Week of December 8, 1997

Russian Fighter Tales: The Yak-141 and the MiG-29SMT

By Vovick Karnozov

The Yak-141

Yakovlev terminated this project back in 1992 due to the lack of funding. The Russian Navy - the customer - lost interest in the Yak-141 because the Kiev-class carriers were withdrawn. Yakovlev tried to get India to fund the project, but without success. The Russian Air Force did not see a reason to support the fighter either.

First flown on 9 March 1987 from the ground and then in September 1991 from the deck of the carrier, Admiral Gorshkov, the Yak-141 had two prototypes one of which soon sustained severe damage during a deck landing. The accident was attributed to the so-called "suck down" effect. After some restoration, the plane was brought to the Yakovlev design bureau property in Moscow where it now stands in deplorable condition with wings detached. The second prototype flew at Farnborough '92 and either at MAKS' 93 or MAKS' 95. It is either airworthy now or could be put into that condition easily.

Although the development prototypes performed rather well, out of their flight test program emerged a more advanced design, the Yak-141M. Due to the lack of funding the design was shelved, though. In 1992/93 Lockheed contracted Yakovlev on some work pertaining to short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft studies in reference to the JAST (JSF) project. Yakovlev shared its STOVL technologies with the US company for several dozen million dollars.

Former Yakovlev employees accuse Yakovlev heads of taking personal interest out of the deal with Lockheed, because the official sum of the contract did not correspond with the value of the information presented to the US company. The data was on the Yak-141 test program, aerodynamics and design features, including the design of the R-79 engine nozzles.

After a careful study of those materials, Lockheed - without much noise - changed its initial JSF proposal, including a design of the engine nozzles that is now very similar to those of the Yak-141.

Yakovlev is suffering heavily from the lack of funding so there are no resources to develop the STOVL aircraft concept any further. The Navy now operates only one carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, with conventional take-off/landing Su-27K (Su-33) fighters, needing no STOVL planes in the Yak-38/Yak-141/Harrier class.

Mikoyan Flies the MiG-29SMT

The plane seems to have made history three months before its maiden flight. At MAKS'97 in August, while standing at static display, it attracted the attention of President Yeltsin, who sat in its cockpit for ten minutes, encircled by Mikoyan and Russian Avionics specialists. On 3 September, only a week after the show, Russian Avionics head Mikhail Korzhuev was appointed general director of ANPK "MiG".

In interviews with Russian publications, Korzhuev tries to separate himself from Aleksandr Bezrukov (ex-chairman of VPK MAPO), Vladimir Kuzmin (ex-general director of the MAPO factory) and other VPK MAPO leaders recently fired from their positions. "None of the tasks set at the time of the VPK MAPO foundation have been solved," he says. "More than that, nobody even bothered to try to solve them." Korzhuev blames former Mikoyan top managers of being unable to sell any new MiGs abroad in 1996 and 1997.

In 1995, there was no indication of the MiG-29's inability to satisfy foreign customers. That year, Dementiev's MAPO factory of Moscow and Sokol Aircraft Plant of Nizhny Novgorod sold 36 MiG-29s to three countries for $1 billion, including 18 to Malaysia, 10 to India and 8 to Slovakia. In 1995 and 1994 the sales were 22 and 12 fighters respectively, worth a total of $1 billion.

What was the main cause to the MiG-29's market failure in 1996 and 1997? Some specialists say there were inadequate upgrades introduced into the production model after it entered mass production back in 1982, when it was regarded the world's best for high thrust-to-weight ratio (1.09), rate of climb (330m/s) and turn (23.5 degree/sec). But during the middle of the 90's those characteristics were not enough - potential customers are unhappy with the MiG-29SE's short combat range (1,500 km without drop fuel tanks) and inadequate efficiency against ground targets.

These weaknesses became apparent several years ago, and the Russian defence ministry decided to revise its aircraft-procurement plans in favor of the upgraded Sukhoi Su-27. Another important factor in the Su-27 victory was that the ministry simply could not afford the development of two different type of fighters. As a result Mikoyan lost state financing for the MiG-29M multirole aircraft (also referred to as the MiG-33) and the MiG-29K deck fighter.

The MiG-29M, first flown in prototype form (Aircraft 156) in late 1989, boasted four major improvements - larger fuel tanks for greater range (2,000 km without drop tanks), more powerful engines (each with 8,800 kgf instead of 8,300), bigger weapons load (4,500 kg on nine hardpoints instead of 2,000 on six) and a new avionics suite. The latter included a digital flight control system and the Zhuk radar, "0010," from Phazatron company. Developed for the Su-27, it operates in "air-to-air" and "air-to-surface" modes, providing aiming for the R27R, R27T, RVV-AE and R73 air-to-air and X31A anti-ship missiles and terrain-mapping. The MiG-29's original radar, the H019 Topaz (also referred to as the RP-29), has a smaller acquisition range (60-70 instead of 80 km for a fighter) and works only in "air-to-air" mode.

