Mikoyan ATL designs Ye-152, MiG-23, MiG-25

[BLACK_MAMBA]

Very true.
Jaguar morphed from a high-speed trainer into an actual combat aircraft. The Jaguar designed around the Spey would've probably featured a non-afterburning Spey.

Sounds like the AMX to me...

 

[CV12Hornet]

That's interesting CV12Hornet, I never knew that. Is there drawings and dimensions of the MiG-23's original wing?

Regards
Pioneer

Probably, but I'd have no idea where to find them. Thankfully, there's an obvious visual tell to the new wing: if it has the distinct dogtooth in the swept position, it's the new wing. The old wing was also only on the very original MiG-23S.

I do at least have overhead views of the wing that show the differences. Primarily, the new wing had an expanded leading edge that leads to an overall wider wing.

Direct links to the below images: https://www.the-blueprints.com/blue...5639/view/mikoyan-gurevich_mig-23s_flogger_a/

Blueprints > Modern airplanes > Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) > Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-27

www.the-blueprints.com

 

[Pioneer]

That's interesting CV12Hornet, I never knew that. Is there drawings and dimensions of the MiG-23's original wing?

Regards
Pioneer

Probably, but I'd have no idea where to find them. Thankfully, there's an obvious visual tell to the new wing: if it has the distinct dogtooth in the swept position, it's the new wing. The old wing was also only on the very original MiG-23S.

I do at least have overhead views of the wing that show the differences. Primarily, the new wing had an expanded leading edge that leads to an overall wider wing.

Direct links to the below images: https://www.the-blueprints.com/blue...5639/view/mikoyan-gurevich_mig-23s_flogger_a/

Blueprints > Modern airplanes > Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) > Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-27

www.the-blueprints.com

Uh, got ya CV12Hornet , now that you've mentioned the "distinct dogtooth", I understand.
Thank you very much.

Regards
Pioneer

 

[tomo pauk]

Sounds like the AMX to me...

Yes, sorta stretched/elongated AMX with Jaguar's wing.
edit: Granted, this is very similar in size & weight to the A-7, if with a more 'aggressive' wing.

 

[zen]

Spey is just too big and heavy.

It fits very well on the "Jaguar designed around the Spey", as noted above.

Which brings us back to the same argument we are having in this thread. The Jaguar has the engines its does due to its original requirement spec. Now admittedly it underwent quite a change in role from initial inception but that is beside the point. Jaguar "but designed around a Spey" would require a totally new genesis requirement spec for the aircraft from inception. Same as to why arguing the Mig 23 should have been different is a useless argument - it requires fundamental changes to the requirements that gave birth to the design in the first place.

Not entirely true. There were supersonic trainer options using a Spey and there was Brough's P.146 as a backup to the Harrier using a development of RB.199 or Spey.

 

[zen]

Is it?

If it is, then it's likely because it's a scaled down version of the original RB.172 which was closer to RB.153 or RB.199 or M.45 in size.

 

[tomo pauk]

So more than enough time for any competant engineering team to have noticed that they were complete idiots in wanting to use a new turbofan - or it actually provided them with benefits to validate using it?

??

Nearly all the engine manufacturers by the late 60's to the mid 70's started working almost exclusively on turbofans for new designs while only updating older turbojets as technology advanced (there will probably be single exceptions). So either the turbofan has benefits over turbojets, or the thousands of engineers were just wrong in their understanding of the advantages.

A turbofan has it's advantages in general.
Specifically the Adour have had lower specific consumption than turbojets, while also being very heavy for the thrust it provided. Adour was always a turbofan, opposite is not true.

 

[lancer21]

I've just been musing about a titanium built MiG-25/31 after reading some other what-if topic on the net.

So just as a very rough theoretical exercise, it seems using titanium instead of steel on the MiG-25 would have reduced the empty weight from 20 tons to something like 13,5 tons! For the MiG-31 the reduction would have been from roughly 22 tons to 17,5 tons.

