Cancelled Soviet era military aviation projects

I've made several researches lately concerning project TU-2000 ( i am wondering, is the russian government started to invest in the project again?), when i came across "MIG-2000". Sadly, i couldn't find many additional informations concerning this project, and how it is different from TU-2000. Does anyone have any informations concerning this? Thanks

milky_candy_sugar wrote:I've made several researches lately concerning project TU-2000 ( i am wondering, is the russian government started to invest in the project again?), when i came across "MIG-2000". Sadly, i couldn't find many additional informations concerning this project, and how it is different from TU-2000. Does anyone have any informations concerning this? Thanks

Both dead projects... the MiG-2000 and Tu-2000 were in competition with each other in the contest for a reusable space vehicle with hypersonic engines to get top speed before releasing a booster to get escape velocity. Tu-2000 won the competition but was cancelled due to funding. Tupelov now has the job of designing a hypersonic bomber that will expand on the work of the Tu-2000... difference is this one won't be going into space.

Speaking of Pak Da, correct?

Tupelov did state that it will be using a whole new airframe but concepts taking from TU-160 and Tu-22M series. Since you do not need both in today's warfare enviornment.

Hope to see it by at least 2015 like MoD says.

sepheronx wrote:Speaking of Pak Da, correct?

Tupelov did state that it will be using a whole new airframe but concepts taking from TU-160 and Tu-22M series. Since you do not need both in today's warfare enviornment.

Hope to see it by at least 2015 like MoD says.

I don't know what concepts you can apply to a hypersonic aerocraft except transonic regime and landing config. It is going to be radically different design.

Indeed, completely different
....geez sometimes i hate Gorbachev for something...

cuz of him TU-2000 is cancelled

milky_candy_sugar wrote:Indeed, completely different
....geez sometimes i hate Gorbachev for something...

cuz of him TU-2000 is cancelled

Gorby is a h8ed name in these parts. He and his crony Yeltsin destroyed this country.

The Soviet Superplane Program That Rattled Area 51

   By Matthew Shechmeister
   06.10.11
   7:00 AM


   The Lun ekranoplan


   The Lun ekranoplan weighs 380 tons, has a 148-foot wingspan and can launch six anti-ship missiles from flight. Or rather, it could, before it was retired to a forlorn pier in southern Russia.

   The dilapidated plane is the offspring of an even larger prototype ship that so spooked the CIA in the 1960s that they developed an unmanned drone to spy on it, an alleged program detailed in the new book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base.

   Deployed much later, in 1987, the Lun (a more contemporary behemoth) was an improvement over the previous model. It remained in service until the 1990s, when it was mothballed by the Russian military. The once-fearsome Lun will likely never fly again and is now little more than a chunk of aerodynamic scrap metal.

   Alternately described as an amphibious aircraft or a flying boat, the plane is a feat of engineering that has been reduced to a footnote in aviation history. Read on for a look inside this aging relic and the ambitious program that spawned it.




   Lun exterior

   The surviving Lun ekranoplan was built as part of a closely guarded Soviet military program and is one of only two ever completed. As big as it is, its design was preceded by an even larger plane called the KM.

   In the mid-1960s, when CIA analysts first saw satellite images of the KM, they knew only that something very large and very fast had appeared on the Caspian Sea. The bewildered analysts dubbed it the "Caspian Sea Monster."

   According to a former CIA officer, the agency was so concerned about the discovery it developed an unmanned reconnaissance drone specifically for spying on the KM. The officer, Gene Poteat, and others claim that the government used the Nevada airbase popularly known as Area 51 to design surveillance technology, including the KM drone known as Aquiline.

   The official name of the Soviet ship, intelligence officers later learned, was "prototype ship" (abbreviated "KM" from the transliterated Russian). The modest title belied the KM's might. When it first skimmed the waters of the Caspian in 1966, the KM was the largest aircraft on earth. At 295 feet long, capable of flying with a total weight of 600 tons and operating at a cruising speed of 310 miles per hour, it was hardly a mock-up. At a glance the KM looks like it was made to fight Godzilla.

   Despite its impressive stats, it was never put into production and in 1980, in an accident described as pilot error, the KM crashed and sank.
   Lun external door




   The orphaned Lun, a monster of similar design to the KM, shows up nicely on Google Maps. A quick look will help you appreciate the Red October moment the CIA experienced when they came across the KM.

