Russia’s Mikoyan, Sukhoi, and Yakovlev design bureaus have grasped the need for conversion or dual-use technology in the wake of the Cold War, and are building on their traditional high-performance tactical aircraft expertise to compete in the training, sport, and business aircraft markets.
Underscoring their commitment, last August’s government-sponsored International Aviation and Space Salon at Zhukovsky—near Moscow—highlighted Russian products for the international market. Twenty-three countries participated; 116 Russian aircraft were on display.
The Salon included an International Symposium on Experimental Facilities and Flight Certification; the Russians showed considerable interest in U.S. and Canadian papers on flight tests in ski-jump launch, aircraft carrier suitability, and shipboard operation of commercially certified helicopters, reflecting the sea-based potential of several Russian aircraft.
Despite the challenges facing the Russian industry, I take exception to the 9 September 1995 Jane's Defence Weekly article stating that, “New version[s] of established aircraft designs [are] the major trend in Russian industry,” and implying that these are desperate, stop-gap measures. Who wouldn’t rehash established designs in this period of retrenchment? Consider the U.S. Navy and the F/A-18E/F.
Planning for growth and continuous experimental development is rooted in Russian aviation history. One only need note the 40-year lineage of the MiG-21-93 prototype at the Salon. Conspicuously small next to the modem lightweight MiG-29 and dwarfed by the gigantic MiG-31, the new variant nonetheless was armed with the latest weapons, including the much-feared AA-11 Archer air-to-air missile—and is being marketed successfully to many countries looking for an economical fighter with the necessary sting. Modernization is focused on electronics and armament; its Copye radar is said to equal or surpass the F-16C’s APG-68.
The Sukhoi Design Bureau emphasized Russia’s unmistakable will to acquire operational carrier-based air power; its Su-27K interceptor (K for korabelny, meaning ship-based) and the Su-25UTG ship-based trainer were fitted with bonafide tailhooks.
Sukhoi competed head-to-head with Mikoyan’s MiG-29K shipboard variant, equipped with folding wings and a tailhook. On 1 November 1989, Sukhoi’s V. Pugachev, Mikoyan’s T. Aubakirov, and the Flight Research institute’s A. Krutov landed an Su-27K, a MiG-29K, and an Su-25UTG, respectively, on the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. The Su-27K subsequently emerged as the choice for a ship-based interceptor—but the evaluation reveals that competition is by no means restricted to free-enterprise systems.
R.A. Belyakov, a Mikoyan designer, in his book on the Soviet Air Force in World War II, discussed the Soviet answer to the Messerschmitt Bf-109E threat in early 1939: “To create a competitive spirit, several design bureaus were asked (by the party and the government) to develop and build prototypes. The one with the best flying quality and combat capabilities was to be mass-produced.” While the losers did not go out business, the stature of designers rose and fell as measured by the performance of their aircraft in the real world.
To the Russian technical community, competition means prototyping—and the national will for such major undertakings as the development of totally new ship-based conventional tactical aircraft. The United States has not done such competitive tactical aircraft prototyping since the F-4H-1 Phantom versus F8U-3 Crusader III competition more than 35 years ago—that is, not until the currently planned Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) program.
The recent Russian trend to adapt conventional aircraft for carrier use indicates a philosophical turn away from the long-established use of vertical/short take-off and landing (V/STOL) aircraft such as the Yak-38 Forger. One of three prototype Yak-141 Freestyles, a supersonic lift-plus-lift/cruise design follow-on, was on display at the Salon, but no serial production is scheduled—and Yakovlev is into the transport, business, trainer, and sport plane markets.
A prototype Su-27K on display had been redesignated the Su-33, and the latest variant of the original Su-27 Flanker land-based single-seat interceptor, fielded in the then-Soviet Air Force in 1986, was on display redesignated as the Su-35.