Presumably all else being equal the G limit is till 5,5 G? I'm bad at maths and i don't have knowledge about all those fancy formulas to calculate that stuff (i have tried to type on google but it's been frustratingly difficult to find what i want), so can i ask if someone can explain in laymans terms how much in percentage would an aircraft structure weight increase for every G-limit increase of 1 G? If this alt super-duper titanium MiG-25 weighs 13,5 tons empty and a G limit of 5,5, how much would it's weight increase to get it to say 7g?

As to the MiG-23, using a titanium wing box (like F-14 had) instead of steel looks like would have saved 1000kg in weight.

Ironically the soviets sold their titanium to the americans which used it to build the A-12/SR-71 back in the day. If they didn't probably the Blackbird would have had to be made from steel too and weighed twice as much empty (!), with presumably crippling effects on it's performance.

Anyway this is an interesting theoretical exercise, i know titanium was extremely expensive back then and USSR did not have yet the tech to machine it for aviation use on a large scale , even if they had plenty of it.

Thank you.

 

[paralay]

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[red admiral]

so can i ask if someone can explain in laymans terms how much in percentage would an aircraft structure weight increase for every G-limit increase of 1 G? If this alt super-duper titanium MiG-25 weighs 13,5 tons empty and a G limit of 5,5, how much would it's weight increase to get it to say 7g?

Books like Raymer's Aircraft Design: A conceptual approach include parametric mass estimation methods that include factors like structural limit.

I'd expect the increase would be 500-1,000kg for this.

 

[lancer21]

so can i ask if someone can explain in laymans terms how much in percentage would an aircraft structure weight increase for every G-limit increase of 1 G? If this alt super-duper titanium MiG-25 weighs 13,5 tons empty and a G limit of 5,5, how much would it's weight increase to get it to say 7g?

Books like Raymer's Aircraft Design: A conceptual approach include parametric mass estimation methods that include factors like structural limit.

I'd expect the increase would be 500-1,000kg for this.

Thanks, very interesting, so it would need "just" 1000 extra kg at most to go from 5,5 to 6,5G which seems to be roughly 7% increase (empty weight rising to 14,500kg) ? Would it be the same rough percentage for a further increase to 7,5G (close to Phantom territory for instance)? In which case empty weight will rise to about 15,500kg?

 

[lancer21]

Quick Internet search: Stainless steel - up to 400 rub/kg Titanium - 1600 rub/kg Moreover, steel is much easier to process and weld. Therefore, the USSR was able to build 1200 MiG-25, and the USA only 32 SR-71

The MiG-25 is an all—metal high-wing aircraft made according to the classical scheme. The main structural materials of the airframe: stainless steel: VNS-2 — for the skin and internal set of the airframe and VNS-5 — for power elements connected by contact welding. About 80% of the airframe structure is made of steel, 8% is made of titanium, 11% is made of aluminum alloys and 1% is made of other materials.

Yes that is all true, it's just an interesting theoretical exercise. Later on i read that Su-27 has 30% of it's structure made of titanium, even such a percentage use on MiG-25/31 would have saved a large amount of weight.

 

[lancer21]

Regarding this whole titanium business i've been reading that contemporary to the building of MiG-25/31, USSR was building attack subs with titanium hulls (Alfa, Sierra classes etc.)! So titanium build MiG-25/31 (or at least with much greater precentage of titanium) are not as unlikely as i first though, perhaps if USSR's relevant decision making directed their titanium priority towards aviation instead of subs it could have happened. Same for titanium wing boxes for MiG-23 and even Su-24 (presumably Su-24 also used a steel wing box like MiG-23?)
Very interesting.

 

[paralay]

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[Archibald]

Most delightful irony ever: SR-71 manufactured out of Soviet titanium, procured via CIA shell companies... so the Soviets threw 4000 SAMs at their own titanium, flying over their heads.

 

[paralay]

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[Archibald]

Don't blame me, blame the Internet or litterature. I did not pulled that number out of thin air...

 

[paralay]

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[Archibald]

No idea where did I ever said that. Maybe I never actually hinted anything, and you are inventing things ?