Even though state financing for the MiG-29M was terminated, Mikoyan has continued research and development work in the directions set by this project. The MiG aircraft sold to India and Malaysia in 1995 had the H019M radar, a modification of the H019 with a detection range of 80 km and two-target aiming capability. In October 1997, the Royal Malaysian Air Force awarded VPK MAPO a $34.44 million contract for upgrade of its 18 MiG-29SEs, which would seemingly include installation of in-flight refuelling systems and modification work on the radars to make them able to aim Vympel RVV-AE beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles at several targets.

At Paris '95 Mikoyan showed the MiG-29SM multirole fighter, able to deploy the 175-kg RV-AEE air-to-air missile, 700-kg X-29T air-to-ground missile and 500-kg KAB-500KR guided bomb. The weapons load for this model is 4,000 kg. The company says the MiG-29SM is almost equal with the Lockheed Martin F-16C on an "efficiency/fly-away cost ratio" in air-to-ground missions (1.0 to 1.02), exceeding the US rival in aerial combat (1.0 to 0.87).

In early 1996, Mikoyan completed flight testing of the in-flight refuelling system on the MiG-29. In summer 1997, Anatoly Belosvet, ANPK "MiG" deputy general designer, said the aircraft was further modified to carry the X-31P anti-radar and X-31A anti-ship missiles. The MiG-29SMT shown at MAKS '97 and just flown (Aircraft 9-17), has a new cockpit with two multifunctional liquid-crystal displays, an improved radar with terrain-mapping capability and bigger fuel capacity (its range with drop tanks rose from 2,900 to 3,500 km).

It is understood that Aircraft 9-17 would be used as an avionics and weapons demonstrator for the MiG-35 light multirole fighter, a next step in the evolution of the MiG-29. The new aircraft will have engines with thrust-vectoring nozzles and state-of-the-art avionics. According to Boris Bondarev, the director of the Institute of Light Alloys (VILS), the MiG-35's airframe will weigh 20% less than that of its predecessor thanks to wide usage of aluminium-lithium alloys.

The aircraft will have the Phazatron RP-35 radar with phased-array antenna instead of the slotted one on the MiG-29M's "0010." In comparison with "0010," the RP-35 has a range of 140 km instead of 80 km, tracks 24 targets simultaneously instead of ten and aims missiles at four targets instead of two. MAPO people say the MiG-35 will be four to five times more efficient than the original MiG-29.

Belosvet promises to show the MiG-35 first prototype at Farnborough '98. Creation of this "four-plus generation fighter," however, will not mean the end of the career for the MiG-29. Korzhuev explains, "The foreign market is getting smaller day by day, whereas the Russian defence ministry cannot afford to purchase newly-built aircraft to renew the aging Air Force inventory. That is why we focus on upgrade programs on aircraft in service both in Russia and abroad."

Since 1983, over 1,300 MiG-29s have been built and are now in the arsenals of 22 nations. According to Korzhuev, 800 early-version MiG-29s are still in active service, needing modernisation to remain competitive with modern Western fighters. Upon request from owner countries, these old MiGs can be fitted with improved radars with terrain-mapping and multi-target aiming capabilities. This measure would allow them to be used effectively against both aerial and ground targets, and perform pinpoint strikes with precision munitions.

Korzhuev believes that the MiG-29's development potential is huge, and that in modified form it will not lose to either the Eurofighter or the Rafale. As the head of Russian Avionics company, he participated in avionics upgrade programs on the Malaysian, German and Slovakian MiG-29s, and then in the creation of the new cockpit for the MiG-29SMT fighter on the funds of the MAPO bank.

Speaking about the "liquidity" of the MiG-29 on the market, it is good to mention three recent deals involving second-hand airframes. South Yemen obtained several planes from a former socialist country during the war with North Yemen. Then, in 1996, Peru acquired 18 aircraft from Belarus at $10-11 million a piece (MAPO MiG offered Peru new airplanes for $24 million a piece). This year, the MiG-29 Owners Club was joined by the US, which purchased over twenty old airframes from Moldova.

Meantime, MAPO MiG has been in negotiations with several countries on deliveries of new MiG-29 fighters and modernisation of older versions sold earlier. Slovakia, for instance, is considering both delivery and upgrade options. Bulgaria is being offered a comprehensive $450 million deal on supplying 14 MiG-29SM multirole aircraft on credit for three years, and setting up a maintenance base at the aircraft repair plant in Plovdiv. Among other counties interested in MiGs are the Philippines and Hungary.

Mikoyan says that latest market studies reveal that market demand for light fighters in the MiG-29/MiG-35 class will be much higher than for heavy multirole combat aircraft like the Sukhoi Su-30. If so, the company will have opportunities to add to the current figure of 6,000 MiGs exported overseas.

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