Fate of Russia's old birds.

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.

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.

Isos wrote:So according to wikipedia Russia has 500 mig-23 in reserve.

They already proposed an upgrade called mig-23-98 similar to Mig-21 bison with new radar, avionic and r-77. Cost is 1 million dollar each.

Do you think it's a good idea to put some back in service or modernize them and sell them to poor states ?

SAA would be much stronger with such plane and they already have pilots for them.

I believe that no more than 15 years ago it was proposed to modernize mothballed MiG-21's and 23's. Issue was that, with cannibalizing more than half of them, they may at best get 100 working. But that is 100 jets to help Syria let's say.

Issue is, no one wanted them. Most of them now are probably in worst condition than before so maybe can get at best 50 working or less.

Most states want something newer. MiG-23's weren't bad. But weren't amazing either and the MiG-29's are far better. While more expensive, they are more sufficient for Syria's use than MiG-23's.

Now if there was a MiG-25 upgrade to bring it to modern standard (much bigger and better radar, new full digital structure and fly by wire, new coatings to help reduce structural stress and reduce cross section, modernized engines) would be a better option for long range air patrols and interceptions.

But I don't even know how many of them are even flyable now or can be fixed up.

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.

It would be possible to fly faster than the redlined Mach 2.83, but you better have a very good reason for doing so because the engines will likely be stuffed after they cooled down again.

Flying faster than Mach 2.83 was not allowed.

So according to wikipedia Russia has 500 mig-23 in reserve.

They already proposed an upgrade called mig-23-98 similar to Mig-21 bison with new radar, avionic and r-77. Cost is 1 million dollar each.

Do you think it's a good idea to put some back in service or modernize them and sell them to poor states ?

SAA would be much stronger with such plane and they already have pilots for them.

The MiG-23 was a rather good aircraft that was not very well respected in the west.

There was a MiG-23-93 upgrade proposed (along with a MiG-21-93 upgrade) and a MiG-23-98 upgrade, but as mike mentions... there was no interest from other countries.

It is a bit like tanks... who is going to buy new optics and new engines and new computer systems and put them in a T-54. It makes more sense to start from a T-90 as a basis because it is a newer and better tank to start with and the improvements make it better.

There was no interest AFAIK... I would expect a few of them have been used up as M-23s... which has all the ejection seat and cockpit instruments removed and essentially it is a drone target for testing air defences.

Even 50 mig-23 with zuhk-M radar and RVV-SD would increase their power against israeli f-15/16. They also have some still inflying condition on their own that they could upgrade.

Parts are not longer made, crew who worked on them have retired.... it makes more sense to get a customer to upgrade to a much newer aircraft like a MiG-29.

I think even Russia should have upgraded its mig-25 to mig-31 level and also upgrade its formidable r-40 (which are 6+m long so with modern engines/fuel could reach 250km easily) which comes in IR and radar version contrary to r-33/37M.

When they introduced the MiG-31 there was consideration to fit the 15 ton thrust jet engines from the MiG-31 to the MiG-25 which uses 11 ton thrust engines. An extra 8 tons of thrust from engines that were probably physically lighter and newer would have been rather interesting.

The R-40s were upgraded to the D level with the R-40TD being used on MiG-31s... they would have been ideal for use against the SR-71 because its mach 4.5 flight speed meant it should be able hit an SR-71 head on or in chase mode if launched as the SR-71 blew past the MiG...

They are finalising a new missile to replace the R-37M.

Advantage of upgrading them is that it is easy. Their avionics/electronics were so big that you can easily put digital stuff inside. And they were available in big number. Also their primitive construction allows to restart production of spare parts pretty easily too. As long as they have a good airframe they should have no problem using them again.

They were big and excessively heavy and could do things other aircraft of the time could not do, but now the MiG-31 is better than the MiG-25 and the MiG-29 is better than the MiG-23.

Mig-23-98 proposed upgrade.

Nice big nose so easier to put a big useful radar in, and with those wings swept back it was very low drag and had excellent acceleration... but weapons options were limiting to say the least.

The wingroot pylons could take larger weapons... but weapon options were not amazing.