Russian VTOL fighter development

GarryB wrote:Still a dog.

I am not saying with a lot of clever design choices that they can't make an adequate design... but I think they would be much better off not thinking about a tiny carrier with dinky little VSTOL aircraft... a medium sized carrier offers better endurance and a larger air fleet and when fitted with EM cats it can operate medium AWACS types that would greatly improve the situational awareness of the fleet, especially against low flying threats.

Low flying cruise missiles are especially potent against targets on land because the land is not flat so there are lots of blind spots you can take advantage of when planning the attack route.

At sea there are no mountains except near land or islands, but without carriers there is no air based radars so the problem is with the radar horizon.

A carrier with AWACS capabilities means you can operate airborne radars that don't have blind spots against low flying threats and can see much further without giving away the location of the carrier and ships it is operating with, yet can pass information to those ships so they are not operating in the dark.
They can also manage a group of interceptors and manage an interception so you get the best out of the air group you have.

The enemy wont know how many ships you have, just that you have an AWACS aircraft so you have at least one carrier... everything else can operate radio silent so actually finding your SAG is not that easy and when you get within range with a full scale attack the entire fleet and all the fighters can light up and start taking you down.... not when you cross the radar horizon of the biggest ship... when you are in range of the AWACS aircraft that might be 500km away from the carrier and cruisers.

It is a simple fact that once the carrier is paid for it is the SAG and operational costs that matter and a medium carrier wont cost that much more than a light carrier but will carry more aircraft and more ordinance and equipment and create a much bigger umbrella over the ships or subs.

Well, F#%k.

VTOL for the 21st Century: Why Russia's Working on New Vertical Takeoff Fighter

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov has confirmed that work is underway on the design of a new vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. Military observer Vadim Saranov outlines what's driving the military's interest in this class of aircraft, and considers whether Russia's aviation industry has the resources and know-how to build it.

https://sputniknews.com/military/201712151060040750-new-russian-vtol-aircraft-analysis/

VTOL for the 21st Century: Why Russia's Working on New Vertical Takeoff Fighter

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov has confirmed that work is underway on the design of a new vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. Military observer Vadim Saranov outlines what's driving the military's interest in this class of aircraft, and considers whether Russia's aviation industry has the resources and know-how to build it.

https://sputniknews.com/military/201712151060040750-new-russian-vtol-aircraft-analysis/

"In any case, Saranov pointed out that the case of the F-35 offers a warning about the potential costs involved in the creation of a new VTOL-capable fighter plane, with that program reaching a staggering $1.3 trillion estimated price tag. "

What BS. The F-35 is not a true indicator of a VSTOL development as its a mega-project one-size fits-all compromise design expected to perform every mission on th same basic airframe. The obvious lesson learned is design a VSTOL to be a VSTOL. Not the hybrid corporate welfare bastard child the MIC has created to boost ROI to teh stratosphere and massively enrich the LM stock holders and executives.

They're not alone....waste of time/resources/money.

Consolation: Not my money.

From this article:

https://sputniknews.com/military/201712151060040750-new-russian-vtol-aircraft-analysis/

The Yak-38M is an interim aircraft that was just testing that an actual aircraft could perform vertical takeoffs with the horizontal speed of a fixed wing fighter aircraft..

The Yak-141 was supposed to be an actual combat aircraft yet it never was.


The idea that a VSTOL aircraft can operate from clearings in the woods is bullshit.

MiG-29s can operate from strips of highway, so having a slow expensive VSTOL aircraft is redundant on land and at sea if half your carrier is destroyed the idea of operating them from frigates or half a carrier is absurd.

It seems the only positive is that they could be operated from helicopter carriers, but that means the helicopter carrier stops being a helicopter carrier so it can carry short range low performance fighters.

If the plan is to create small aircraft carrying cruisers then why not make big aircraft carrying cruisers out of old container ships.... that would be super cheap and allow much more capable aircraft to be carried in much greater numbers...

Seriously, are we talking about vtol combat aircrafts?

It's a waste of time and resources, vertical take off require just too much hardware (dead weight 99% of flight time) too much power and too much fuel.

So the only quite reasonable approach is a STOVL combat aircraft.

Only Short take off capability, no vertical take off at all, and vertical/rolling landing capability.

So zero chance of ubiquitous deployment capabilties, only flat tops would embark them.

