Su-47 "Golden Eagle" - an experimental multi-role fighter
Aircraft description
At the end of September 1997 of the year stories domestic aviation a historic event happened - the flight of a new experimental aircraft, the Su-47 "Golden Eagle", which could become the prototype of a fifth-generation domestic fighter, took place. A ravenous black bird with a white nose, torn off from the concrete of the airfield runway in Zhukovsky, quickly disappeared into the gray Moscow sky, announcing with the thunder of its turbines the beginning of a new stage in the biography of Russian fighter aircraft.
Research on the appearance of the fifth-generation fighter began in our country, as in the United States, in the middle of 1970, when the fourth-generation vehicles, SU-27 and MiG-29, took only their first steps. New aircraft should have a significantly higher combat potential than their predecessors. The work involved leading industry research centers and design bureaus. Together with the customer, the main provisions of the concept of the new fighter were gradually formulated - multifunctionality, i.e. high efficiency in the defeat of air, ground, surface and underwater targets, the presence of a circular information system, the development of cruising flight modes at supersonic speeds. It was also envisaged to achieve a cardinal reduction in aircraft visibility in the radar and infrared ranges, combined with the transfer of onboard sensors to passive methods of obtaining information, as well as to enhanced stealth modes. It was supposed to integrate all available information tools and create onboard expert systems.
The fifth generation aircraft should have the ability to carry out an all-round attack on targets in close combat, as well as to conduct multichannel rocket shooting while conducting combat at long range. Provided automation control onboard information and jamming systems; increased combat autonomy due to the installation of a tactical situation indicator in the cockpit of a single-seater aircraft with the possibility of mixing information (i.e., simultaneous output and interposition of images from various sensors on a single scale), as well as the use of telecode information exchange systems with external sources. The aerodynamics and onboard systems of the fifth-generation fighter should have provided the ability to change the angular orientation and the trajectory of the aircraft without any noticeable delays, without requiring strict coordination and coordination of the movements of the governing bodies. The aircraft was required to "forgive" gross piloting errors in a wide range of flight conditions.
The prospective aircraft was planned to be equipped with an automated control system at the level of solving tactical tasks, which has an expert mode "to help the pilot."
One of the most important requirements for the fifth-generation Russian fighter was "super-maneuverability" - the ability to maintain stability and control at 900 and more attack angles. It should be noted that the "super-maneuverability" initially appeared in the requirements for the fifth-generation American fighter, which was created, almost simultaneously with the Russian machine, under the ATF program. However, later on, the Americans, faced with an intractable task of combining low visibility, supersonic cruising speed and “super-maneuverability” in one plane, were forced to sacrifice the latter (the maneuverable capabilities of the American ATF / F-22 fighter probably only approach the level achieved on the modernized aircraft Su-27 equipped with thrust vector control system). The refusal of the US Air Force to achieve super-maneuverability was motivated, in particular, by the rapid improvement of aircraft armament: the emergence of highly maneuverable all-round missiles, helmet-mounted target designation systems and new homing heads made it possible to abandon the mandatory entry into the rear hemisphere of the enemy. It was assumed that air combat would now be conducted at medium ranges with a transition to a maneuverable stage only as a last resort, “if something is done wrong”.
However, in the history of military aviation, they have repeatedly refused to maneuver near air combat, but later theoretical calculations were refuted by life - in all armed conflicts (with the exception, perhaps, of a fake “Storm in the Desert”) fighters that fought at long ranges, as a rule, they transferred it to smaller distances and often completed the marking of a gun burst, rather than a rocket launch. The situation is quite predicted when improving the EW facilities, as well as reducing the radar and thermal visibility of fighters, will lead to a drop in the relative effectiveness of long-range and medium-range missiles. In addition, even when conducting long-range rocket combat using both sides weapons approximately equal opportunities, the advantage will be enjoyed by the enemy, who will be able to quickly orient his fighter towards the target, which will make it possible to make fuller use of the dynamic capabilities of his missiles. Under these conditions, it is of particular importance to achieve the highest angular velocities of unsteady turn both at subsonic and supersonic speeds. Therefore, the requirement of super-maneuverability for the fifth-generation Russian fighter, despite the complexity of the problem, remained unchanged.
As one of the solutions that provide the required maneuverability, the use of the backward swept wing was considered. Such a wing, which provides certain layout advantages compared to a straight swept wing, was attempted to be used in military aviation in the 1940 years.
The first jet aircraft with a backward-swept wing was the German Junkers Ju-287 bomber. The machine, which made the first flight in February 1944, was designed for a maximum speed of 815 km / h. In the future, two experienced bomber of this type went to the USSR as trophies.
