• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

PFI 1971 - March - First Commission Meeting

By early 1971, the issue of holding a competition for the PFI has been agreed with all stakeholders in the MAP, and other departments and tabled in the MIC. Meeting of the Commission, which considered the issue, was held 03 March 1971. Its outcome was the first official document on the work on the PFI - MIC decision, which, inter alia, stated: "The Commission adopted MoD proposals MAP, MRP, MOS and MM to develop a pilot project promising fighter aircraft designed for air superiority when armed with a potential enemy now projected fighters and destroying manned and unmanned IOS and combat support other types of aircraft in wartime conditions.

The Commission requested that MAP in conjunction with MCI and MOSFETs to ensure the development of advance projects of this fighter, the engine for him and weaponry systems, navigation and piloting ... and in the III quarter. 1971 to present the preliminary design of Defense for joint consideration.

The development of advance projects to perform on a competitive basis:

Aircraft - forces

1. MMZ "Speed" (Gen. designer Yakovlev.),
2. MMZ "Zenith" (Gen. constructor Belyakov)
3. M3 "Pendant" (Gen designer Sukhoi)

engines - M3 forces

1. "Saturn" (Gen Designer - Arkhip Lyulka)
2. MMZ "Union" (Gen Designer - S. Tumansky)
3. KB Motors (Gen designer t Solovyov)

It is interesting to note that according to the Decision of the defense industry, to participate in the competition advance projects involved not only the developers of the aircraft, but also engine ["dvigatelisty"], but other than that was supposed to advance projects for consideration and set of tools on-board equipment. The set deadline for submission of materials - 3rd quarter of 1971.

As expected, based on the decisions of the MIC, there was published to accompany the departmental order of MAP of 18 March, according to which the deadline for the submission of advance projects for developers has been appointed to the September 1, 1971. This was followed by the conclusion to get to them the relevant head SRI MAP, and the deadline until 25 September to conduct a review of all submissions to the Scientific and Technical Council (STC), MAP, and then ordered by the due date to present them to the customer to be considered jointly.

MIC Decision stipulated that projects aircraft should be based on a single TTP, a draft of which was prepared in advance and coordinated with all concerned authorities. Deputy Air Force Commander, M.N.Misha approved this document on 1 March and on 9 March 1971 it agreed to the Deputy Commander of Air Defence, Lieutenant-General ND Grebennikov, then TTZ officially sent by EDO.

According to the memoirs of Sukhoi employees who had direct relevance to the work on the preliminary design stage, unlike other cases where there were quite "raw", poorly-designed TTZ, in this case, the document was drawn up very well. The explanation is quite simple: before this time TTZ came to the Sukhoi Design Bureau, at the stage of preliminary agreement with him already serious enough "work" Designer of the other organizations, in particular, of the Mikoyan design bureau, where he got out of the STC Air Force.

According to the TTP, the main purpose was to develop front-line fighter air superiority by destroying manned and unmanned existing and future air attack, air reconnaissance and enemy fighters, as well as providing fighting other types of aircraft in wartime conditions. At the same time separately it stipulated that must be provided by the aircraft used as interceptor of air defense forces of the country.

The main air targets for PFI were determined:

• F-15 aircraft, "Mirage-F.1", MRCA, F-4, F-111, F-14;
• Strategic bombers such as FB-111, B-1 and reconnaissance-type SR-71;
• Cruise missiles "air-ground" type "Hound Dog", "Blue Steel", SCAM and tactical unmanned aerial vehicles;
• Airplanes and helicopters of military transport aircraft.

The was the following:

TTZ	level of performance (LTH)
Maximum speed of horizontal flight, km / h
at the ground	1500
at	2700
duty time in the air at a distance of 100 km from the airport, taking into account the 5-minute dogfight	1.0 hours
Ceiling,	21-22 km
Practical flight range (without PTB), km:
at the ground	1000
at	2500
thrust-weight ratio on the rise,	at least 1.1
Maximum operational overload,	units 9-10
Takeoff run,	m 500-600
The path length,	m 600
Acceleration time, sec, not more,
from the speed of 600 km/h to 1,100 km/h	12-13
speed from 1,100 km/h to 1,300 km/h	6

The remark of O.S.Samoilovych in the formation of the requirements for this section was, "the military, without further ado, let's go the easiest way: requirements TPFI they made simply by translation requirements for the F-15 to improve by an average of 10%. For example, if the range at the height of an internal fuel capacity (without external fuel tanks) for the F-15 is 2300 km, from the TPFI required distance of 2500 km. Or, for example, the acceleration time from 600 to 1300 km / h for the F-15 was no more than 20 sec was set to us -. 17 or 18 ".

