project was implemented by the Chinese in the J-10 aircraft, which is almost a copy of Lavi. A very progressive project, it was difficult to implement it without high information and production technologies.
In addition, there is a party in the PRC. One party. And this party fulfills and ensures the political will of the country's leadership. This will is unshakable, they have no discussions about which way to go. Arming with one party is easier. Building something is also easier and faster. This is known. Can you imagine that Hitler had two parties or five parties before the war? Or would Stalin have had five parties - and they would have consulted among themselves? We simply wouldn't exist.
counterfeit
- The Chinese have gained access to technology, but due to the development of the era of post-industrialism, world trade and the diversification of the world economy, many components from China go to Europe and America. There are counterfeit products. Why? Because along with components, including those for the defense industry, there are built-in chips with codes that can crack defense systems on military equipment at the right time. The US Senate Arms Committee released a shocking 70-page report on numerous shipments of counterfeit electronics to the US military. The Committee conducted a year-long study, during which it turned out that during the period from 2009 to 2010 alone, about a million suspicious parts and components passed into the US Department of Defense supply chain.
- I'm not an expert on this. But there are persistent rumors that unsuccessful launches of spacecraft may be due to components from China. But it seems to me that for China this is probably too small, most likely it is Southeast Asia. But in Southeast Asia and Japan, at one time everything was created with US money, as far as microelectronics is concerned. And now it is slowly acquiring a regional purpose.
- Anatoly Nikolaevich, " in the past, the danger was that people became slaves. The danger of the future is that people can become robots, "said Erich Fromm. Today we are witnessing the creation of unmanned aerial vehicles and their application in practice. But what is the moral price of the issue? Some experts say that with the development of technology, people can already be removed from aviation, and bet on drones.
- The writer Ivan Efremov, whom I once read avidly, has thoughts about the role of robots, for example. And then there are the brothers Strugatsky and Stanislav Lem, who also raised such topics, but on a different level, more western, less spiritual. So the question was: people can be replaced by robots, and then what will a person do? The answer was very difficult.
Man is so arranged that he must constantly develop. Once it stops developing, it's something else. If a person is placed only in production, where he will shift parts from one place to another, then he will turn into a soulless being. A person needs to develop. Without this, as the ancient Greeks said, there is no progress - there is regression. And there is no middle ground. Therefore, robotization at some stage must have some limitations.
But you may have heard that the Americans at one time moved a lot of production outside the United States - from the point of view of a long-term vision, this becomes dangerous for a person. Because a person must constantly do something: science, production. Production "transferred" to robots. Science, too, can probably be given over to computers over time. There is such a situation - a stalemate, a dead end. I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that this threshold cannot be reached.
- The pilot will control the drone, but sitting somewhere in a chair in the Headquarters with a joystick in his hands ...
- Yes. From the point of view of their worldview, they justify everything correctly: why would they send so many people to their deaths? After all, they understand that wars will be unfair, otherwise there will be no remorse, for example. For them, this is normal. Because they do not protect themselves, but organize other programs - and attack someone. That's the way it is, in their opinion. In my opinion, if you defend the country, it will be difficult to get by with robots. It will still require dedication, self-sacrifice.
- The minds of scientists have long been excited by the idea of super-high-altitude flight, and the plane did not rise above 40 km. In this regard, they propose the concept of a fundamentally new apparatus without relying on air - the concept of a ballistic rocket plane with a hypersonic speed of up to 20 thousand km / h. In this regard, they predict that there will be no military aviation in our traditional sense. These will be completely new rocket and space systems that have nothing in common with the current military aviation. How realistic is all of this?
- I think that, of course, it is feasible. As for aircraft, now there is already a project for a civil passenger aircraft, which should fly at a speed of approximately 4000-4500 km / h. This is a characteristic supersonic speed for combat aircraft. The average cruising speed of passenger aircraft today is 800 km/h. There was our plane "Tu-144", which flew at speeds up to 2500 km / h. He was "shut down".
Time goes by, technology develops. There is an Anglo-American project to create a passenger hypersonic, as they call it, aircraft with a cruising speed of about 4500 km/h. It will fly at an altitude above 20 km, it must become environmentally friendly. His power plant is not based on the traditional jet engine, and there is a lot to do with electricity.
Half of the energy will be spent on generating electricity, through which plasma will be generated, a plasma cloud in front of the aircraft. Thus, the characteristics of its fuel efficiency are approaching those of a subsonic aircraft. From an environmental point of view, it will be the same, and maybe even better. So far, this is mostly business people. I talked a lot with our high-ranking people that it is time for us to create such an aircraft too. But this requires a miracle engine, a lot of knowledge and technology.
- What engine generation?
— This is the sixth generation engine.
- Some media write that in Russia there is only a prototype of the fifth generation engine - model 117C - on our the latest aircraft, which is presented as a result of modernization, and not a fundamentally new development, while the American Raptor and F-35 are equipped with engines of the fifth generation F119-PW-100 and the F-135 family. How would you comment on this?
- I am ready to fully stand up for our engines, which have been competitive for a long time, and our highly maneuverable aircraft fly in series in different countries. For example, the Su-30MKI in India, the Su-30MKA in Algeria, the Su-30MKM in Malaysia for 15 years. And I flew it. This is a unique aircraft with a deflectable thrust vector, with huge resources.