How many are those flat tops? Kuznetsov is one.

Lavina or whatever prospective LHD should be very large to be able to accomodate just an handful of them let's say around 30K tons to be able to embark around six aircrafts.

So we are talking to develop an high performance aircraft from scratch just to build what? maybe 50 or 60 of them.

It's anyone's own right to judge the pros and cons, but it won't be in any way cheap.

And it's anyone's own right to judge how much an handful of aircrafts deployed onboard of two or three middle sized flat tops would increase effectiveness of any task group.

At last, how much would cost to develop and build a naval derivative of an existing high performance aircraft, able to perform short takeoff by itself and to land by arrestor gear?

I suspect far less, and far less would cost the whole life cycle's costs, both for support and future upgrades.

1- First this is how the modern real Russian VTOL aircrafts are:

http://www.russianhelicopters.aero/ru/press/news/vr_konvertoplan_2019/
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=es&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.russianhelicopters.aero%2Fru%2Fpress%2Fnews%2Fvr_konvertoplan_2019%2F

https://life.ru/t/%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8/1027612/na_maks-2017_priedstaviat_ekspierimientalnyi_biespilotnyi_konviertoplan_vrt30
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=es&sl=ru&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Flife.ru%2Ft%2F%25D0%25BD%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B2%25D0%25BE%25D1%2581%25D1%2582%25D0%25B8%2F1027612%2Fna_maks-2017_priedstaviat_ekspierimientalnyi_biespilotnyi_konviertoplan_vrt30





2.- Second, the article posted assumes the future production of the Project 23000 aircraft carrier:

https://sputniknews.com/military/201712151060040750-new-russian-vtol-aircraft-analysis/

In the meantime, the military has already offered hints about its vision of the future of Russian naval aviation. The MoD plans to lay down the Project 23000E Shtorm heavy aircraft carrier sometime between 2025 and 2030. By that time, the Navy expects to receive two new Priboy-class universal helicopter-carrying amphibious assault ships. These, it can be safely assumed, would be perfectly capable of carrying any new VTOL project the aircraft industry throws their way.

I do not think the timeline would be right, but this reference to the Project 23000, the alone real project of aircraft carrier living today in Russia, is the most realistict comment of the article.



3.- Finally, in the descriptions of the Project 23000 aircraft carrier we can find how a VTOL aircraft fits with the ship:

http://www.deagel.com/Fighting-Ships/Project-23000E_a003273001.aspx

The ship will carry 100 aircraft including the navalized version of the T-50 PAK FA stealth fighter, Mig-29Ks and Yak-44 early warning and control aircraft.

Very likely the bolded in red are the 2 new aircrafts Bondarev is talking about these days. Obviously and logically, the fighter aircraft to replace all the current shipborne fighters will be the Su-57 (T-50). The second plane to replace the entire Russian shipborne fleet would be this new early warning and control aircraft. The MiG-29 is of a previous generation.

https://tacairnet.com/2015/07/20/could-the-yak-44-make-a-comeback-for-russias-next-carrier/

While Russia anticipates fulfilling the fighter/attack and utility roles with its current aviation projects, its AEW&C capabilities are very anemic. At the moment, the Russian Navy uses Kamov Ka-31 Helixes to fulfill the AEW&C role- essentially refitted coaxial helicopters that carry a large rotating/folding radar antenna underneath the fuselage. While the Helix does actually perform somewhat as needed while deployed aboard the Kuznetsov, it just doesn’t live up to the mark set by fixed-wing AEW&C aircraft like the E-2C/D Hawkeye, currently in shipboard use with the United States Navy and the French Navy. A limited range and a very limited onboard sensor suite are two of the Helix’s biggest flaws. Therefore, Russia if builds a better carrier than the one they have right now, they’re going to need better AEW&C aircraft too. The article in IHS Jane’s did state that Russia expects to build a jet-powered airborne early warning aircraft. However, an AEW&C jet would, in comparison with a turboprop version, likely necessitate heavier maintenance, fly with a reduced range and, in general, just cost a heck of a lot more. So it might actually make more sense for Russia to consider building the propeller-powered alternative instead, and luckily for them, in designing a brand new AEW&C plane, they can call upon the scrapped Yak-44 project.

