Russian STOVL/VTOL fighter development

hoom wrote:On the question of Su-57 landing on a CV without special gear:

Pull a cobra & just drop on the deck at the end.

They've been having some fun with the idea over at Balancer

In Russia, developed a draft expeditionary ship for the Navy

MOSCOW, December 3 - RIA News. Designers of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) made a universal project of an expeditionary vessel for the Russian Navy to implement several tasks at once, USC head Alexei Rakhmanov told reporters on Monday.

Earlier, he said that in Russia it is planned to build an expedition ship that will combine the functions of an aircraft carrier, helicopter carrier and landing ship.
"In one of our design bureaus, we made a universal vessel design that can serve four purposes, that is, an identical ship at the bow and below the waterline with specialized superstructures that are provided for various tasks," said Rakhmanov.

VSTOL in numbers continued:

Gibraltar wrote:To me stovl and vtol makes sense in a specific design frame.
F-35 lesson as someone before me rightly said is that vertical take off and landing can't be a added "feauture" for a version of an aircraft because affects too much in aerodynamics, engine and components layout. It ends in out of control developing times and costs with questionable performances. I think Russia will have ahave a smarter approach in vtol development making it a stand alone specific project and building keeping as fixed project inputs only weapon systems that would be shared with the air force stock.

Gibraltar wrote:
On the other side I think is very, very and again very bad idea to derive a vtol from Su-57 and seriously, a can't see any good reason to do it. And go for a specific design.

GarryB wrote:but then you could also build a carrier with huge nets over it that aircraft fly into and stop completely and then they could have large cranes on the deck that reach up and pluck the aircraft out of the nets and place them on the deck... but I think that would require more development and cost than arrester hooks too.

Tsavo Lion wrote:
Any shortcomings of the F-35B won't be attributable to it being STOVL.
THE RUSSIANS WON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE.

LMFS wrote:

Gunshipdemocracy wrote:IMHO very unlikely, why Russian would share its perhaps most modern fighter with china?

Because it does not need to be their best fighter. Air wing of LHDs is there for support in lower risk environments, otherwise you call the carrier with their AWACS and high performance jets. Anyway Russians were (are) ok with sharing lots of tech with India for the FGFA, money rules

Why VSTOL is so bad? topto tops MiG-29k (if can fly) vs 30 years old Yak design 9current will be light years better)

LMFS wrote:Su-57 would take off currently without problems from K,

LMFS wrote: Lets assume the Yak-141 was the wonder you are so keenly trying to convince us it was, much better than MiG-29 which MoD so stupidly chose instead. Now, take the engines for vertical lift and all additional HW out. Put fuel tanks instead. Wouldn't the plane be lighter and longer ranged????? Just to check if we live in the same universe or you live in one of your own

LMFS wrote:
The example above illustrates the fundamental handicap STOVL with extra devices for vertical lift generation have. If you understand it, fine. If not, fine too.

LMFS wrote:

GunshipDemocracy wrote:hmm true with India. India is not yet a real hi tech aersopace competitor of Russia. Unification with Su-57 makes more sense tho.

Unification with Su-57 in terms of STOVL is a pipe dream IMHO. If it is in terms of XSTOL as you call it, well the Su-57 is already very good at that apparently. The biggest advantage of STOVL is clearly at landing, if the Su-57 version you propose could do that better than now by generating vertical lift, then it would be essentially a STOVL aircraft.

LMFS wrote:

BTW you still believe in VSTOL cannot cope ith fighters on level of Su-57? only payload and range woul dbe smaller no other characteristics.  

See reasons above for Su-57. There are no heavy fighters in STOVL version that I know. And those are considered high-end assets specifically because of the range, payload, persistence and avionics they can carry.

LMFS wrote:

can you provide better source? no ? then you just deny facts you dont like      

Besides I am admitting I may lack the knowledge to assess the T/W of that specific engine. So I am not denying, just pointing that these data are remarkable, and since they are not official I have to take them with caution. But main issue with your numbers is you forgot the weight of the rest of the installation

LMFS wrote:Main issue for T/O performance on a springboard is T/W ratio and aero design, which is not too apart for fighters due to requirements of supersonic flight among others. For the Su-57 the T/W will clearly surpass any of the current Russian naval fighters, and its T/O qualities have already been pointed out as outstanding, with naval role being confirmed as feasible by top technical guys of UAC and Sukhoi already twice. What is the factor that could compromise the T/O performance in your opinion?

LMFS wrote: He simply made sure he was not signing a blank cheque before making statements about the capacity of the jet, not confirming the serious TO restrictions you want to see. And besides we don't know if he was referring to current engines or newer ones, for which probably technical characteristics have not been confirmed 100% yet.