In the first post-war years, our own studies of CBS as applied to high-speed maneuverable aircraft were conducted in our country. In the year 1945, on the instructions of the LII, the designer P.Tsibin began to design experimental gliders designed to test the aerodynamics of promising fighters. The glider gained altitude, towed by an airplane, and for acceleration to transonic speeds he swooped, including a powder accelerator. One of the gliders, LL-3, which was put to the test in the 1947 year, had a forward swept wing and reached the speed of 1150 km / h (M = 0,95).
However, at that time it was not possible to realize the advantages of such a wing, since CBS turned out to be particularly susceptible to aerodynamic divergence, loss of static stability when reaching certain values of speed and angle of attack. Construction materials and technologies of that time did not allow to create a backward swept wing that has sufficient rigidity. The creators of combat aircraft returned to the reverse sweep only in the middle of the 1970-s, when in the USSR and the USA they blunted to work on studying the image of a fifth-generation fighter. The use of KOS made it possible to improve handling at low flight speeds and to improve aerodynamic efficiency in all areas of flight regimes. The backward-swept wing layout provided the best articulation of the wing and fuselage, as well as optimized pressure distribution on the wing and CIP. According to the calculations of American experts, the use of the reverse-swept wing on an F-16 type aircraft should have resulted in an increase in the angular speed of the turn by 14%, and a radius of action - by 34%, while the landing distance was reduced by 35%. The progress of the aircraft industry allowed to solve the problem of divergence through the use of composite materials with a rational arrangement of fibers, increasing the rigidity of the wing in predetermined directions.
However, the creation of CBS posed a number of complex tasks that could be solved only as a result of large-scale research. For these purposes, the Gruman X-29A aircraft was built in the United States by order of the BBC. The machine, which had an aerodynamic scheme "Duck", was equipped with a CBS with a sweeping angle 35╟ X-29A was a purely experimental machine and, of course, could not serve as a prototype for a real combat aircraft. In order to reduce the cost in its design, components and assemblies of serial fighters were widely used (the nose of the fuselage and the front landing gear — from F-5A, the main chassis — from F-16, etc.). The first flight of the experimental aircraft took place on December 14 1984 of the year. Before 1991, the two built machines performed a total of 616 flights. However, the X-29A program did not bring laurels to its initiators and is regarded in the US as unsuccessful: despite the use of the most modern construction materials, the Americans could not fully cope with the aerodynamic divergence, and the WWF was no longer considered an attribute of promising air force fighters and The US Navy (in particular, among the numerous layouts studied by the JSF program, there were no airplanes with a forward swept wing).
In fact, the only COS aircraft in the series was the American strategic Hughes cruise missile AGM-129 AFM, designed to arm B-52 bombers. However, in relation to this aircraft, the choice of the reverse-swept wing was due primarily to considerations of stealth: the radar radiation reflected from the leading edge of the wing was shielded by the rocket body.
Work on the formation of the image of a domestic maneuverable aircraft with KOS were conducted by the largest aviation research centers of the country - TsAGI and SibNIA. In particular, the TsAGI blasted a model of a KOS aircraft, made on the basis of the MiG-23 aircraft, and the layout of the SU-27 with a backward swept wing was studied in Novosibirsk. The existing scientific groundwork allowed Sukhoi OKW to take up the unprecedentedly difficult task of creating the world's first supersonic combat aircraft with a backward-swept wing. In 1996, a photo of a model of a promising fighter with KOS, demonstrated to the leadership of the Russian Air Force, hit the pages of the aviation press. Unlike the American X-29A, the new machine was made according to the "triplane" scheme and had two-fin vertical plumage. The presence of the brake hook suggested an idea about the possibility of a ship-based fighter. At the wingtips housed launchers of air-to-air missiles.
In the summer of 1997, the prototype of the fifth-generation fighter of the Sukhoi Design Bureau (as well as its “rival” MAPO-MIG, known as “1-42”) was already in the territory of Gromov LII in Zhukovsky. In September, high-speed taxiing began, and already 25 of the same month, the plane, which taught the Su-47 working index and the proud name "Berkut", piloted by test pilot Igor Votintsy, made its first flight. It should be noted that the Russian car fell behind its American rival - the first experienced Lockheed-Martin fighter F-22A Raptor (Eagle Imperial) only 18 days (Raptor performed its first flight September 7, September 14 it again took to the air, after which the flights were stopped until July of the 1998 of the year, and the F-22A was put up for revision).
Let's try to get an idea about the new aircraft of the Sukhoi Design Bureau, based on photographs of the prototype aircraft, as well as a few materials about the Su-47, published on the pages of the Russian and foreign press.
