First Russian Supersonic Aircraft 'VTOL'

[ElectroSoldier]

An interesting photo story from EnglishRussia site.

Not seen any news of this bird before this article!

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2011/03...sonic-aircraft/

[Paolo Maglio]

it never entered in service, old project from early '90s.

[mingwin]

yeah, only 2 prototypes where produce.

this one... and the other one that was crashed/destroyed...

had read somewhere that LM had paid Yakovlev bureau for acessing informations on that aircraft, for the f-35b program.

Edited March 30, 2011 by mingwin

[loftycomfort]

Looks like the VTOL F-35 has some Russian DNA in it.

BTW, "Freestyle" is probably one of the least deragtory call signs NATO assigned to Russian fighters. This, and the Flanker.

Terry

[Trigger]

Really old news. First flight was 1987. LockMart was to fund $385 to $400 million for three new prototypes (that itself was 20 years ago, I remember reading about that in Aviation Leak back in the mid-90s). And yes, it's probably very safe to say that the F-35B has some Yakovlev DNA in it.

[Mark M.]

Building on past lessons doesn't mean it has Yak DNA in it. It means they know what worked and what didn't. Rather, with the Yak, they know what didn't. They had much easier access to the Harrier data as well, with a much better idea of what to do that way.

IMO it only has yak DNA in as much as it has Wright Flyer DNA.

[MattC]

Little video about the Freestyle;

I remember seeing one of the prototypes at Farnborough 1992.

Quite an impressive machine.

On the subject of "russian DNA", there are a limited number of solutions to a mission spec, the thrust vectoring nozzles a la Harrier are not suitable for what the F-35 needs to do, so you gotta do it one way or another. This happens to be a fairly good way.

[Dndieje]

I love this Russian stuff, great plane.

If I remember correctly the Yak-41 wasn't a very welcome visitor at air displays.

It kept blowing holes in the tarmac doing its VTOL routine

[spejic]

Really old news.

Yeah, but the web site itself is great and has some nice photos I've never seen before.

[T0M4ever]

Excessive waste of fuel, quite low carrying capacity and transonic speed – all these disadvantages paled in comparison with the desire to have these fighters aboard the ship. At the same time, they couldn’t be used in fighting against supersonic planes as they were initially doomed to failure.

Ummmm . . . pretty sure the Sea Harrier kicked arse in dogfights.

[Flankerman]

The Mirage IIIV VTOL aircraft also went supersonic.... (from Wiki).....

The TF104 engine was quickly replaced by an upgraded TF106 engine, with thrust of 74.5 kN (16,750 lbf), before the first prototype made its initial transition to forward flight in March 1966. It later attained Mach 1.32 in test flights.

But the VJ-101C was first....... (Wiki)

On July 29, 1964 the VJ 101 C flew at Mach 1.04 without use of an afterburner

The Yak-41 was the third VTOL to go supersonic..... (Wiki)

The Yakovlev team had input to the F-35......

The partnership began in late 1991, though it was not publicly revealed by Yakovlev until 6 September 1992, and was not revealed by Lockheed-Martin until June 1994.[1]

The two Yak-41 prototypes still exist..... (photographed in 2009)

One at the Zadorozhny museum Clicky and Clicky ....

The other is at Monino.... (photographed in 2008)

Ken

[frankv74]

If you look at it hard enough you will see that it resembles a F-35.... A point less fight that we really don't need. The Russians figured it out why can't the Americans

[Flankerman]

It also has basically the same lift system as the F-35B - a horizontally-mounted main engine with a translating nozzle and fixed, front-mounted vertical-thrust engine(s).

On the Yak-41 the front thrust came from two vertically-mounted RKBM RD-41 turbojets 41.7 kN (9,300 lbf) thrust each), the main engine being a MNPK Soyuz R-79V-300 lift/cruise turbofan with a dry thrust: 108 kN (24,300 lbf) and, with afterburner: 152 kN (34,170 lbf

On the F-35B, the fixed front turbojets are replaced by a shaft-driven fan - so both design 'hover' on the thrust from the translating exhaust of the main engine plus the front-mounted jets/fan.

In both designs, the front 'engine' is just so much dead weight to be carried around during conventional flight - something that the Harrier design was not burdened with.

Although the Harrier did need more thrust for VTOL than it needed for conventional flight - so I guess it too was carrying around a bigger engine.

Ken

PS - The proposed Yak-41M/43 was even closer to the X-35.....

[Tailspin Turtle]

The front fan on the F-35B makes a notable difference in hover capability compared to a lift-jet approach or even the Harrier-type configuration. It is much more efficient than a jet engine in providing hover thrust and can also be used for pitch control in a hover. The X-35 could hover at Edwards, 2,600 feet above sea level; the X-32 (Harrier-type approach) could barely hover at sea level, even when somewhat stripped. The use of the fan for hover, as opposed to an all-jet engine approach, also means that the engine can be better sized for the up-and-away requirement.

[Flankerman]

I agree with you that the fan is better than the lift jets - but the Yaks jets could also be used for pitch control by increasing/decreasing their thrust.

But the bottom line with all the lift jet/lift fan designs is that for 90% of the flight they are just so much dead weight.

The nearest best solution appears to be the VJ-101 - where the rotating wingtip jets were used in both hover and forward flight.

If they could have then replaced the two pure lift jets in the forward fuselage with a rear translating nozzle type arrangement - then ALL the lift engines could have been used in both vertical and horizontal flight - no wasted weight.

Of course, as in every aviation design since the Wright Flyer, everything is a compromise.

Ken