PAK-DA: News

why? bomber shall be either really fast (Anchar?) or very steath.

Why?

F-22 is supposed to be stealthy and it can fly supersonically.

Supersonic is neither and most of path flies with subsonic speeds.

Supersonic in dry thrust is very stealthy...

agreed T-4 made no sense from military and economical sense, but OK looked cool

Would have been like the US Hustler... enormous fuel bill, but not actually safe when flying near large SAMs.

If they can get 23 tons of thrust dry from the upgraded NK-31 then supercruising in the Tu-22M3M would make it rather more capable... flying at supersonic speeds of mach 1.5-1.6 in full dry thrust instead of mach 0.7-0.8 means flying twice as fast on the same throttle setting. With swept wings in low drag mode it could probably reach its normal top speed of Mach 2 with just 4 tons less thrust than in full AB with old engines.

AB is dumping fuel directly into the exhaust so its effect on range is crippling... but flying extra fast in supercruise mode with a low thrust setting has the opposite effect on range and also the ability to intercept the aircraft... the F-35 would probably not be able to catch you, and the F-22 would need to use full AB shortening their range too.

why AAMs only in non strategic missions? AAMs increase chance to survive and deliver actual load.

On strategic missions most major SAM bases, radar sites, and airfields will have already been nuked and on strategic missions the new cruise missile carriers are unlikely to get within 3,000km of the target area with 5,000km and greater ranged missiles as primary weapons.

then you likely loose stealth and some range. Your main advantage over Tu-160.

Why do you think you would lose stealth?

No AB, and the modest increase in IR sig is worth it to cover ground twice as fast and be rather harder to intercept.

The minor loss of range would be compensated for with increased operational weights...

not even close to B-2 in terms of payload and range tho

No, but as a fighter it doesn't need that level of payload or range... if you scaled the F-22 to the size of the B-2 I doubt you'd get the payload AND the range, but you should be able to get one or the other...

so what is difference in exhaust temperature and fuel consumption?

A supercruising jet engine doesn't run hotter... it has a much higher speed airflow through the engine to allow operation at supersonic flight speeds.

The fuel consumption would be worse but it is still dry thrust so would be less than half that of full AB, but the aircraft would be moving twice as fast.

In basic terms if you have a car with an after burner that worked by simply increasing power by dumping fuel into the exhaust, then you trade range for speed... which is sometimes worth it and sometimes not... you can decide for yourself at the time.

With a super cruising engine you can still have an AB, but you can achieve 80% of the top speed with dry thrust without dumping enormous amounts of fuel into the system to get a high speed.

For a plane instead of running the engines at 80% dry thrust and flying 12,000km at 850km/h... which means flying for 14 hours... you run the engines at 100% dry thrust but you travel at 1,700km/h for say 10,000km... you are only increasing fuel consumption by 20% but you are travelling twice as fast...

The radius of flight of the Tu-160 at top speed of mach 2 is 2,000km, so a normal flight of say 11,000km might be 10,000km at 850km/h and 1,000km at high speed to make interception harder.

A super cruising bomber wouldn't need to fly in AB except at takeoff to get airborne with max weight... this would extend its range because in flight it does not need to use AB which wastes fuel and is a clear IR signal...

then you have ask yourself why nobody even considered it in Tupolev?

Maybe they did but the management decided they wanted a thicker wing profile for larger weapons so lower flight speeds are required because supercruising is not possible with such a high drag thick wing profile...

if all is nuked no need to send bombers then and if not then you loose most of your bombers before they deliver anything... I still think DEW is better in such cases though

Well first of all the only heavy bombers Russia has is the Tu-22M3, the Blackjack and Bear are cruise missile carriers, and the ICBMs and SLBMs are to clear the way for the cruise missiles rather than the bombers. The cruise missiles will hit cities and other population centres.

yet, neither Russians nor Americans thought bout it without reason? I dont think so.

I would expect the new Blackjacks will definitely supercruise... if they can increase the thrust of their engines the way they did with the Al-31 where they have pretty much gone from 12 tons thrust to just over 18 tons thrust, then with 25 tons thrust they might get to 30 tons thrust or even better.

