PAK DP prospective long-range interceptor

Rather very unlikely.

Mig 41 name is unofficially used for the new heavy interceptor from Mig.

True. Hypersonic missile is one thing. Hypersonic plane another. The missile end up in pieces after it single lunch through its life. The plane need to be reused again and again. It changes the whole situation. Not easy at all to create a hypersonic plane because the hypersonic speeds impacts it way too much.

The mig-31 HAS anti sat weapons. Not "had".

They always fail to predict any date. So that proves nothing.

The design bureaus always propose number designations for their new designs and often the military accepts those proposed designations unless there is good reason not to.

The Su-57s designation changed multiple times and for a while the LMFSs designation was supposed to be MiG-35 or MiG-37 but likely wont be.

MiG-41 was first mentioned as a project codename and its number reflects that it is a development or replacement of the MiG-31... much like the Su-34 replaced the Su-24... it suggests a similar role but does not suggest they are related, with the Su-34 being based on the Su-27 design.

Claims the MiG-41 is not needed because the Su-57 can do the job or that the MiG-41 will use the next gen Su-57s engines don't make sense, the MiG-41 will be an interceptor, so speed and range of important, but manouver performance is not so important, and stealth is not so critical either.

The new fibreglass material they are making for making stealthy aircraft might be suitable but it would be important that it is heat resistant otherwise there is no point in using it.

The new engine for the Su-57 is not designed to operate for very long periods at max thrust like the engine of the MiG-31 is, or the MiG-41 will be.

Some sort of ramjet propulsion system is needed for mach 4 speeds, but it might use a scramjet motor and be limited to mach 4 by its size and weight... which would be the reverse of the MiG-25 and MiG-31 where the speed of the aircraft was limited by the speed performance of the engines.

It is not about thrust, the MiG-25 and the MiG-31 had similar flight speeds despite the MiG-25 having 11 ton thrust engines and the MiG-31 having 15 ton thrust engines.

Putting 18 ton thrust engines in either aircraft would not make them faster if said engine was not designed to go faster.

A higher flying aircraft that can operate at 35km with full fuel and weapons at mach 4 would massively expand the performance of most weapons it could carry.

The MiG-25RB had a computer based bombing system that was probably what the Gefest & T bombing system evolved from... releasing at medium to high altitude at very high speed would allow massive standoff bombing range even without glide kits... add glide kits that can take the speed and you are looking at going back to bombs instead of using missiles against a range of SEAD targets.

Note the Soviets had to develop a range of special heat resistant FAB bombs for the project and the accuracy was OK but not amazing, and did not really approach guided weapon accuracy like the current version seems to manage.

The bombs used were 1,500kg bombs and the MiG-31 version could carry 6 bombs, four under the wings and two under the belly for a total of 9 tons.... a modern version that added toss bombing features would be rather interesting... especially if it could be fitted with a guided glide bomb kit to introduce accuracy at the terminal phase of the attack.

Would certainly devastate even a quite large bridge with 9 tons of explosives hitting it in 6 places...

It looks like a further development of MiG-31 in the video

^Which is Russia's philosophy. Evolutionary design. That thing looks like how Russia would build it.

The video is fan art isn't it?

The MiG-31 is basically evolved from the MiG-25 because the targets were the same... similar speed and similar range, with rather more missiles and a big radar and someone to monitor the radar on the plane.

I rather suspect the requirements for speed and range will be rather higher for the replacement plane, its call it MiG-41 because I rather expect the flight speed will require internal weapon bays and a clever way of launching weapons into a highly supersonic airflow slipstream. which is going to be a challenge.

The pneumatic struct on the weapon pylon that throws the R-77 and R-33 and R-37 clear of the aircraft is likely to be repeated inside the weapon bay, perhaps with a screen that opens in front of the weapon bay to provide turbulence so the airflow does not ram the missile backwards too quickly as it leaves the weapon bay.

Or a rear slot might open and they get chucked out the back or even thrown upwards and outwards away from the plane.