In this quote we can see how some media identified this new project with the Yak-44. Like que Yak-141, the Yak-44 was a project cancelled with the fall of the Soviet Union, but like in the case of the Yak-141 some media identified the project of a new early warning and control aircraft with the Yak-44 project because this was also the role of the old project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakovlev_Yak-44

For the following years, a new early warning and control aircraft (in fact a shipborne maritime patrol aircraft) design would be totally different. It can be VTOL and it can be unmanned. The words of Bondarev about a new VTOL plane following the Yak like make sense, but not like the media is taking them.

A new Russian VTOL early warning and control aircraft can emerge in the future following this line of the most modern VTOL aircrafts that Russia is designing now.

PapaDragon wrote:Correct. With F-35 they were supposed to design 3 versions​ of same aircraft. Instead they ended up with 3 different aircraft whose only identical feature was physical appearance.

Russia should keep it simple: design STOVL/VTOL aircraft for Navy.

If after that they want to make standard land based light fighter out of it they should take that Naval aircraft, replace VTOL engine with standard simple one, replace frontal fan with a additional fuel tank and remove any leftover naval components from it. Job done. Airforce does not need VTOL aircraft. So keep it simple.

Maneuverability is willingly sacrificed. They can't have it with one engine and don't need it. That's what twin engine aircraft are for.

STOVL/VTOL fighters are not as good as standard ones but for Navy it means that instead of couple of hypothetical supercarriers they can be based on anything from LHD to escort carriers to aircraft cruisers. More ships with aircraft, less money used.

As for ASW aircraft, we already know that Russia wants to build tiltrotor aircraft so they can convert that one into ASW platform down the road and base it on carriers.

I even with such a conversion you will end up with an aircraft that is aerodynamically inferior in all regards.

In short more likely to not be able to dodge a missile for sh%t.

Why is the Uber-carrier the only option here, and 2 things.
1) Coordination will be sent to hell
2) Actually, it means more money, since all these ships now need the equipment and personnel to be able to repair and maintain this monstrosity.

Nah, to save cash they'll just keep using the Ka-27.

For price of one supercarrier (aircraft complement not included) they can build a whole fleet of STOVL/VTOL jets, throw them into metal grinder, buy another fleet of those same jets and still have money to spare.

Age of Naval dogfights is over. These things will be scouting ahead of fleet and dropping bombs on mountain tribes. That's it.

1) Your pilots will be demoralized to say the least, and good luck recruiting.
2) Again with this Uber-carrier nonsense, a carrier will be hella more useful than these flying coffins, since they'll not only have the proper aircrafts, but also a metric crap ton of missiles at the ready.

The Ka-52K is what you're looking for then.

PapaDragon wrote:And VTOL is needed option is for smaller deck ships like LHDs.

STOVL setting will be default approach for carriers. They will have space. And who knows, if they squeeze angled deck in them somehow then can go with cable assisted landing.

Your theory falls to nothing lambie, Bondarev said clearly VTOL.

PapaDragon wrote:
They are not supposed be aerodynamically superior or to dodge missiles. They would be cheap filler to supplement proper fighter jets and to handle low priority crap.

Then the Ka-52 should be more then enough.

How so? Since when do pilots concern themselves with budget expenditures?

Supercarrier = white elephant for Russia, just like Kuznetzov is now. Naval budget will not be growing and neither will importance of surface fleet in Russian naval doctrine.

When there very lives are at stake.

If that's the case then the development of the VTOL should be scrapped altogether to focus on better air-defenses for Destroyers and Frigates.

PapaDragon wrote:Ka-52 can't drop many bombs on primitive colonial possessions. And can't scout ahead too far.

As for air defense it's more than good already. Excellent in fact.

That depends on the aircraft, assuming it's more akin to the Yak-141 then yes, true.
Although i must ask, why would they use a fragile VTOL rather than a cruise missile for such a thing, and if it's for CAS, then the VTOL option is a no go.

They need to be better, because they'll not only deal with firepower from hostile ships, but also numerous hostile aircrafts as well.

F-35 is VTOL and it's used as STOVL by Royal Navy, it's the different setting on same airplane you dumb braindead moron.

No way, F-35B is not and was not meant to be a true VTOL.

It could only perform a vertical take off when empty of any weapon, or as alternative with some armament but little fuel on board.

Put it plainly, its vertical take off capabilities are a feat aimed only to transfers through whatever ship available to carry it into theater of operations.