   At 240 feet long, the Lun is about the size of a 747, not quite as gigantic as the KM. However, unlike its predecessor, the Lun carries six Moskit anti-ship missiles, which it is capable of launching while airborne.
   Lun missile turret

   For conventional navy ships, the Lun is a nasty adversary. It's able to creep up undetected and deliver a savage pounding.

   Its low altitude keeps it below radar and its six supersonic P-270 Moskit anti-ship missiles can reach Mach 3 — more than triple the speed of the subsonic Harpoon missile that is a standard armament for the U.S. Navy. Coming in at such high velocity, the Moskit is within range of a ship’s artillery for less than 30 seconds before impact. In comparison, the Harpoon gives defenders two minutes or more.

   The Lun also had a maximum range of over 1,200 miles, and could sustain its 15-person crew for five days without resupply. While never tested, the plane was theoretically capable of carrying up to 900 soldiers.

   The Lun's current location is a dock in Kaspiysk, in the Russian-controlled republic of Dagestan. It's a potentially volatile resting place: An Islamic insurgency in Dagestan has been compared a small version of the war that ripped apart neighboring Chechnya.
   Ground effect

   The Lun and similar aircraft are called ekranoplans in Russian or ground effect vehicles (GEVs).

   The ground effect is a physical phenomenon that occurs whenever an aircraft is close to touching down. In the seconds prior to landing, for example, the wings and the ground below form a funnel for air molecules. The funnel compresses the air flowing beneath the wings, increasing its pressure and generating more lift. The proximity to the ground also decreases the strength of wingtip vortices — ringlets of air that are a major cause of aerodynamic drag.

   Thanks to this effect, GEVs generate more lift and less drag than a conventional aircraft of equivalent size and speed that fly at higher altitudes. Scientists describe GEVs as riding on a dynamic air cushion that acts like the inflated skirt of a hovercraft.

   The catch is that the advantages of the ground effect only happen when an ekranoplan is skimming the Earth's surface, so even the massive Lun cruises at just 15 feet of altitude. Since terra firma presents at least an occasional 15-foot obstacle, such as a telephone pole or a mountain, most GEVs operate exclusively over water.

   Though the Lun and other ekranoplans often relied on the ground effect cushion, they were capable of flying well above their normal cruising altitude.
   Lun toilet:



   The Soviet Union was by far the most advanced and intrepid designer of ground effect vehicles, funding a series of experimental programs and prototypes.

   Even so, flying GEVs is no easy task and many models were dogged by accidents and pilot error. When operating at just 15 feet above the surface, if a pilot turns too hard, then the wing is literally in the ground.
   Lun engine


   As military aircraft, ekranoplans offer several standout features. Their low cruising altitudes are below the range of most radar and their extra lift means they can carry heavier cargo than conventional craft of the same size and can be up to 35 percent more fuel-efficient.

   They can take off and land in the water, obviating the need for runways or docks. And while the lumbering cargo ships are lucky to hit 30 miles per hour, ekranoplans can break 300 mph.
   Control console

   The father of the ekranoplan program, Rostislav Alexeyev, was in the cockpit during the first crash of an Orlyonok model GEV.

   It was 1975 and Alexeyev was flying in rough weather. The plane’s tail section fell off in flight, a failure attributed to a weak metal that was used in the fuselage. Miraculously, Alexeyev managed to steer the wounded craft back to its base, but the damage to his credibility was irreparable. Before the accident, Alexeyev had been the pioneering leader of the Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau and oversaw the flourishing Soviet ekranoplan program of the 1960s which had produced the impressive KM.

   Despite Alexeyev’s fall from grace, Soviet authorities did not abandon GEVs entirely. The Lun was built in the late 1980s, and is undoubtedly among the greatest triumphs of the ekranoplan program.
   Lun tail

   The Alexeyev fiasco wasn't the end of the troubles for the Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau.

   In 1992, an Orlyonok ekranoplan ditched during a flight while preparing for a public demo. One of the crew members was killed, and the remaining nine were badly injured.

   The exhibition had been intended for foreign investors. After the military draw-down that followed the end of the Soviet Union, the new government had spun off the Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau into a private company, which was then trying to drum up business. The crash was a huge drawback in efforts to develop GEVs for civilian transportation.
   Missiles

   Outside Russia, the outlook for GEV technology is equally grim. Boeing briefly entertained the idea of building an enormous military cargo plane along the lines of the great Soviet ekranoplans. The aircraft, dubbed the Pelican, got as far as a cheesy 3-D rendering, and, according to a representative, Boeing has no plans to pursue the project further.
   Engines

   Though the Lun was never mass-produced, it remains a triumph of innovation and daring.