I suspect they have already decided that the PAK DA is to replace the Bear as the cheap subsonic bomber... except with stealth it wont be so cheap.

Giving it a small tail surface and allowing transonic performance will make it much safer, but I suspect they want a real bomb truck for theatre bombing operations in the Backfire role...

With a super cruising engine you can still have an AB, but you can achieve 80% of the top speed with dry thrust without dumping enormous amounts of fuel into the system to get a high speed.

Supercruise still needs lot of fuel and the range is still shorter than with subsonic cruise speeds.

Yeah, but the point is that supercruising does not shorten flight range in practical terms.

A plane like a MiG-31 can fly 720km to a target and back to base at 19km altitude and mach 2.35, but if it flys subsonically at a more efficient cruising speed of mach 0.8 then it has a radius of 1,450km to a target and back to base.

Installing new engines with a dry thrust of 15 tons is hard to calculate, because fuel consumption will be higher because fuel burn is calculated as kgs of thrust per hour, but dry thrust is much less than AB thrust so the fuel efficiency will be less than halved but the speed at which the aircraft moves is doubled.

The point is that the engine on the current MiG-31 in dry thrust burn 0.72 kgs of fuel per kilogramme of thrust per hour, but its max dry thrust setting is 9.5 tons of thrust.

A new much more powerful engine for supercruising probably has the same or better fuel efficiency, but because it is generating more thrust it will of course burn more fuel, but because the aircraft is moving faster it might not lose that much performance in terms of actual range and it will certainly get to its destination much faster.

The full AB thrust of the engine is 1.9kgs/kg hour... so it is more than doubled.

At high altitude the MiG-31 can actually maintain supersonic speed without AB, but I am told it needs AB to accelerate past the speed of sound so technically it does not super cruise...

The point is that for most aircraft trying to intercept a target moving at Mach 1.6 or so will need to use AB itself for the speed to catch the target... which dramatically shortens the interception range of aircraft and missiles trying to stop it.

Approved the final appearance of promising long-range aviation complex - sources

"Approved the appearance of the aircraft, the necessary characteristics," - said the agency interlocutor.

"All contract documents necessary for the production of samples were signed," he added.
In turn, another source of the agency confirmed that at present there is an agreed look of the aircraft, and signed documents for the next stage of work.

http://www.militarynews.ru/story.asp?rid=1&nid=501749

China will develop a new bomber faster.
https://www.defenceaviation.com/2007/11/xian-h-8-chinese-stealth-bomber.html

China will develop a new bomber faster.

China needs a new bomber faster... their bombing force is currently based around the Tu-16 which couldn't even compete in performance with the Tu-22M3 let alone one of Russias heavier bombers.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

dino00 wrote:Approved the final appearance of promising long-range aviation complex - sources

"Approved the appearance of the aircraft, the necessary characteristics," - said the agency interlocutor.

    According to official data, the strategic bomber-bomber of the new generation will be made according to the aerodynamic configuration of a “flying wing” (without tail unit) and built using stealth technology. It was also reported that the PAK DA will be subsonic and will be able to carry more weapons than the Tu-160.

Tu-160 is supposed to carry... 45 tons !


   

Engine for PAK DA is created by the United Engine Corporation. According to open data, the power plant will have a 23 tf.

NK-32 has 18 tons thrust w/o AB,  so 30% increase of thrust... I wonder it Russians implement super-cruise? vide Okhotnik...

This aircraft if you completed should enter serial production 2030s... It seems Russians are Chinese still finding stealth relevant despite the advances that will happen in Anti Air Missiles and radars.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

william.boutros wrote:This aircraft if you completed should enter serial production 2030s... It seems Russians are Chinese still finding stealth relevant despite the advances that will happen in Anti Air Missiles and radars.

if Russian use UA doctrine (fly above target and drop nukes) this would be stupid, suicidal  or ven worse, counterproductive. If you want to loiter 3,000km from Us coast and fire hypersonic/stealth  missiles to CONUS then yes this make sense. NO US radr will see it coming before it is too late.