But in general, in TTP were quite wisely placed the emphasis on the main points: on the aircraft destination (on air superiority orientation), on ways and methods to ensure this superiority (due to the high level J1TX and specific characteristics: a high thrust-weight ratio, high operational overload etc.). They correctly identified the many that were critical to ensure technology aircraft programs (new engines with high specific characteristics in traction and fuel costs, the need to create new equipment and weapons, etc.).

However, in the TTP were present and obvious anachronisms in the form of an overvalued level of individual LTH (maximum speed of 2700 km / h) or requirements to ensure deployment on airfields with low soil strength, as well as the requirements for multi-functional equipment and weapons, which clearly went against the main declared purpose of the aircraft.

The proposed structure of all major systems of the PFI target hardware was painted with fine detail in the TTZ. All equipment is grouped according to types of complexes: basic navigation system, basic aerobatic complex set of basic mapping information, etc. For example, as part of a basic package of arms provided for surveillance and attack system (OPS), which would consist essentially of two separate subsystems: a long-range and melee. In turn, long-ops would include radar with equipment identification and surveillance and tracking and melee - range riflescope, laser rangefinder, and two separate television viewfinder for monitoring PPP and LPP.

The rationale in this case is the requirement on the implementation of PFI integrated OPS, including, in addition to radar, another independent news channel in the form teplopelengator. In this regard, it is interesting to note that the requirement for installation on domestic fighter planes teplopelengator as an additional means of detection purposes put forward quite a long time, but to the general hardware implementation, it came only in the late 1960s. By this time the CDB "Geophysics" MOS (chief designer - D.M.Horoll) managed to create a workable sample Infrared search and track teplopelengator rangefinder that under the designation TP-23 has been installed on the MiG-23M and Su-24. Thus, it was the CB head in the USSR developer of laser sighting systems, and that he was to become a creator teplopelengator for PFI.

Requirements for the onboard radar, as the main information channel was allocated in a separate section TTZ. In addition to the required level for detection range performance, here separately to make demands on the need for multi-mode radar operation, such as simultaneous support of multiple targets (up to 8), and missile guidance (2 targets). Such a serious military detail requirements particular to the radar was his explanation.

By the end of the 1960s, based on the tactics of US air operations in Vietnam and Israel in the Middle East, as well as the experience of the major annual NATO exercise in Western Europe clearly outlined the basic principles of the likely opponent tactical strike aircraft. One of them is to move into action at low and extremely low altitudes, which greatly hampered the interception and destruction of the attacking group to the other side, because while dramatically decreased as the target detection range ground radars and targeting opportunities.

This threat was promptly evaluated in the USSR, but to find an adequate response to parry it was a matter that was not easy. The problem was that the existing airborne radar interceptor fighters (both domestic and foreign), were predominantly single-pulse and did not have detection capabilities and selection of aerial targets flying below the support (on the ground background) as "Clogged" with the interference from the underlying ground surface.

Another important direction of development of airborne radar was to provide a multi-mode operation as in the detection and tracking of targets and missiles guidance. To solve all these problems it was necessary to develop a fundamentally new radar instalations. It was clear that the next generation of airborne radar was a pulse-Doppler, because only use of "Doppler effect" allows moving target were selected against the background of the earth. Simultaneously, it was necessary to ensure the transition to digital signal processing, i.e. required to implement a part of the radar digital computers (CVM). The new generation of American fighters was equipped with such stations, and thus to counter them as required to develop an "adequate response".

In the USSR, the end of the 1960s all the developers on-board radar for fighter aircraft were collected "under one roof" - in the NGO "Fazotron" (CEO - YN Figurovsky) MCI. Thus, this organization has been identified as the major creator of weapons control system for PFI.