 

[BLACK_MAMBA]

The SR-71 is as common an aerial target as any other. Moreover, it's not even a strike plane. What makes you think that he played an important role in history, other than a futuristic look?

One could argue that the intellegence it played a part in gathering of the Soviet Union et al have had a far bigger impact on how the cold war played out than any other fighter/strike/bomber platform of either side... Over simplification maybe of the entire intellegence gathering effort from multiple sources maybe, but dismissing one of the West's most important intellegance assets for not playing an important role is just wrong.

 

[Tu-204]

I will take them in turn:

Ye-152
What if it will be put in production? I have read that the R-15 engine was initially very problematic, so how about just sticking with the twin engine version powered by the R-11F engines initially? Do you think they have a reasonable chance of fixing the R-21F from the Ye-8 by about 1964-65 when i expect my Ye-152 to be in production? Or perhaps have an earlier R-13-300 if they focus on it? Would it worth having it instead of the rather poor Yak-28, or indeed massive Tu-28 (i know why they built it, but they could easily have two smaller, faster interceptors for every clunky Tu-28, they would have to built more airfields in the North though, or if not just adopt in-flight refueling for at least some interceptors)

MiG-23
How much weight would they save if they just use a fixed wing but with high lift devices to give as much STOL capability as reasonably possible, perhaps similar in planform to the one on MiG-25, or perhaps inspired by the Mirage F1/F2 wing, or indeed perhaps something like Mikoyan studied later for this pretty bird below?(basically a fixed wing MiG-23 design from the early seventies). Based on what i can read around, it seems they could easily save 1000kg, possibly significantly more in empty weight, which can be used to either improve performance, or take some stress of the engine, it will not need so much power so the engine could be made a bit less powerful hence more durable etc.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/mig-lightweight-fighter-projects-of-the-70s-80s.35056/post-518823

MiG-25
How much weight would they save if they relax the speed requirement and build it in conventional alloys rather than steel? What would be the maximum speed feasible with conventional alloys of the day, M2,5 or so? As to the engine, perhaps then instead of the humongous if impressive R-15s, how about two afterburning early D-30F of about 10,000-11,000kgf (based on the first D-30 version, just stick a burner to it)?

there was only other option, an AJ-37 Viggen arrangement, I mean canard and wing combination, however variable geometry was attractive since the swept angles allowed good results.

By the F-18 time the ideal wing was designed for a solution, but the MiG-23 paid the extra weight as lower turn rate and higher wing loading compared to F-16, the 8.5G limit was structural, this also result of the variable geometry mechanism, thus while it was good aerodynamically it paid in structure strength thus the F-18 solved that with a pointed LEX and lower swept angle at the rest of the wing.

Same was F-16

Aerodynamically VG wing is excellent however the weight penalty and structural strength penalty did force the redesign of the MiG-23M into the MiG-23ML, If the variable wing mechanism could be kept light enough, Variable geometry offers big advantages, but let us remember the original MiG-23A was designed with F-111/F-4 philosophy I mean long range interceptor with BVR capability, the later MiG-23ML was designed thinking the MiG-23 should turn well thus they lighten it.

the wing of the F-18 is similar to a variable geometry wing , but swept at medium or low swept angles, however the wing glove was replaced by a LEX, a very long one, and the main wing was relatively an unswept wing, or course the wing of MiG-23 was high aspect ratio and the wing glove not very long but aerodynamically were up to some degree similar,and on MiG-23MLD the wing glove had dogtooth that worked as the LEX of the wing on F-18 generating vortices.

 

[Tu-204]

Quick Internet search: Stainless steel - up to 400 rub/kg Titanium - 1600 rub/kg Moreover, steel is much easier to process and weld. Therefore, the USSR was able to build 1200 MiG-25, and the USA only 32 SR-71

The MiG-25 is an all—metal high-wing aircraft made according to the classical scheme. The main structural materials of the airframe: stainless steel: VNS-2 — for the skin and internal set of the airframe and VNS-5 — for power elements connected by contact welding. About 80% of the airframe structure is made of steel, 8% is made of titanium, 11% is made of aluminum alloys and 1% is made of other materials.

true, the MiG-25 main objective was to be highly producible and at a smaller size, and had the advantage of being armed and have a radar for interception missions.