Except in the case of Alaska, and Central America, 3000 Km from the US will be either a strong US air defense position in territory of Canada, or a strong position of the US Navy with their ships with best air defense. In both cases the air defense of the US is likely to improve (form its poor current level).

Land based and ship based air defense has in the long term advantage over air based missiles launched from aircrafts. The size of the platform matters because it allows bigger missiles (faster and(or of bigger range) in higher numbers.

A bet for air platforms of mobility under the standards of the Tu-160 and the Tu-22, seems risky. To think that the Russian Strategic Bombers will have in the future a comfortable slow fly at 3000 Km from the US is not realistic, except in the case of Alaska.

Tu-160 is supposed to carry... 45 tons !

The upgraded Tu-160M is 45 tons, original Tu-160 is 40 tons.

NK-32 has 18 tons thrust w/o AB, so 30% increase of thrust... I wonder it Russians implement super-cruise? vide Okhotnik...

With the upgraded NK-32s putting out 23 tons in dry thrust I would suspect both a Tu-22M3M and a Tu-160M2 could easily supercruise in dry thrust.

It would certainly improve performance at max weight and improve takeoff performance, but I really don't see it increasing top speed by very much, but after flying 5,000km towards the target the Tu-160M2, having burned off a large chunk of its fuel load should be able to super cruise rather easily, and with the low drag of internal weapons it should be quite a good performing aircraft in terms of acceleration and altitude performance...

The F-14D was transformed when it got upgraded engines over the F-14A... it could get airborne from a carrier without ABs...

That greatly improved takeoff performance and increased safety margins...

This aircraft if you completed should enter serial production 2030s... It seems Russians are Chinese still finding stealth relevant despite the advances that will happen in Anti Air Missiles and radars.

The Tu-160M2 is supposed to enter serial production in the mid 2020s... the PAK DA not that long after.

Stealth is like camouflage... it wont make you invisible so no point in spending the entire budget making it excessively over the top, but some level of camouflage is useful.

The US is spending everything on stealth, so when new radar types and new optical types of systems render their stealthy ineffectual then they will find all that money is wasted...

After on NATO exercise I think it was a Greek officer who said all the enemy have to do is destroy all the bushes in the open field... because those are our tanks and other vehicles...

if Russian use UA doctrine (fly above target and drop nukes) this would be stupid, suicidal or ven worse, counterproductive. If you want to loiter 3,000km from Us coast and fire hypersonic/stealth missiles to CONUS then yes this make sense. NO US radr will see it coming before it is too late.

Exactly... US doctrine is to fly over Soviet and Russian air defences and deliver precision strikes directly... it has not survived and even the B-2 units practise low level defence penetration methods.

The Russians want stealth but not to the level the US wants it because that makes it cheaper and simpler and more practical... why make the bomber radar invisible when it is the missiles that will be penetrating the enemy air defences via either stealth or speed.

Certain stealth features that don't compromise the design make a lot of sense... internal weapons reduces drag and increases flight performance, and a flying wing is about as efficient a shape as you can get for an aircraft that is to fly long range.

The Russian planes will have a level of stealth to allow them to fly at medium to high altitude all the time maximising their range and reducing fuel consumption.

Any higher level of stealth wastes money and complicates production and maintenance... the huge advantage of rebuilding the production facilities for the Blackjack is making a forge large enough to build the entire centre box structure of the aircraft. That huge forge means pieces of a flying wing bomber can be made enormous so there are rather fewer joins that need to be treated and coated with tape and RAM coatings... in terms of stealth being able to make enormous one piece components of titanium is ideal... so it actually makes a lot of sense because you get stealth without a lot of outlay... you need a huge titanium structure for the swing wing element in the Blackjack, which could also be used in the centre section of a stealth bomber... win win.

Except in the case of Alaska, and Central America, 3000 Km from the US will be either a strong US air defense position in territory of Canada, or a strong position of the US Navy with their ships with best air defense. In both cases the air defense of the US is likely to improve (form its poor current level).