   Uncharitable comparisons to the Spruce Goose may leap to mind, but unlike Howard Hughes’ monstrosity, the Lun and the other hulking ekranoplans could, and did, fly — hauling huge cargoes, firing supersonic missiles and skimming the waves at 300 miles per hour.
   Lun exterior

   The Lun now receives basic maintenance, but is not in flying condition and likely never will be again.

   Though it now seems like a fad that has run its course, GEV technology still has disciples. True believers say the concept never got a fair shake, and its vast potential has been overlooked. Some have a messianic zeal that recalls people who stuck by their Betamax VCRs, certain of redemption. Then again, until a few years ago, advocates of electric cars sounded that way, too.

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2011/06/ekranoplan/?viewall=true

How the Soviet Union combined the plane and the helicopter

An aircraft with vertical takeoff and landing capacity like a helicopter, requiring only a flat surface to operate but able to transport cargo at high speed over long distances like a fixed-wing plane.

It is a veritable dream machine for Russia, with its vast territory, sparsely populated, remote northern areas, and lack of a developed network of airfields - and in many places, the impossibility of building them.

Such an aircraft does exist, not in Russia but in the inventory of the United States Marine Corps. So how was the concept of the tiltrotor born and why did the Russian Air Force and Airborne Corps not get their own version of the American V-22 Osprey that was ultimately built by aviation companies Bell and Boeing?

The world's only broadly used tiltrotor finds itself equally challenged by both insurgents in Afghanistan and U.S. politicians at home. There are periodical attempts to scupper the program, which has already cost $20 billion and a price tag of $120 million for each of the 160 aircraft so far produced.

But the Osprey is not so easy to bring down. Boeing and Bell are still fighting its corner, supported by the aircraft’s solid technical specifications (twice the speed of a helicopter, three times the load capacity and five times the range), with 25 years of engineering work behind it and 30 lives lost in accidents along the way.

The world's first tiltrotor was drafted in 1936 by Soviet engineer Fyodor Kurochkin. His aircraft had a moveable wing fitted with twin propellers mounted on nacelles (engine housings) in the same configuration as the V-22 prototype and its corresponding AW609 civil equivalent.


The next run at the tiltrotor came in 1946 with Alexander Shcherbakov’s landmark VSI high-speed fighter design. This monoplane had a raised tail section and a fixed wing fitted with twin engines that could rotate vertically at an angle of 120 degree.

Its design characteristics were impressive, boasting a maximum flight weight of 5000 kg, a maximum speed of 1500 km/h and a 1000 km range. Unlike the pre-war design, the prototype was built in 1948 and underwent bench tests before the VSI was shelved because of its complexity.



Rotary-wing record holder

The 1950s saw increasing production of aircraft with simultaneously working helicopter rotors and fixed position propeller engines. The British Rotodyne aircraft produced by Fairey even set a world flight record with a speed of 307.2 km/h, exceeding the top helicopter speed by 80 km/h.

But the record was soon swept away by the manufacture of the Soviet Ka-22, which was built to transport tactical ballistic missiles and could accelerate to 356.3 km/h.

This screw-wing aircraft consisted of a Lisunov Li-2 plane fuselage with a simultaneously working propeller engine and rotary blade combination mounted on each wing tip. It had a specially designed and complex transmission system that was clutched from one engine to both rotors and was operated manually by the pilot. This rendered the aircraft extremely hard to fly - three of the four test crews died.

The project was scrapped and the task of transporting missiles was assigned instead to the “traditional” Mi-6 helicopter. However, before the Ka-22 became a museum exhibit it set a speed record and a still unbeaten payload record, lifting 16.4 tons to an altitude of more than 2,000 meters. This effectively demonstrated the advantages of screw-wing aircraft.

The Russian Osprey

Work on the classic tiltrotor design with twin propeller and rotor combinations began in the Soviet Union in 1972, when the Mil Design Bureau sought a replacement for the Mi-8 helicopter.