SR-71 was designed as a very sophisticated aircraft, but it carried more fuel, it was bigger, more expensive and less agile, thus its sophistication rendered a faster but less agile, longer range but less producible, yes the SR-71 had more advanced engines but the production was too small.

Sr-71 was a recce aircraft but MiG-25 an interceptor that counted in numbers and missiles to prevent SR-71 entered the USSR air space, both aircraft achieved their objectives

 

[Archibald]

It blew my mind the day I realized they build almost 1200 MiG-25s. Plus 500+ MiG-31s, that's close from 1700 airframes.
That's quite a large number of "almost Mach 3" interceptors.

In comparison, the 40-something A-12 / SR-71 / YF-12 / M-21 were almost hand crafted by Lockheed.

Steel is heavier than titanium, but overall mankind has mass build steel transport vehicles (things like locomotives and battleships) since the 19th century. Titanium is far harder.

 

[paralay]

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[paralay]

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[lancer21]

The cost of different aircraft

steel:
MiG-25P 3.7 million rubles (1969) - 2.4 million rubles (1973)
MiG-25R 4.4 million rubles (1969) - 2.05 million rubles (1975)

titanium: T-4 25 million rubles (1974) - 20 million rubles (1975)

duralumin: Tu-22M 12 million rubles (1969) - 6 million rubles (1975)

That is great info, thanks Paralay! How much was for a MiG-23? I have read from a romanian source that a MiG-21 (not sure if P or M variant) was about 500,000 rubles.

Makes me wonder how much was for one of those titanium subs. Must have been an eye-watering amount, i have read that just the prototype sub cost 1% of ALL soviet defence budget.

 

[paralay]

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[Archibald]

Weirdest part with the Alfas (from memory): their metal cooled reactor while it gave them awesome speed (no question about this) had to be kept running all time otherwise the metal froze to stone and ruined the reactor and the ship. And in case of a war with NATO, they would be one-shot, silver bullet weapons. They would speed like hell out of Murmansk to escape NATO slower nuke subs (30 kt vs 40 something) then scream into the Atlantic, sink whatever NATO supply warship in sight... and then it would be over.

 

[paralay]

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[lancer21]

For the MiG-23, at the MMZ "Banner of Labor" - from 2,393 million rubles in 1969 to 1.5 million rubles by 1975.
For the Su-17, on the DMZ – from 1.5 million rubles in 1969 to 0.72 million rubles by 1973.
For the Su-15M, at NAZ – from 1.5 million rubles in 1970 to 1.0 million rubles by 1975.
For the Su-24, at NAZ – from 5.72 million rubles in 1971 to 3.0 million rubles by 1975.

...ultra-high-speed submarines were never useful to the fleet because of the high cost - it took 2 billion rubles to create a nuclear-powered vessel, for which it was nicknamed "Goldfish"

Fantastic stuff. And crickey unless i'm not seeing right, you can buy up to 1000 (one THOUSAND!) MiG-25s for every titanium sub if that was 2 billion rubles a piece. That's just crazy.

How much were the normal steel hulled attack subs costing?

PS: And i'm going on a tangent here, but i have in my head a figure of 800 million rubles either for a Kiev class carrier, or some other warship of the time. Possibly might have had to do with the cost of a conventional carrier like 1153 or 1160, but i can't recall in what context and where i've seen that figure. So if you or someone else knows what i may refer to, more info would be much appreciated!

 

[paralay]

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[lancer21]

Absolutely fascinating read. So i learned that a Typhoon pr. 941 cost about as much as a Tbilisi class CV!

 

[lancer21]

These are different submarines
661
705

OK so trying to find more info i found this article which appears to say a Pr 705 was 105 million rubles at 1960s prices, while a Pr. 627 was only 15 million rubles. Do you have different information? Presumably that cost would be higher at 1970s prices?