Today we have reached a new technological level. So far, neither the Americans nor the British have such aircraft that would have similar resources with a controlled afterburner engine. I do not know of a single case of failure of our engines. And for him it was necessary to make a control system - this is also the intelligence of our developers.
Therefore, someone here is clearly "twisting" in the wrong direction. Our drivers are top notch. And in general, when the "noose" for our industry was loosened, everything began to work, as if there had not been a huge break.
The attitude towards the MiG-35 light fighter was somewhat patronizing. Say, a transitional stage, a modification of the MiG-29, almost for the sake of PR, designated by another model. He was condescendingly patted on the wing even by an American The magazine National Interest, which usually intimidates its reader with the advantages of Russian weapons, that it is simply strange that it did not find its half-crazy congressman with pupils forever dilated from the "Russian threat".
Or, at worst, an FBI interrogator who would point a lamp in the eyes of editor-in-chief Jacob Heilbrunn and yell, "How and when did Russian SFB recruit you?"
Easy doesn't mean weak
MiG-35 - indeed further development MiG-29, which is brought to the level of the fourth generation fighter. You can even please our beloved Dave Majumdar, the author of a note about our aircraft, by telling him that both machines are based on the same airframe, created back in the mid-1980s. Actually, you don’t even need to break into an open door, because among the specialists of the Russian military-industrial sector this aircraft was initially considered as a transitional link from the 29s to the 4 ++ generation. And there you will see.
It became visible. In the course of the consistent modernization of systems behind the systems, the MiG-35 came close to the fifth generation. Anastasia Kravchenko, director of the department of information policy and public communications of the MiG corporation, told RIA Novosti about this: "As new systems appear and technologies improve, the corporation can offer aircraft upgrades, including to the level of the next generation."
Moreover, this will not require any separate complex work. This process will go - well, almost by itself. Because the fighter today is executed according to the principle of "open architecture", so its modernization will depend on the equipment that will be added to it in the "body kit". For example, a new radar, new system guidance, new weapons - taken, for example, even from heavy fighters to gain air supremacy.
A sort of universal soldier is obtained. Only in the air.
And marketers at the same time note that such an architecture can greatly help aircraft sales. After all, the buyer, if desired, can place his own equipment or weapons on it.
Very interesting feature it also has a fighter jet engine. It can be equipped with an all-angle deflectable nozzle, or it can be operated in the usual way. And the deflected thrust vector is also a fundamentally important characteristic of 5th generation machines.
Another characteristic is invisibility. Due to its relatively small size - 17.3 m in length and 12 m - wingspan, the MiG-35 initially has an advantage in this regard. But he was brought up to 25% the share of composite materials in the structure - carbon fiber and the like. Accordingly, its EPR visibility, according to some sources, has become less than 1 square. m.
RCS is the effective scattering area, which for ease of understanding can be interpreted as a size in the "understanding" of the radar radar. In this case, in place of the MiG-35, the radar will see something less than a meter in diameter - that is, it will be noticed later than necessary, and less reliable than necessary, identified.
In this, this light fighter is also approaching the characteristics of 5th generation machines. Although, of course, ideally for this generation one should strive for at least an RCS of 0.1 - 0.2 sq. m.
You can not talk about electronic warfare equipment - according to them, Russia is no longer the 6th, but, as it were, the 8th generation is already creating.
It is from such features that the specialists’ calculation is born that by 2020, when the machine goes to the troops en masse, it will already be a 5th generation aircraft.
Lightweight doesn't mean harmless
For all its lightness (relative, of course, a number of observers are even inclined to classify it as medium), the MiG-35 fighter is pretty toothy and pretty well armed. But what does good mean? On its nine "beams" - suspension points - it is able to accept all types of air-to-air and air-to-surface ammunition.
So the head of the corporation, Ilya Tarasenko, does not boast when he says that the MiG-35 can be considered one of the most advanced combat vehicles in the world.
The main missiles in its arsenal are short-range R-73 and medium-range Kh-31 and R-27. The first is used, of course, against aircraft. Moreover, it is incredibly difficult to get away from it with a sharp maneuver: it is still combat-ready with an overload of 12 g, while for a fighter, the allowable load during maneuvering should not exceed 10 g. The second missile "works" against ground targets - radars and surface - ships. Moreover, its speed reaches more than Mach 3, that is, about a kilometer per second, which makes it difficult to shoot down, and it can destroy targets at a distance of 250 km.
As for the R-27, it is a medium-range air-to-air missile designed to destroy aircraft and cruise missiles at a distance of up to 110 km.
Thanks to its perfect radar (more precisely, airborne radar) H010 Zhuk-A with an active phased array (AFAR), the aircraft detects a target at a distance of up to 200 km, can simultaneously track up to 30 air targets and fire up to 8 of them. Also, of course, at the same time.
The total combat load of this "light" aircraft is 7 tons.
In general, as Vice-President of the Federation of Aviation Fans, Honored Test Pilot of the USSR Viktor Zabolotsky, said on the air of Tsargrad, the new Russian fighter became a real breakthrough for military engineers and designers. "The car has a lot of innovations: both in armament, and in the dashboard, and in the engine. This is a good leap forward," said this authoritative specialist, who himself once tested MiG family aircraft.
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