By the time the bombers get to their launch positions the ICBMs and SLBMs will have already devastated any large SAM site, radar base, major airfield, HQ, Comms centre etc etc... odds are no one will be thinking of intercepting cruise missiles or strategic missile carrying aircraft.

Besides they are making Tu-160M2s... who is to say they wont make a half dozen Tu-160MP2s with four internal rotary launchers each with dozens of R-37M missiles and indeed updated S-400 and S-500 missiles modified for air launch... you could fit an enormous AESA radar in the nose of a Blackjack and if you carry 40 tons of AAMs... well it should scare the bjesus out of any fighter that survived...

Besides in 10 years time they could be carrying hypersonic cruise missiles flying at 50km altitude at mach 3-4 initially and then accelerating up to a top speed of perhaps mach 6-7 for a terminal dive on target... it might carry a dozen or more warheads each that are dropped along the way... maybe 2KTs each at maybe 20kgs each... like little backpack nukes....

The cost to get the entire US safe from air attack would break the bank... it would normally cost 10s of trillions, but the US companies will make that thousands of trillions and they just can't afford that.... Americans will be climbing that wall to get into Mexico...

Land based and ship based air defense has in the long term advantage over air based missiles launched from aircrafts. The size of the platform matters because it allows bigger missiles (faster and(or of bigger range) in higher numbers.

I would say each has their advantages... a mixed force offers the most flexibility and performance... certainly in terms of weapon size an air launched weapon offers the best flight performance without needing to add extra stages to get it up and running.

A bet for air platforms of mobility under the standards of the Tu-160 and the Tu-22, seems risky. To think that the Russian Strategic Bombers will have in the future a comfortable slow fly at 3000 Km from the US is not realistic, except in the case of Alaska.

Aircraft offer mobility and conventional warfare benefits that land and sea based options cannot totally match...

You can have all the conventionally armed cruise missiles you want but an aircraft with dumb bombs and an accurate navigation bombing system is a great way to kill the enemy on the cheap if that enemy has no air power.... which is often the case... ie somali pirates spring to mind as an example... extended bomb fuses to detonate 100kg bombs 5 to 15 metres above the water would devastate a nearby speed boat while being rather cheap.

UCAVs with rocket pods could be just as effective... and even fun for the operator... the Russians have already been innovative and offered trips to MIR for paying customers... how about an african safari hunting animal poachers with a branch package of getting to fire all sorts of small arms at pirates at sea... sounds like great fun for the idle rich... and their fee will pay for the ordinance used... hell you could issue them campaign medals for anti piracy and anti poaching work...

GarryB wrote:With the upgraded NK-32s putting out 23 tons in dry thrust I would suspect both a Tu-22M3M and a Tu-160M2 could easily supercruise in dry thrust.

Is this moderately reliable? We only got an unofficial hint that the engines for the PAK-DA would have this thrust, but will they be the same than those in the Tu-160M2? I think I read they were not going to be exactly the same, but rather a new NK-65 based on the gas generator of the modernized NK-32.

https://www.ruaviation.com/news/2014/8/19/2551/?h

From 14 tons to 23 tons is actually a 64% increase in dry thrust... this is IMO technologically non feasible for an engine that is to be exchanged 1 to 1 with current NK-32.

The supercruise part for bombers I doubt it. We should make some numbers considering L/D and available thrust, I suspect that even with the advantage of way better fineness ratio, T/W of those bigger planes is so much below that of supercruising fighters (0.36 for the Tu-160 full load, 0.9 totally empty) that I don't think it could work in real world conditions. I stand to be corrected nevertheless, in case somebody finds the time and data to make at least some rough calculation.

The Russians want stealth but not to the level the US wants it because that makes it cheaper and simpler and more practical... why make the bomber radar invisible when it is the missiles that will be penetrating the enemy air defences via either stealth or speed.