АПЛ 705-го проекта

Если АПЛ проекта 627 стоила 15 млн. руб. (в ценах 60-х
годов), то корабль проекта 705 – уже 105 млн. рублей.

From your site, for a titanium hulled Pr. 945 is 242 million rubles at 1980s prices but only 89 million for Pr.671 RTM. Interestingly a Pr.971 is quite expensive at 212 million.

 

[Tu-204]

Sr-71 was a recce aircraft but MiG-25 an interceptor that counted in numbers and missiles to prevent SR-71 entered the USSR air space, both aircraft achieved their objectives

Let me remind you, the MiG-25 has a modification of the scout. Moreover, with the ability to deliver bomb attacks

The MiG-25 was and is a great aircraft, the logic of using steel was justified, the MiG-25 is small almost the same size of an F-15, while the SR-71 is almost twice as big compared to F-15.

The reason is fuel, more fuel more range but this meant a bigger aircraft in the case of SR-71, heavier means bigger, bigger means a weaker structure for very high G forces, so Sr-71 can not turn well, specially at very high speeds.


But the MiG-25 also is heavy compared to an F-15, but the reality is MiG-25 is not a counterpart of F-15, Su-27 is the counterpart and same MiG-29.

So comparing the MiG-25 to F-15 is not really fair, the MiG-25 is comparable to XF-108.

The idea is a small cheap fast aircraft, well MiG-25 was a great success, but it was never designed as a dogfighter, i really like the MiG-25 but it is an interceptor.

 

[CV12Hornet]

But the MiG-25 also is heavy compared to an F-15, but the reality is MiG-25 is not a counterpart of F-15, Su-27 is the counterpart and same MiG-29.

So comparing the MiG-25 to F-15 is not really fair, the MiG-25 is comparable to XF-108.

The idea is a small cheap fast aircraft, well MiG-25 was a great success, but it was never designed as a dogfighter, i really like the MiG-25 but it is an interceptor.

The MiG-25 is in no way comparable to the XF-108. The Rapier, on paper, absolutely blows away the MiG-25 in every relevant metric - speed, climb, avionics, range. It was supposed to cruise at Mach 3 for 1000 miles, for God's sake! Absolutely insane.

As for MiG-25 to F-15 comparisons, while I agree they're not really comparable in role, they get compared because the F-15 is a pretty direct reaction to the MiG-25.

Also: the MiG-25 is not a small plane. It's one of the heaviest fighters ever built and is small mostly in comparison to outright bombers.

 

[martinbayer]

Sr-71 was a recce aircraft but MiG-25 an interceptor that counted in numbers and missiles to prevent SR-71 entered the USSR air space, both aircraft achieved their objectives

Let me remind you, the MiG-25 has a modification of the scout. Moreover, with the ability to deliver bomb attacks

If you use staged pictures of scale models on this forum to support discussions of real world aircraft, I recommend to clearly label them as such.

 

[Tu-204]

But the MiG-25 also is heavy compared to an F-15, but the reality is MiG-25 is not a counterpart of F-15, Su-27 is the counterpart and same MiG-29.

So comparing the MiG-25 to F-15 is not really fair, the MiG-25 is comparable to XF-108.

The idea is a small cheap fast aircraft, well MiG-25 was a great success, but it was never designed as a dogfighter, i really like the MiG-25 but it is an interceptor.

The MiG-25 is in no way comparable to the XF-108. The Rapier, on paper, absolutely blows away the MiG-25 in every relevant metric - speed, climb, avionics, range. It was supposed to cruise at Mach 3 for 1000 miles, for God's sake! Absolutely insane.

As for MiG-25 to F-15 comparisons, while I agree they're not really comparable in role, they get compared because the F-15 is a pretty direct reaction to the MiG-25.

Also: the MiG-25 is not a small plane. It's one of the heaviest fighters ever built and is small mostly in comparison to outright bombers.

