• Military Menu                       

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

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Sukhoi S-6 / S-60 interceptor

In 1961, in OKB-51 P.O. Sukhoi began the development of an improved version of the Su-15 (T-58) interceptor, called the T-60. And this, in turn, became the basis for the targeted modification of the S-60 (later - S-6), which was part of the modernization program of the Su-7 and was intended to strike ground targets in all weather conditions and at night. The design of the T-60 interceptor was not completed, and the OKB was supposed to take all measures in order to bring the fighter-bomber being created closer to the serial Su-15. In the general types of brigade, several aircraft layout options were created from various authors, more or less resembling an enlarged Su-15, but the project of Oleg Sergeyevich Samoilovich apparently advanced the farthest.

In his memoirs, he writes that he worked on his own version of the C-6 on a personal initiative on weekends and after the end of the working day. As a result, he was presented with four layout options.

The S-6 plane of Oleg Samoilovich was quite different from its prototype-Su-15. First of all, he became a two-seater and received, instead of a high-speed triangular, a highly-bearing trapezoidal wing of moderate sweep. This was due to the requirements of achieving high maneuverability, as well as short take-off and landing to ensure the possibility of basing on typical front-line aerodromes. The power plant was made up of two R-21 engines, and a powerful Orion radar and a terrain following system were installed in the nose of the fuselage. The armament of the aircraft was to include guided air-to-surface missiles of various types and bombs, the mass of which was doubled compared to the Su-7B and Yak-28 - the main front-line aircraft of the USSR. Moreover, the creation of new weapons was also envisaged for the new aircraft.

A lot of attention was supposed to be paid to the range - therefore, the parameter behind the lag of Soviet combat aircraft from their foreign "classmates" was especially great. To eliminate imbalance OKB-165 A.M.Lyulka (in 1965 renamed OKB Saturn) and OKB-51 P.O. Sukhoi was proposed to switch to the use of more economical dual-circuit engines, which in those years were already used on tactical combat aircraft of Western design. However, there were no lightweight turbofan engines in the USSR so far, besides with better cruising efficiency they were inferior to conventional turbofan engines in afterburner conditions, especially at low altitudes. Under pressure from the leadership of the State Committee on Aviation Engineering and representatives of the Air Force, they agreed on the use of a new generation twin-shaft single-circuit turbofan,

The S-6 variants of Samoilovich were distinguished by the layout of the air intake - with a vertical wedge of the Su-15 type, the dorsal fuselage, in which the experience of designing the power plant of the T-4 aircraft was taken into account (participation in this project of Samoilovich was also his personal initiative) and with a horizontal braking wedge. Typically, in such an OT, the wedge has an upper position, which ensures reliable operation of the engine at all, including large angles of attack, while maintaining high fuselage load-bearing properties - this is done on the vast majority of real structures.

But the option, officially legalized and chosen for further development, had an air intake with a lower position of the horizontal braking wedge (perhaps this is Samoilovich’s “know-how” - at least he used this rather rare solution on his T-4 layout projects). According to this version of C-6, a full-scale mock-up was built. Thanks to his perseverance, O.Samoilovich subsequently was appointed the head of this topic, although AM Polyak, Chief Designer of the Su-7 and Su-15 aircraft, was read to this position, the modification of which was considered a new machine.

After the Cuban crisis of 1962, Khrushchev’s faith in the indestructible power of the rocket shield ’reached its zenith. Under the influence of this, funding for other military branches continued to decline. And the aggravation of the internal party struggle completely distracted the top leadership from the urgent problems of the defense industry. This caused the pre-draft design phase of the S-6 aircraft to be dragged out very much - in order to advance such work in those years, it was necessary to regularly release all kinds of resolutions, orders, directions ... Without this, the topic went dead, and work on it was severely inhibited.

In 1963, a preliminary design was prepared and a full-scale mockup S-6 was built. The Air Force Commission reviewed the submitted materials and the layout of the aircraft, but further work on this topic was suspended due to the lack of obvious progress in the development of the PNS “Puma”. The defense of the layout and advance design of S-6 took place in 1963, but the S-60 theme was already considered unpromising. In the same year the Military Industrial Commission of the CPSU Central Committee decided to develop the T-58M fighter-bomber with the Puma all-weather aiming and navigation system based on the Su-15 air defense interceptor.