Only one left
The choice of the Soviet main deck aircraft - almost a detective story. To understand it, you need to decide what is the main deck aircraft. To do this, you need to answer, but what is the Soviet aircraft carrier and what tasks it solves. In the US, an aircraft carrier is primarily a strike ship, where fighters play a secondary role of anti-aircraft cover. The basis of the grouping is the two wings of attack attack aircraft and attack aircraft.
In the USSR, the aircraft carrier was assigned the role of a giant air defense ship with the main task of protecting ship formations from air attacks. First of all - the deployment area of submarine missile carriers in the Arctic Ocean. Why - don't ask us. Although, to be fair, work has begun on a deck modification of our main Su-25 attack aircraft. The development of the missing deck elements was also carried out. aviation: Yak-44E rescue helicopters and early warning radars (AWACS), ideologically repeating the American Hokai E-2C. But the main intrigue was which of the two planes - the Su-27 or MiG-29 - would occupy the main place on the aircraft carrier. The American aircraft carrier has a displacement of about 90 tons and can carry about 000 aircraft. In its original form, the Soviet project provided a standard displacement of 100 tons (it was determined by the size of the largest slipway of the Black Sea Shipbuilding Plant in Nikolaev) and 55 aircraft on board (000 Su-52, 18 MiG-27 and 18 Ka-29 helicopters, including three helicopter radar patrols and two search and rescue). The MiG-16K was to defend our ships from an air attack in the near zone and destroy enemy surface ships, and the Su-27K was to provide air defense at distant frontiers. But later it was decided to reduce the number of types of aircraft on the deck - as a result, the fighter had to be left alone.
Logically, the multipurpose MiG-29 had to win, because it is smaller, which is very important for the deck plane. In order to defeat a competitor, the Su-27 made folding wings. The MiG responded in the same way, keeping the leadership in compactness. “Dry”, trying to reduce the size, constantly shifted the axis of folding of the wing to the fuselage, until they began to cling the hangar deck ceiling with the ends of the folded wings. Considered options and with completely exotic schemes with two axes of folding. It was even proposed to leave an unfolded wing with the keels laid out in a horizontal position, which made it possible to store airplanes one above the other on racks in the form of a giant sandwich! But in the end, the wing was folded, and so much so that, following it, the protruding horizontal plumage had to be folded! During the tests on the deck of the "Admiral Kuznetsov" boarded and Su-27, and MiG-29, and even Su-25. Nevertheless, Su-27 won, primarily due to the strong penetration qualities of Sukhoi General Designer Mikhail Simonov. Just note that the Indians chose the MiG-29 for their aircraft carrier.
Video: Su-27K (Su-33)
Decker aircraft development is not limited to the simple installation of a wing folding mechanism and a brake hook. In fact, the whole car is redesigned again. This is primarily due to the hardening of the aircraft due to the growth of landing loads. An ordinary aircraft approaches the landing (glide path level) at an angle of 3 °, followed by alignment to almost 0 °, the deckboard - at an angle of 4 ° without alignment, which means a greater vertical descent rate in 2 – 3. Specialists have a more accurate term - shock landing. So that after it the plane does not fall apart, it is necessary to strengthen its entire frame, as well as to make other chassis - even in the photographs it can be seen that they are visually larger than the standard ones. Nasal rack deck Su-27K two-wheeled instead of the standard one-wheeled. Need to strengthen the engine nacelle. The list can be continued indefinitely. The logical result is an increase in take-off weight. In order to somehow maintain the take-off characteristics, we had to install horizontal forward plumage - for the first time on a serial Soviet car; increase wing mechanization — instead of flapperon, install a two-section single-slotted (with increased deflection angle up to 45 °) flap and hanging aileron. As a result, even the heavier car went off the ramp at the speed of 147 – 149 km / h without drawdown.
Despite the fact that the tanks were located even in the turning parts of the wing, there was not enough fuel for a long patrol - the Su-27K, for the first time in the Su-27 family, the air refueling bar became standard equipment. As a result, according to aircraft designers, “the plane turned out to be gorgeous”.
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