The new Mi-30 was superior in speed and range but its specifications changed constantly in the coming years at the military’s behest. Its payload of 2 tons and 19 troops rose to 3.5 tons and 32 troops, with an accompanying increase in flight speed to 500-600 km/h over a range of 800 km.

This increased both engine power and the size of the rotor blades and pushed up the aircraft’s overall weight from 10 to 30 tons.
All aerodynamic work was completed by the early 1980s and the Mi-30 was included in the state armaments program for 1986-1995. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union meant that the Mi-30 got no further than the drawing board.

Since sixty per cent of Russia’s territory remains still inaccessible to conventional aircraft, the tiltrotor today has broad civil as well as military application. It could also be effectively used to develop the Arctic and Pacific shelves.

With its extensive experience in this field, Russia is an associate member of the European program to develop a new civil tiltrotor aircraft to replace the AW609. Meanwhile, Russia has resumed work on its own screw-wing aircraft.

http://in.rbth.com/economics/2014/04/30/how_the_soviet_union_combined_the_plane_and_the_helicopter_34915.html

I always wondered why the Russians never had their own "Osprey", I advocated that Mil and Kamov work together to make a modular multi-purpose helicopter that's a tilt-rotor and sleek and lean like a cargo helicopter but because of it's modularity you can easily attach a crew transport cargo bay attachment, or hardpoint pylons to hold air-to-air, air-to-surface missiles, gun pods, ecm pods, bombs with a fail-safe measure established in it's avionics and mechanical engineering to prevent those munitions from firing until the propellers are held in the upward position. There should also be versions where each turboprop engines house either a single or a coaxial contra-propellers set up, and versions of the tilt-rotor helicopter where there are 4 turboprop engines for heavier lifts as well as the ability to tilt the rotor in the front, upward, and back positions, at angles such as 45 degrees, and the ability to change the direction of the spin on the propellers, the two front position propeller spinning in one direction while the two back spinning in another position independent of each other.

Tilt rotors do have some major problems.

Can't have door guns, asymmetric lift causing the "death roll" when one engine is lost, can't fly high enough to avoid AA, can't fly low enough to hide from it, escort helicopters are too slow to keep up with the tilt rotor transports.

Honestly, I hope Russia avoids tilt rotors like the plague.

That said, Kamov has made some interesting fast moving gunships and transports which are not tilt rotors.



Ka-34



V-100

So Question 1. was the YAK-41 worth it? 2. Could it beat the F-35B and would it be cheaper? 3. AND THE ULTIMATE QUESTION Would naval staff at the time have tried to keep at least one Kiev if this plane had got the money? Opinions welcomed  

The Yak-141 would be useful if it was still around.

Now that the Mistrals don't look to be delivered; Russia has a chance to make a hybrid helicopter/VTOL-carrier like the old Kiev classes - however it has no VTOL planes to put on it; it has to make do with just Ka-52Ks - which will be fine for amphibious assault and so on; however for anti-ship capability they will be lacking in range & speed compared to fixed-wing aircraft, and their anti-air capability will be minimal.

If Russia revived the Yak-141 project in a modified form - it would have a formidable aircraft for air superiority and and anti-ship missions. It would only be worth it if Russia chose to build something like 3-4 such carriers though.

Ah the Yak-41. Well, most points have been touched above, the really remarkable thing about it is that it was the first supersonic VTOL able to at least oppose land based aircraft (others were designed well before like P.1154, but none flew). It appears the raw performance was about on par with F-18 except maneuverability, and of course weapon load and range. But it had a good radar for it's time (same as MiG-29M), could use BVR missiles and a variety of guided munitions so it was certainly no slouch. The Harrier FA2 and AV-8B also had radars and BVR missiles, but they were far inferior in raw performance. On the other hand, the cost of operating it would probably have been eye-watering.

Nevertheless, IF the USSR would not have disappeared in the nineties meltdown, just a relatively simple replacement of the Yak-38 with Yak-41 on the Kievs would have offered a huge increase in capability for those ships, the Yak-38 was unfortunately an expensive flop. I always thought they should have stopped production after an experimental batch, to pave the way to the future Yak-41 and switch all the Kievs to an austere CTOL configuration with one catapult and flying MiG-23A or K, they built 230 Yak-38, surely with that money they could buy say 150-200 MiG-23K, more than plenty to serve on all four Kievs or even just 3 if the first one would be too advanced in construction to modify. Of course, there is the question of how much modifying the ships and how much the catapults would have cost. Advantage would of course be that MiG-23A or K was a far more capable aircraft in every respect compared to Yak-38, but the disadvantage with using just one catapult would the poor sortie rate, while the Yaks could be launched much more quickly. Though if they would have followed this path and embrace catapults and CTOL carriers earlier, it's possible there would be no Yak-41 anyway.