There it would perform a single vertical take off, if the ship is lacking a proper flight deck, to relocate itself onboard a flat top or an expeditionary airfield.

End of vertical take offs stunts.

It is simply phisics, you could not have on the same aircraft vertical take off, payload and range.

By the way, F-35B has several limitations in range, payload and dynamics performances compared to its siblings F-35A and F-35C. The fan and transmission required for vertical landings, together with the related stuff put an hefty penalty on the aircraft, as always has been in past STOVL projects

PapaDragon wrote:Supercarrier = white elephant for Russia, just like Kuznetzov is now. Naval budget will not be growing and neither will importance of surface fleet in Russian naval doctrine.

This was the funniest part    

See here, see here, when a is caught:

https://www.russiadefence.net/t2631p600-future-russian-aircraft-carriers-1#191117

I thought we agreed we were going to lay off that stuff...

Do I have to ban some people?
GarryB

Any carrier that gets laid down in the early 2020s will be a helicopter carrier at most.

As mentioned above the F-35B is not a VTOL aircraft and therefore any claim that operating them from deck helo pads is plainly wrong.

Any future Russian VSTOL aircraft would have the same issues and the same limitations that makes operation of them from frigates and corvettes and helicopter carriers pointless.

The Russian Navy does not need a replacement for the K in the next ten years so laying a new carrier design down before 2025 is not critical and even if the US was building it it would not be operational for a decade anyway... that is just how long these things take. Get over it.

In 2030 hopefully the Russian economy and politics will demand a blue water navy able to sail to anywhere in the world to support her interests and the interests of her allies, so by then a carrier will be useful.... if not essential.

PapaDragon wrote:It will be much bigger than Yak-141, that thing was a miniature with miniscule wings. New one should be roughly size of F-35 or even larger.

VTOL/STOVLs are not any more fragile than other jets. Especially if they are designed properly. And today you have computers to handle complicated stuff. Russia already developed system that lands jets on Kuznetzov in autopilot mode. VTOL/STOVL fly-by-wire should be no problem in comparison.

They will not be dealing with hostile ships. Their purpose will be do handle Syria style ops against low threat enemies that are not worth wasting expensive cruise missiles on.

If enemy can afford actual warships then it's a completely different type of war, one where surface fleets are irelevant.

We will have to wait and see, but the Yak-43 is the latest we know of.
Also, i doubt it's wing will be too big, since it might get in the way when taking off vertically, although i am no expert in aerodynamics.

Perhaps fragile wasn't the best word, generally though a VTOL will without a doubt have more critical points then Conventional jets.
Uhhm ok, what's auto-pilot got to do with this.

That depends, which ones more expensive, fuel, maintenance, pilot, all to drop some dumb bombs?
A better case is that the aircraft could be used for long term bombings, since Cruise missiles would be limited in number.

Forces with limited naval capabilities will generally try to offset this by having anti-ship missiles launched from long ranged aircrafts.
Ergo, the need for better air-defense (the new proposed navalised Tors look promising).

But yet again there is the Ka-52, and the question of whether such long range deep strike missions should be handled  by cruise missiles.
IMO such capabilities can be useful, but looking at the range of the Ka-52, i wonder whether it's necessary.
The Ka-52 has a range of around 500km so half that for RTB and we have around 250km.


At least we found a positive reason for VTOL.
That wont get pilots slaughtered.

As for topic of supercarriers, military just ordered design of STOVL/VTOL fighter jet. You don't do that if you plan on building a supercarrier.

You mean like the US who has super carriers and also AV-8II harriers and F-35B aircraft?

VSTOL aircraft fill a very small niche... the biggest problem for the Russians is that they are generally not fast enough to be real interceptors or fighters... they are best used in small carriers that are not really the best at anything.

Like I just said, they want to end up with larger number of smaller vessels instead of small number of larger vessels.

They would be better off with a mix of small and large vessels than with mainly small weak vulnerable vessels.

Or do you think they should give up on the Su-35s and PAK FAs and just have thousands of upgraded Yak-130s in a fighter version?

In terms of cost it will be cheaper but any decent enemy would obliterate your force fairly rapidly.

I am sure you could argue Russia does not need any better because if someone defeats their air force they can retaliate with nukes... not really practical though is it?