Well, I almost completely agree in general but would make a short comment: it is not so clear than Russia wants their aircraft LESS stealth than the US ones.... it is that they DO NOT TRUST stealth is going to work as phenomenally well as US side seems to think (for purely political and commercial reasons actually). So they hedge against advances of anti-stealth tech (which they know maybe better than anyone else) and don't put all the eggs in the same basket. So the end result is the same in that they don't abandon themselves to stealth, but for different reasons. For instance I have not seen official Russian source saying for instance that Su-57 is less stealth than F-22, rather saying they are in the same ballpark, but that does not mean the plane doesn't need to be the best dogfighter possible or have the best kinematics. It is simply about not having weak spots.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:I i in my IMHO this is not so much bout technology but bout doctrine of application. US builds air-force  to conquer the whole world, Russia to counter US.

True, but it doesn't mean that you specify your HW to a clearly lesser spec than the rival, you need it to hold its own. Russian military aviation differs from US' one clearly in numbers, since they don't aim to a global military presence or at least not yet.

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

eehnie wrote:
Land based and ship based air defense has in the long term advantage over air based missiles launched from aircrafts. The size of the platform matters because it allows bigger missiles (faster and(or of bigger range) in higher numbers.

would you suggest ships re not sinkable? if not then fist savlo is on ships.

eehnie wrote: A bet for air platforms of mobility under the standards of the Tu-160 and the Tu-22, seems risky. To think that the Russian Strategic Bombers will have in the future a comfortable slow fly at 3000 Km from the US is not realistic, except in the case of Alaska.

why risky? would you assume Tu-160 fles alone to US shores?  BTW Tu-22 role is CSG countering.

Your argument to defend slow PAK-DA is that it can fire from 3000 Km of the target flying slowly and comfortably until there. Im saying what these aircrafts will find at 3000 Km from the US. Russia will not ignore it.

To note that the Tu-160 and the Tu-22 also can fire from 3000 Km. And have better skills to return than the Tu-95/142 and other subsonic options..

eehnie wrote:

GunshipDemocracy wrote:

william.boutros wrote:This aircraft if you completed should enter serial production 2030s... It seems Russians are Chinese still finding stealth relevant despite the advances that will happen in Anti Air Missiles and radars.

if Russian use UA doctrine (fly above target and drop nukes) this would be stupid, suicidal  or ven worse, counterproductive. If you want to loiter 3,000km from Us coast and fire hypersonic/stealth  missiles to CONUS then yes this make sense. NO US radr will see it coming before it is too late.

Except in the case of Alaska, and Central America, 3000 Km from the US will be either a strong US air defense position in territory of Canada, or a strong position of the US Navy with their ships with best air defense. In both cases the air defense of the US is likely to improve (form its poor current level).

Land based and ship based air defense has in the long term advantage over air based missiles launched from aircrafts. The size of the platform matters because it allows bigger missiles (faster and(or of bigger range) in higher numbers.

A bet for air platforms of mobility under the standards of the Tu-160 and the Tu-22, seems risky. To think that the Russian Strategic Bombers will have in the future a comfortable slow fly at 3000 Km from the US is not realistic, except in the case of Alaska.

Is this moderately reliable? We only got an unofficial hint that the engines for the PAK-DA would have this thrust, but will they be the same than those in the Tu-160M2? I think I read they were not going to be exactly the same, but rather a new NK-65 based on the gas generator of the modernized NK-32.

Well that is the million dollar question... they have upgrade the Al-31 to the Al-41 with a serious increase in thrust performance using modern engine technology... Blisk blades and new cooling technology and new materials etc etc... it went from a 12 ton thrust engine to an 18 ton thrust engine.

The Nk-32 engine is from the late 1970s so there should be enormous scope for performance improvements.

Personally I would expect the engine based on the NK-32 for powering the flying wing subsonic PAK DA will be a high bypass turbofan like a large heavy transport plane would use rather than a turbojet that a supersonic bomber would be using... personally I would suspect they take the hot core of an upgraded NK-32 and use it to power a large fan engine and create a high bypass turbofan... which of course would be totally useless in an upgrade for the Backfire or the Blackjack as both are supersonic swing wing types...