Speaking of catapults, i have done a fair amount on reading lately on soviet carriers and carrier aircraft. I know about the unbuilt projects (1160, 1153 etc.), about the dumb politicians and their wrangling sabotaging a proper soviet carrier force (there were plans for the sort of austere Kiev-class CTOL i was mentioning in the early seventies, but they turned it down and built more Yak-38 equipped 1143s instead, Tbilisi class and Ulyanovsk came far too late in this game unfortunately), and i was reading that indeed they had at least a prototype catapult built at LPZ in Leningrad, but not much details, so if i may ask, anyone knows more details about this catapult, was it any good, what were it's characteristics? (strangely, while trying to educate myself on the subject of catapults, i couldn't seemed to find anywhere on the web things like how much a contemporary C-13 catapult weighs, how much space it takes, and general things like how much a catapult is influencing a carrier's size and displacement, if in any significant amount etc.)

The thing is that Soviet and Russian doctrine sees an aircraft carrier as a support system... an air defence outer ring, plus an extension of ASW capability... and air cover projection that can also carry a few ASW helos.

Indeed yes, plus also all the modern soviet carriers built or designed to date have batteries of long range anti-ship missiles that are their primary offensive capability- as opposed to an US carrier in which the primary offensive  capability are the attack squadrons. Also this makes the ship smaller and cheaper compared to actually having a ship large enough to embark one or more attack squadrons with similar firepower, not to mention the cost of the attack aircraft (though interestingly project 1160 had both anti-ship missile AND attack aircraft planned). It was a  compromise under the circumstances of financial as well as political limitations that hindered soviet carrier development. Certainly quite unique.

the Yak-141 was certainly an enormous leap forward from the Yak-38 and ironically the Yak-38M had a more powerful engine that allowed higher lift off weights but also burned fuel faster and didn't increase speed by very much at all.

Well, as i understand it they really wanted to increase payload and range, they also developed STOVL techniques and they could fit drop tanks on the M, but like you said still it wasn't enough to significantly increase the Yak-38s combat value.

All three Yaks would have benefited from a bigger more efficient wing and a conventional take off and landing design.

Speaking of wings, imo the Yak-41 should have really had 6 hardpoints even if for same payload weight, 4 was too few as it limited possible configurations and hence flexibility.

On a side note, non-russian related but Vstol related...

Star-telegram.com wrote:Engines being built for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet are proving so unreliable that U.S. plans to increase production of the fighter jet may be slowed, according to congressional auditors.

Data from flight tests evaluated by the Government Accountability Office show that the reliability of engines made by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies, is “very poor (less than half of what it should be) and has limited” progress for the F-35, the watchdog agency said in a report sent to lawmakers this month.

The agency cited the need to make design changes in the engines and then retrofit planes already built, along with continuing flaws in the plane’s software, and warned that the Defense Department’s “procurement plan may not be affordable.” The military plans to spend $391.1 billion for 2,443 jets. The F-35 is being assembled at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in west Fort Worth.

The Pentagon inspector general also criticized management of the engine program in another report released Monday. It identified 61 “noncomformities” with Defense Department requirements and policies

I share with you some pictures of the impressive K-7 aircraft designed in the Soviet Union in the interwar period as heavy bomber but did not go into production. Visit the link below, see the collection of pictures and leave there your opinion or comment: Do you think the K-7 would succeed in his mission as a bomber?


http://aviacaoemfloripa.blogspot.com.br/2011/01/o-gigante-russo.html


Best Regards!

Which prototype would you have like to have seen put into production?

it could be the Mil V-12 largest helicopter in the world, the Sukhoi T-60S, the Mikoyan Project 1.44, or the Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut

For me, either the MiG 1.44 or the Yak-141 (this one went beyond the prototype stage, was almost fully developed and ready to enter mass production when it was cancelled).

The single engined Flanker Su-54/55 would have been a great addition to many airforces if the program actually happened. Essentially, would be a cheaper flanker and would have been useful especially to various countries, even India now with its single engine fighter jet competition.

Oh well.