Fate of Russia's old birds.

Wasn't sure where to post this. Someone on the Youtube comments says that the Mig 23 can supercruise unloaded. Anyone else heard this ?

Speaking of fates of old birds. This is a Mig 23 being reassembled in the US in 2009

ult wrote:The idea that Russia has bring back a plane that was produced in 1953-1963 is so laughable and out of touch that I can't even begin to answer it. Who do you think we are? North Korea? Who's gonna fly that? Fucking Kamikaze? If anyone from MoD even suggests that he will be put into a psychiatric ward. Also there are hundreds of Tu-22M3's in storage.

How many TU's are there in storage I know they built an insane 500 or so planes. Imagine if they fielded 500 TU22M3Ms tha that would be mind blowing. Even 200 would be staggering.

The only place I could find was Vozdvizhenka air base in the far east. At a given moment 18 Tu-22Ms were disbanded/derelict over there. On Google Earth pics from 2005 there is none seen.

A link with some pics;
https://io9.gizmodo.com/scenes-from-an-open-air-airplane-graveyard-in-the-russi-5811068

Other large amounts of stored bombers I could not find.

Regards,
Lesley

^ Link is worth a click. Worth a click.

Ok I have to admit I am a bit confused that the boneyard has a lot of unused shelters while bases leave planes in the open and all the planes are out in the open when there are empty shelters...lol. Also quite amazed that thieves have not stolen all the Ti from these planes.

With the planes out in the open it is much easier to see if someone who is not supposed to be there is there pinching stuff.

Much of the stuff the older bombers were made of is not titanium anyway... titanium is expensive and only used where it is needed... very high speed aircraft like the MiG-25 use more stainless steel than titanium... lower speed aircraft like mach 2 fighters and bombers use even less.

Many modern planes have sections made out of titanium, and most warplanes have some of it where it make sense for strength and heat resistance as well as weight. The fact it is 20 times the cost of aluminum is not going to stop it from being used where it is of significant benefit. The SU-25 has a whole tub of Ti armour. Its not a significant cost factor in warplane economics. 25 tons of Titanium is only about $300K. If it makes sense and can make the plane lighter it will be used without hesitation as it will easily pay for itself over the life of the plane .

It triggered my interest so I looked up some airbases on Google Earth.

At Lipetsk there was/is a storage area of MiG-23s and model 9-12 MiG-29s
At Orenburg-Chebenki there are lots of Su-17s, Su-24's and I think Mi-24s
At Rhzev you can see MiG-25(PU?), MiG-31 and again Su-24s

When the 16th Air Army withdrew from former East Germany a lot of these aircraft were just parked at airfields in Russia and some were never used again as the force has to downsize and the focus came on two-engine jets.

Regards,
Lesley

Many modern planes have sections made out of titanium, and most warplanes have some of it where it make sense for strength and heat resistance as well as weight.

You wont find such modern planes in such boneyards...

The only planes with a lot of titanium was the MiG-31s and they are looked after because they use them.... the ones in storage are in storage because they stopped production of engines, but that is now back in production so they will likely keep using old planes from storage to keep operational numbers of MiG-31s in service till about 2028 or so when hopefully they will start replacing them with MiG-41s.

The T-4M had titanium skin but it never entered service. The MIG-25 used stainless steel.

No other aircraft in service needed any extensive titanium sections... the largest user of titanium would be in the Tu-160 in the centre box section swing wing section and the ones that weren't scrapped by the Ukraine are in Russia....

During certain periods of the cold war titanium was not used on aircraft because they were building subs out of the stuff... the MiG-25 should have been all Titanium but it wasn't.

GarryB wrote:
No other aircraft in service needed any extensive titanium sections... the largest user of titanium would be in the Tu-160 in the centre box section swing wing section and the ones that weren't scrapped by the Ukraine are in Russia....

During certain periods of the cold war titanium was not used on aircraft because they were building subs out of the stuff... the MiG-25 should have been all Titanium but it wasn't.

There could be a lot of titanium in the structure, Ti was quite popular, heck tennis racquets and golf clubs have Ti in them and they are definitly downstream from the MIC. Russia has a lot of Ti and was still exporting it. If the MIC needed it they would have got it. The Foxbat was lacking Ti for several reasons, steel is a damn good material, so good that even Elon Musk is building his spaceship from it!! (is there any application that seeks to reduce weight more then Space vehicles?) The Foxbat used steel for ease of fabrication with a small weight penalty. It was mostly aluminum and used steel in high heat/friction areas. It was never designed to fly at a sustained M3 like SR-71, just short bursts, then putter along at 1.5-1.8. (lol). The bomber with the Ti Skin was a Valkyrie competitor and was designed for M3 cruise, so Ti skin was needed. Ti is not that hard to fab for framework, with skins and forgings it become more difficult, lots of hinges, fastners, small subframes can be made of Ti. For every kg you save that is more range, payload and efficiency. This is why it is used for a lot of really mundane things in aerospace. Seat frames, fastners, hinges. Things where steel dimensions , mechanical strength and temp resistance are useful and do not require elaborate fabrication.

It was never designed to fly at a sustained M3 like SR-71, just short bursts, then putter along at 1.5-1.8. (lol).

There is no evidence the MiG-25 can fly Mach 3, it is designed to fly all day and every day at mach 2.4... it can manage mach 2.6 for about 20 minutes before having to slow down to mach 2.4, and it can fly at mach 2.83 for about 5 minutes before heat becomes an issue.

To be clear operating at top speeds its flight radius of about 750km would take about 13 minutes in each direction, so it could take off and climb and accelerate to mach 2.6 all the way out to its max flight radius of 750km and launch a missile, and then turn back and fly back to base at Mach 2.4...

The bomber with the Ti Skin was a Valkyrie competitor and was designed for M3 cruise, so Ti skin was needed. Ti is not that hard to fab for framework, with skins and forgings it become more difficult, lots of hinges, fastners, small subframes can be made of Ti. For every kg you save that is more range, payload and efficiency.

Never made it to service and is in a museum... safe from thieves hopefully.

The Russians didn't use Titanium where it was not essential because they made good money selling it on the international market... the Titanium in Soviet Subs was made with Soviet titanium, but so were SR-71s, and now F-35s and Boeing airliners are made with Russian titanium components too.

israelis saw a mig25 burst up to Mach 3.2 to evade f-4 interceptors. the mig bureau brought it to Mach 3 early after introduction I believe for records. I know it ate up the engines, essentially, but it was definitely possible.