The Su-33’s landing gear and fuselage load-bearing structures were beefed up to take the stress of constant glide-slope, unflared carrier landings. Tire pressures were doubled, in contrast to the low-pressure balloon tires used for rough-field operations. A Flight Research Institute engineer told me that the ski-jump take-off mode (which I considered quite reasonable with the typically high thrust-to-weight ratio design of Russian tactical aircraft) prevailed over catapults “because catapults] had turned out to be a rather complicated and difficult equipment to develop.”
An in-flight refueling probe retracts conformably into the Su-33’s fuselage, just forward of the cockpit. The three Sukhoi tactical aircraft prototypes on display were equipped for in-flight refueling.
The Su-33 obviously must serve as an interceptor as well as a strike fighter. With Mach 2.35 speed, 9g sustained maneuverability, a high thrust- to-weight ratio, and weapons that include the AA-11, the aircraft compares favorably with the U.S. Navy’s F-14D. The aircraft is considerably larger (possibly capable of further modifications) than the just-enlarged McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The Su- 33 carries a 17,600-pound external pay- load on 12 wing and fuselage store stations; the F/A-18E/F carries 17,750 pounds on 11 stations.
The Su-35 basic single-seat interceptor continues to be upgraded, to include thrust vectoring. No Su-35 with thrust-vectoring was on display, but, given Russia’s no-nonsense prototyping, one should be in service soon.
Pugachev performed his show-stopping Su-35 “Cobra” maneuver, achieving an instantaneous 110° angle-of-at- tack (AOA) using pure pilot technique, developed by the research institutes, without digital fly-by-wire or advanced control logic. Thrust vectoring in conjunction with air-data computer supplied control algorithms, used by the U.S. X-31 and modified F-16—and probably in an experimental Su-35—allows prolonged high angle-of-attack maneuvering. Pugachev employed the maneuver tactically during simulated air-to-air combat when he used it to force an overshoot by an opposing pilot Hying an Su-27.
The Su-32FN (Su-34), described in a show placard as a “Frontal Fighter- Bomber,” is a massive and solid-looking two-seater almost twice the size, weight, (and price) of its MiG-29 competitor—and larger than its Western F-14 and F-15 rivals. Surrounded by missiles, guided bombs, and a large centerline tank (refueling store?), it is the latest variant of the Su-27 lineage and a textbook illustration of what an aircraft designer can accomplish by starting with a design capable of growth. The basic (1977) Su-27 design evolved into a superb fighter in 1981, a tandem two-seat combat trainer—the Su-27UB—the same year, and the Su-27K carrier-based interceptor (now the Su-33) in 1989. Sometime in the 1980s, Sukhoi capitalized on the enormous size of the basic Su-27 design to develop a side-by-side, two-seat frontal fighter-bomber to replace the swing-wing Su-24 Fencer. A Su-27IB, the prototype of this fourth-generation aircraft, first flew on 13 April 1990. (Su-34 was the series designation for this aircraft.)
Canards and an artificial intelligence-based “active flight safety system” enable the Su-34 to perform low- level acrobatic maneuvers at speeds of 730 knots and, according to recently released information, make hard maneuvers while delivering ordnance—thanks to something translated as a “turbulence neutralization system.”
Sukhoi astutely developed a carrier-suitable trainer from the Su-25 Frogfoot ground-attack aircraft, which was designed about 1974 and went into series production in 1979; Soviet pilots flew the heavily armored aircraft in combat in Afghanistan. The latest variants, the Su-25TM and the Su-25K, carry additional weapons, including air-to-air missiles.
M. Levin, writing on the aircraft in Samolet, gives an interesting Russian design perspective: “The basic difference between the Su-25 and the American A-10 [is that] ... the Americans adopted a concept of inexpensive aircraft and sophisticated missiles. The Russians [built] ... a well-equipped airplane in conjunction with inexpensive missiles
In 1993, I visited the A.I. Mikoyan Aviation Scientific and Production Complex in Moscow. When asked how the MiG Design Bureau, Russia’s premiere fighter designer, initiated a tactical aircraft development, vice president and chief designer Anatoly Belosvet responded: “One designs a fighter to beat the best adversary fighter. Our adversary has been the United States. We know all about your F-15, F-16, and F-18, and I know our airplane can beat them." I made a note at the time: Engineers and pilots design airplanes in Russia—not generals and politicians. To be sure, mission and operational requirements, such as capability to operate from unpaved runways, are laid out by the Russian Air Force—but not what kind of aircraft.