The MiG-25 is an interceptor, a very sucessful aircraft because It was produced Xf-108 ws not even flown, it was small compared to SR-71, but I am not saying it is better than SR-71 or F-15, my point is in its niche (fast aircraft highly producible) it was well designed, it was cheap and it was a very fast aircraft, but all fast aircraft need fuel, SR-71 was big at least 45% bigger than MiG-25 and much much heavier.

The SR-71 definitively is much more sophisticated and faster than the MiG-25, but it was much more expensive and very difficult to manufacture, by being Heavy and flying fast it did not turn well it was not agile, it basicaly flew straight.

So both aircraft were sucessful in their concept, SR-71 was a recce aircraft so it was built in small numbers, but MiG-25 needed numbers, so a cheaper steel made aircraft was more practical.

F-15 is much lighter than MiG-25 but its fuselage was not designed to fly as fast as MiG-25.

 

[MadRat]

On the same note, the MiG-23 was a bomber-destroyer retreaded to other roles. It literally fire two missiles, one SARH and one heatseeker, before the RTB leg. Throwing their combination of missile volleys from a distance was great for show but had nearly no real effect in actual combat. Perhaps if they had supported loadouts of four lighter SARH and a pair of Atolls for tailchasing, they would have faired a bit better. It was fortunate the Soviets oversimplified (or overcomicated, but never balanced) their mission planning. Ultimately the lack of sustained pilot training was their justification for the ineffective tactics.

 

[GregoryUSSR]

On the same note, the MiG-23 was a bomber-destroyer retreaded to other roles. It literally fire two missiles, one SARH and one heatseeker, before the RTB leg. Throwing their combination of missile volleys from a distance was great for show but had nearly no real effect in actual combat. Perhaps if they had supported loadouts of four lighter SARH and a pair of Atolls for tailchasing, they would have faired a bit better. It was fortunate the Soviets oversimplified (or overcomicated, but never balanced) their mission planning. Ultimately the lack of sustained pilot training was their justification for the ineffective tactics.

The MiG-23 is just a great fighter. And as for the preparation...... This is not an empty phrase. This is a real problem. In aviation as well as in the Navy. There are too many factors that determine the performance of the system and the ultimate success. In the navy, the tabular characteristics of a warship do not reflect its actual combat capability at the moment. Remember the Russian-Japanese War of 1904/05. Tsushima Battle and other battles. In terms of technology, we were much ahead of the Japanese. Our main battleships were the best in the world at that time. However, the Japanese managed to defeat us almost without losses. Remember the battle in the Danish Strait. The battleship Bismarck single-handedly destroyed the English battlecruiser Hood and almost sank the English battleship Prince of Wales. Without any effort. And just three days later, the same battleship Bismarck could do nothing against two other British battleships. That's the indicator for you. And in modern aviation exactly the same thing. There are too many factors affecting the outcome of the battle that do not depend on the fighter and its pilot. There are other examples. When our Mi-24V attack helicopter shot down the F-4 Phantom-2 fighter. Using, according to various data, the UR R-60M or the B8V20 and USPU-24 installations. An unprecedented case in the history of aviation! Does this mean that the F-4 Phantom-2 fighter is completely bad and useless? Not at all. It just happened that way. War consists of such accidents.

 

[GregoryUSSR]

The SR-71 definitively is much more sophisticated and faster than the MiG-25, but it was much more expensive and very difficult to manufacture, by being Heavy and flying fast it did not turn well it was not agile, it basicaly flew straight.

Not much. The maximum speed of the fastest modification of the MiG-25 is 3340 km/h. With SR-71 is more difficult. There is data about 3529 km / h, but this is not a design speed, but the maximum achieved during tests. The MiG-25 also gave more on tests. In aviation, not like in cars, for example. There is a maximum structural speed at which reliable flight is ensured (3340km/h for the MiG-25) and there is simply a maximum speed that could be squeezed out with gas to the floor (3529km/h for the SR-71). As an example, the Mi-24 attack helicopter. The maximum structural speed is 320km/h. And the maximum achieved speed is 358km/h.