The "Berkut" is made according to the aerodynamic scheme "longitudinal integral triplane", which has become a proprietary feature of the aircraft of this OKV. The wing smoothly mates with the fuselage, forming a single carrier system. The layout features include developed wing overhangs, under which are placed unregulated air intakes of engines, having a cross-sectional shape close to the sector of a circle.
The airframe is made with extensive use of composite materials (KM). The use of advanced composites provides an increase in weight efficiency by 20-25%, a resource by 1,5-3,0 times, a material utilization rate up to 0,85, a reduction in labor costs for manufacturing parts by 40-60%, as well as obtaining the required thermophysical and radio characteristics. At the same time, experiments conducted in the United States under the F-22 program indicate a lower combat survivability of CFRP structures compared with structures made of aluminum and titanium alloys.
The wing of the fighter has a developed root part with a larger (right angle of 750) right angle of sweep along the leading edge and a cantilever part smoothly mated with it with reverse sweep (along the leading edge is of the order 200). The wing is equipped with flaperones, which occupy more than half of the span, as well as ailerons. Perhaps, in addition to the front, there are also rejectable socks (although the published photos of the Su-47 aircraft do not allow an unequivocal conclusion about their presence).
The full turning front horizontal tail (GIP) in a span of about 7,5 m has a trapezoidal shape. The sweep angle on the leading edge is of the order of 500. The rear horizontal tail of a relatively small area is also made of full turn, with a sweep angle on the front except for the order of 750. Its scope is about 8 m.
Two-fined vertical plumage with rudders is attached to the wing center-section and has a “camber” to the outside.
The cockpit light of the Su-47 is almost identical to the flashlight of the Su-27 fighter. However, on the model of the aircraft, the photo of which hit the pages of the foreign press, the lamp is made besperepletnym, as in the American "Raptor" (this improves the review, helps reduce radar visibility, but complicates the process of ejection).
The main one-wheel Su-47 chassis mounts are attached to the fuselage and retracted forward in flight with the wheels turning into niches behind the engine air intakes. The front two-wheeled support retracts into the fuselage forward in the direction of flight. The base of the chassis is approximately 8 m, the gauge is 4 m.
In the press, it was reported that the prototype was equipped with two engines D-30F6 of Perm NPO Aviadvigatel (2X15500 kgf, dry weight 2x2416 kg) used also on MiG-31 interceptor fighters. However, in the future, these TRDDFs will obviously be replaced by fifth-generation engines.
There is no doubt that the most up-to-date on-board equipment created by the domestic industry — the digital multichannel EDSU, the automated integrated control system, the navigation complex, which includes the INS on laser gyroscopes in combination with satellite navigation and the “digital map” that have already found application on such machines as Su-30MKI, Su-32 / 34 and Su-32FN / 34.
Probably, the aircraft is equipped (or will be equipped) with an integrated life support and ejection crew of a new generation.
To control the aircraft, as well as on the Su-47, it is likely that the lateral low-speed control knob and the strain gauge ore are used.
The location and dimensions of the antennas of borovoye radio-electronic equipment indicate the desire of designers to provide a circular view. In addition to the main radar located in the nose under the finned fairing, the fighter has two rear-view antennas installed between the wing and the engine nozzles. Socks of vertical plumage, wing overshoot and GIP are also probably occupied by antennas for various purposes (this is indicated by the white coloration characteristic of domestic radio transparent fairing).
Although there is no information about the airborne radar used on the Berkut aircraft, indirectly, the potential capabilities of the fifth-generation fighter jets, which can be created on the basis of the Su-47, can be judged from the information published in the open press about the radar The Phazotron association, being developed from 1992, for promising fighters. The station is designed to be placed in the nose of the "weight category" Su-35 / 47. It has a flat phased array antenna and works in the X-band. According to NGO representatives, the possibility of combining electronic and mechanical scanning is proposed for expanding the firing zone in the vertical and horizontal planes, which will increase the sector of the review of the radar on 600 in all directions. The detection range of air targets is 165-245 km (depending on their EPR). The station is capable of simultaneously accompanying 24 targets, ensuring the simultaneous use of rocket weapons against eight enemy aircraft.
The Berkut can also be equipped with an optical-location station located in the nose of the fuselage, in front of the canopy of the pilot's lantern. As on the SU-33 and SU-35 fighters, the station's fairing is shifted to the right, so as not to limit the review to the pilot. The presence of a fiber-optic station, which probably includes television, thermal imaging and laser equipment, as well as a rear-view radar, distinguishes the Russian car from the American F-22A counterpart.
In accordance with the canons of technology "stealth", most of the on-board armament of combat vehicles created on the basis of the "Berkut", obviously, will be placed inside the airframe. In conditions when the aircraft will operate in the airspace that does not have a powerful anti-aircraft missile cover and against an enemy that does not have modern fighters, it is permissible to increase the combat load by placing part of the armament on the external suspension nodes.