LMFS wrote:

and you're again wrong  MiG-29k was killed too. Su-33K very deep redesign of Su-27 was chosen.

I was referring to now. Two squadrons MiG-29K in service, zero Yaks. But that was not the point regardless.

LMFS wrote:

but why to do that ?!

Was just an exercise about a theoretical CTOL Yak being intrinsically superior to STOVL one, for obvious reasons.

LMFS wrote:

VSTOL has priceless  value to all navies so far. Especially that vSTOL fighters can cope with CATOBAR without problems.

Says you. There are currently serious discussions in UK to buy the A version of the F-35 because they think they cannot cope with first order threats with the STOVL version only.

LMFS wrote:

Talking about universe ;-) Your universe has sporadic touch with real world. Itis enough to look at what is happening in Russian Chinese and all other navies except US one. All are goint VSTOL.

And abandoning STOBAR / CATOBAR right? I think we will still see you changing your statements quite a bit before this is over.

LMFS wrote:
You mean you will stop trying to evangelize us infidels? That would be great

LMFS wrote:

Tsavo Lion wrote:Keeping those doesn't negate the utility of STOVL. The same with fixed wing planes vs. helicopters vs. tilt-rotors! Every 1 of them have their specific niche.

Have never negated the utility of STOVL, on the contrary. Please allow me to summarize:
> STOVL make sense for assault ships but STOBAR or CATOBAR fighters have an intrinsic advantage for the higher-end capabilities required from full blown carriers

LMFS wrote:> Would like Russia developing STOVLs for their LHDs (in fact I am eager to see what they come up with) but simply don't see the economic case of developing a new plane for the amount and type of vessels Russia is supposed to be deploying (they wanted 4 Mistral for instance IIRC). They have said (confirmed today and hinted some time ago) that they will not do a pure helicopter carrier, so that may point out to the plan of equipping them with STOVL planes. That I don't see the economic case does not mean that I cannot be dead wrong and Russia sees the sense of the development, of course. Maybe they count on 4-6 sqd. for their assault ships + export + maybe 2 sqd. complement for their carriers and that is ok for them? Or maybe even better, they plan a shared development with China as you proposed.

LMFS wrote: Together with recycling PAK-FA technology could yield a reasonable plane at reasonable prices that could be also competitive abroad. Few navies have STOBAR / CATOBAR, but every other nation wants to have some planes flying out of their LHDs, even if it brings nothing but prestige and a questionable "power projection" capability (preferably under the umbrella of some US CSG of course)

LMFS wrote:]
> What I would find very strange would be to abandon the great opportunity of developing the Su-57K. Carriers and LHD do not exclude each other, rather the contrary, the LHD benefits from the protection of the carrier to perform in its assault role. US, China and Russia all seem to follow a similar navy development model (excluding obvious scale differences), having both kinds of ships with their corresponding fighters and technologies. Haven't seen anything from them that points in a radically different direction to be honest...

LMFS wrote:> So I see them deploying STOVLs if other technologies do not step in and squeeze their role (like maybe the latest Kamov concept) and if the money is there. But I don't see the substitution of carriers and STOBAR planes long term by LHDs and STOVL. And I also don't see the hurry in substituting the Su-33 and MiG-29Ks, the later having been delivered in 2015-16.

LMFS wrote:

It's in the VKS, not RuN! Feasibility is not guaranteed just because they said so. Time will tell!

Of course, nothing is done until its done and we'll have to wait many years now to see the outcome
Regarding the MiG-29K, RuN indeed received 20 of them + 4 KUB dual seaters forming an air regiment of the Northern Fleet:

Tsavo Lion wrote:

Russia cannot build large CVNs and LHDs with current budget scale.

That's why TAKR/UDK is being offered in combination.

Tsavo wrote: Those structures will be permanent or semi-permanent that will be interchangeable to fit different missions.  

Tsavo wrote: I doubt the'll ever build a classic CVN with only defensive armaments.

LMFS wrote:
Ok should have been more precise. Was referring to STOBAR fighters, that can already take off from very short distances and without any active support other than blast deflectors. And their TO performance is only improving as the engines get better and better.

LMFS wrote: Regarding the capacity of STOVL to operate from "improvised" TO and landing pads, it is not that good when looked in detail. I have seen a Harrier blasting the concrete slabs of a runway live and almost having to cancel its participation in an airshow because of this, you can damage the plane, ingest debris or even hurt someone. 20 t blast effects are not harmless. And then regarding the military value of using improvised and scattered operational bases. This is ok, but how many planes can be operated like that in a conflict, especially in the sea? It is fine in an emergency to save one plane by landing on a container ship, but when you are talking about squadrons having to flee a sinking carrier you will have big problems to find enough lading spots.