Posted on 08/30/2017 6:31:23 PM PDT by Rebelbase
Russia are claiming their new MiG-41 will be able to reach space and even potentially operate without a pilot, according to the CEO of the MiG corporation working on the project.
The new fighter will, the company say, be a spiritual successor of MiG-31, MiG Corporation CEO Ilya Tarasenko stated, shedding some light on the interceptor under development.
“The development is at the stage of finalizing the image of the plane. It will be a gradual transition from MiG-31 to PAK DA” Tarasenko said in an interview on Russian TV.
The jet, he said, will not be just a modernisation of MiG-31, it will be an entirely new machine, having “the ability to operate in space, new weapons, new speeds, new operational range” Tarasenko told Zvezda TV channel on Tuesday.
“It will be an entirely new plane, where entirely new technologies to operate in the Arctic zone will be utilised. This plane will safeguard the whole border of our homeland. Later, the project will become unmanned.”
Not much information is available apart from the statement that such an aircraft is planned for development, no official data is available as to the planes capabilities.
It is speculated that it will not enter service until at least mid-2020s. As an interceptor, its primary mission is rumoured to offset future reconnaissance aircraft currently being developed by the United States of America and China.
To achieve the high speeds rumoured for the aircraft, the aircraft would need to be equipped with ramjet engines.
It’s gonna take a lot longer for it to crash.
They haven’t even finished the image of the plane?
In the same sense that we have been able to launch ASAT rockets from F-16s for a couple decades.
Their defense budget is a fraction of ours. So they’re either magicians or liars.
Mach 4, sub-orbital?
Gonna be one helluva good act at the Paris Airshow waiting for the ejection seat to become visible to the naked eye.
Tradition.
Pretty sure it was the F-15 that was the ASAT platform. F-16 is too small.
Whoops! Right you are!
Their tech IS impressive but this sounds like vaporware.
So it will carry a separate Oxidizer tank?
In space?
Mach 4 means 4 times the speed of sound.
There is no sound in space.
So no Mach 4 in space, I would conclude.
Trying to read this makes my head hurt.
At least the non-black program was.
I believe them.
Russia can build air frames and engines, they can go fast.
I’m not buying this horsesh*t.
Cool. Will it be invisible to radar? ;)
“Their defense budget is a fraction of ours. So they’re either magicians or liars.”
Except they don’t have to do R&D. We do that for them..
Have they learned to make HIGH precision bearings yet for their jet engines? I lost track after MiG-23, but the problem at that time, when Lt. Belenko defected to Japan with a 23, and left us examine it, was, as he told us: You can only operate the engine at full throttle for a specified number of seconds. Beyond that limit the bearings are shot and the engine needs rebuilt. So I’d guess they’re liars.
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