I have mentioned before the F-14A and F-14D models and the radical change in performance from a significantly more powerful engine...

The supercruise part for bombers I doubt it. We should make some numbers considering L/D and available thrust, I suspect that even with the advantage of way better fineness ratio, T/W of those bigger planes is so much below that of supercruising fighters (0.36 for the Tu-160 full load, 0.9 totally empty) that I don't think it could work in real world conditions. I stand to be corrected nevertheless, in case somebody finds the time and data to make at least some rough calculation.

What is the T/W ratio for the SR-71?

Supercruise is not in itself important... there are aircraft that can fly at supersonic speed but do require AB to get supersonic but can retain supersonic speed in dry thrust, so supercruise per say is not even important... being able to maintain supersonic flight speed without needing AB all the time is what is important here.

The MiG-31 doesn't have an impressive T/W ratio either but could cruise supersonically in dry thrust AFAIK. (It needed AB to break the sound barrier in level flight, but did not need to keep it on to maintain supersonic flight).

it is not so clear than Russia wants their aircraft LESS stealth than the US ones.... it is that they DO NOT TRUST stealth is going to work as phenomenally well as US side seems to think (for purely political and commercial reasons actually).

I disagree. They have chosen a level of stealth that is clearly not as strict or as stealthy as what the US chose (or India wants). They have made that choice to keep costs down... super high stealth means very very precise level of manufacture, lots of maintenance, and careful treatment of the aircraft operationally...

They have clearly gone for more radar locations on their aircraft, longer wave radar antenna to detect enemy stealth aircraft, but also manouver performance for excellent close combat performance too...

The figures given for levels of stealth for the Su-57 have always been enormous compared with the figures given by American manufacturers... but then the Russians give peak figures and the Americans give either average or best case figures it seems.

Which suggests the Russians are interested in the real world while the Americans are trying to sell you something...

True, but it doesn't mean that you specify your HW to a clearly lesser spec than the rival, you need it to hold its own. Russian military aviation differs from US' one clearly in numbers, since they don't aim to a global military presence or at least not yet.

But the different goals also reflect the different numbers... the Russians want systems they can defend themselves with, while America wants to threaten and intimidate with their numbers... ie Abrams tanks in Desert Storm.... 5,000 to nil against T-80 tanks of course... lets not look at more recent experience for that...

F-35s and F-22s with RCS of tiny ball bearings like tiny shotgun pellets are scared away from Syrian airspace by Su-35s and Su-57s with RCS of barns and doors respectively...

GarryB wrote:Well that is the million dollar question... they have upgrade the Al-31 to the Al-41 with a serious increase in thrust performance using modern engine technology... Blisk blades and new cooling technology and new materials etc etc... it went from a 12 ton thrust engine to an 18 ton thrust engine.

I think from Al-31 to most modern Al-41F1 it is 123 to 147 kN. Izd. 30 is already a clean sheet design with different number of stages.

Personally I would expect the engine based on the NK-32 for powering the flying wing subsonic PAK DA will be a high bypass turbofan like a large heavy transport plane would use rather than a turbojet that a supersonic bomber would be using... personally I would suspect they take the hot core of an upgraded NK-32 and use it to power a large fan engine and create a high bypass turbofan... which of course would be totally useless in an upgrade for the Backfire or the Blackjack as both are supersonic swing wing types...

Yes it seems it will have increased bypass ratio in order to increase thrust. It would be difficult to to reach extreme ratios of modern engines but agree it doesn't make sense to keep the ratio of turbojets for supersonic planes.

I disagree. They have chosen a level of stealth that is clearly not as strict or as stealthy as what the US chose (or India wants). They have made that choice to keep costs down... super high stealth means very very precise level of manufacture, lots of maintenance, and careful treatment of the aircraft operationally...

I do not dispute that this would be reasonable, only I don't know any official statement in this direction but others that indicate PAK-FA being specified to broadly the same level of RCS stealth as F-22