A year ago, I met General Designer Rostislav Belyakov, director of the MiG complex, and he gave me the following advice: “Please read a book [entitled] 50 years of MiGs, from an institute in Maryland.” Indeed, MiG: Fifty Years of Secret Aircraft Design by R.A. Belyakov, published by the Naval Institute Press in 1994 (first published in French by Editions Lariviere, Paris, in 1991), has since become one of my treasured books. It offers insights into the mind of an aeronautical giant, one of the few left from the beginning of the mighty design bureau system of the only other superpower. Belyakov recognized me at the Salon and proudly told me that his book is finally being translated into a Russian edition.
The two MiG-29s on display were the latest prototypes of the MiG-29S, in turn a direct descendant of the basic MiG-29 and the MiG-29M, which is “the second generation MiG-29 that may look like a MiG-29 but in fact is an entirely new aircraft,” according to Belyakov.
According to Belyakov, the MiG-29 project, called “Frontline light fighter,” was launched in 1970 to capitalize on "the lessons of two decades of local military conflicts” and focus on design of a highly maneuverable fighter that “would remain true to the longstanding tradition of the MiG-15 and MiG-21.” Nineteen prototypes preceded the final version. The “integral aerodynamic design” of the MiG-29 “had no fuselage or at least nothing recognizable [as a fuselage] by contemporary standards.” The 1.1 thrust-to-weight ratio marked the beginning of the modern Russian fighter design approach. What emerged was a compact (56 feet long and 33,000 pound take-off weight), extremely agile, potent, technologically advanced, and above all relatively low-cost fighter that seems perfectly timed—and priced—for the new world order of localized conflicts among small states, and can still compete evenly against the higher-priced, multipurpose machines of major powers.
In contrast to the original MiG-29’s profile, both the MiG-29S and MiG-29M have the distinct fatback silhouette in the extended dorsal spine. The MiG-29M’s dorsal spine is even broader, deeper, and longer. The change, which required “the whole structure to be rethought,” added fuel capacity to increase range to 1,042 nautical miles in the clean configuration. Original aircraft had hydraulic-powered mechanical flying controls, but the MiG-29M has quadruplex/triplex analog fly-by-wire controls; digital fly-by-wire undoubtedly will follow. The aircraft’s two engines are equipped with a full-authority digital engine control.
The foreign object damage (FOD) exclusion doors on top of the wing root of the original MiG-29s have been replaced by lighter deflector grills inside the aircraft’s larger inlet ducts on the MiG-29M.
The Mikoyan Design Bureau touts the MiG-31 as the best interceptor in the world. It is, if one wants a long-range interceptor designed to counter U.S. B-52s armed with cruise missiles. It all translates into a supersonic 101,640-pound aircraft with an unrefueled range of 1,563 nautical miles and a ceiling of 66,000 feet.
Its electronically scanned phased antenna grid radar system enables the MiG-31 to serve as a mini-airborne warning and control system (AWACS), automatically transmitting target data and controlling other fighters operating with their radars off.
Perestroika has changed the operational environment and the rules of the game, but the end of the Cold War did not collapse Russian defense aviation and its industries in the way that World War II ended those in Japan and Germany. Japan, for example, is still struggling to catch up. The Russian aviation industry, on the other hand, is open for business. Don’t hold your breath, but a Russian-American tactical aviation venture could happen.
Mr. Momiyama is an aviation consultant. He started his civil service career as a flight test engineer at the Naval Air Test Center, Patuxent River, Maryland, in 1957; he retired in 1995 as the Naval Air System Command’s Director of Aircraft Research and Technology Programs.