By analogy with the Su-35 and Su-47, it can be assumed that the new multifunctional machine will carry ultra-large and long-range air-to-air missiles, in particular SD, known as KS-172 (this two-stage missile capable of developing hypersonic speed and equipped with a combined homing system, capable of blowing aerial targets at a distance of more than 400 km). The use of such missiles is likely to require external targeting.
However, the main caliber of a promising fighter will obviously become medium range RVV-AE, having an active radar homing system and optimized for placement in aircraft cargo compartments (it has a small elongation wing and folding grid arms). NPO Vympel announced the launch of successful flight tests on the Su-27 aircraft of an improved version of this rocket, equipped with a heavy-duty ramjet engine (ramjet). The new modification has an increased range and speed.
As before, short-range air-to-air missiles should also be important in aircraft armament. The MAKS-97 showcased a new rocket of this class, the K-74, created on the basis of the UR P-73 and different from the last improved thermal homing system, having a target locking angle, increased from 80-900 to 1200. The use of a new thermal homing head (TGS) also made it possible to increase the maximum target destruction distance by 30% (to 40 km). The development of the K-74 began in the middle of 1980-X, and its flight tests began in the 1994 year. Currently, the rocket is ready for mass production.
In addition to creating an improved homing head for the K-74 SD, Vympel NPO is working on a number of other short-range missiles, also equipped with an engine thrust vector control system.
Probably, the 30-mm GS-301 cannon will be retained as part of the onboard armament of the promising fighters.
Like other domestic multi-purpose aircraft - Su-30MKI, Su-35 and Su-47, the new cars will obviously carry strike weapons - high-precision air-to-surface missile and air defense missiles for hitting ground and surface targets, as well as radar the adversary.
The capabilities of the defensive system, which can be installed on a promising fighter, can be judged by the exhibits shown at the MAKS-97 exhibition. In particular, Aviaconversion demonstrated a combined fake target (KLC) for protection against missiles with radar, thermal, and laser homing heads. Unlike passive protection equipment used in domestic and foreign combat aircraft, KLC is effective in all wave bands used in homing heads of air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles. KLC is a combustion zone formed away from the protected aircraft through the use of a directed jet of gases. A flammable liquid is introduced into the jet (in particular, it may be the fuel used by the aircraft engines), sprayed to obtain a fuel-gas mixture, which is then ignited. Burning is maintained for a specified period of time.
Thermal radiation of the burning zone is a false target for ammunition with a homing system operating in the infrared range. The spectral composition of the burning cloud is identical to the spectral composition of the radiation of the protected object (the same fuel is used), which does not allow the TGS to distinguish a false target by spectral features, and finding a false target at a fixed distance from the real object does not allow the TGS to select it by trajectory signs.
To protect against ammunition with a radar guidance system in the KLC, plasma-forming additives are used, leading to an increase in the reflection of radio waves from the combustion zone. Such additives form free electrons at the burning temperature. With their high concentration, the burning cloud reflects the radio waves as a metal body.
For the laser wavelength, fine powders of the substances of the working bodies of lasers are used. In the process of burning, they either emit electromagnetic waves at the same frequency at which the target illumination laser operates, or, without burning, are carried outside the limits of the combustion region and emit electromagnetic waves of the required range during the cooling process. The radiation power should correspond to the power of the signal reflected from the protected object when the laser is illuminated by the enemy. It is governed by the selection of substances added to the flammable liquid, and their quantity.
In a number of publications, without reference to the sources, published characteristics of the new aircraft. If they are true, then the "Golden Eagle", in general, is in the "weight category" of the Su-27 fighter and its modified versions. Advanced aerodynamics and thrust vector control system should provide advanced fighters to followers of the Su-47 with superiority in close-range, maneuverable air combat over all existing or predictable potential adversaries. All other fighters at a meeting with the Russian "Berkut" and the American "Eagle Tombstone" have very modest chances to return to their airfield. The laws of the arms race (which, of course, did not end after the "self-dissolution" of the USSR) are cruel.
At the time, the appearance of the battleship "Dreadnought" made obsolete all previously built armadillos. Stories are inherent in repetition.
Performance characteristics
Wingspan - 16,7 m
Aircraft length - 22,6 m
Parking height - 6,4 m
Take-off weight - 24000 kg
Top speed - 1670 km / h
Engine Type - 2 x D-30F6
Thrust - 2 x 15500 kgf
weaponry
possible installation 30-millimeter gun GSH-301.
SD for various purposes.
Modifications
no
Information