Russia to field MiG-31 replacement by 2020 - Commander.

Rian ^

[cunning_fish]

MOSCOW, April 11 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Air Force is hoping to receive a new long-range fighter-interceptor by 2020 and retire its existing fleet of MiG-31 interceptors by 2028, Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Viktor Bondarev said on Thursday. “We have started development of a new aircraft of this type and I think we can develop this plane before the state armament program ends in 2020,” Bondarev said at a meeting with Russian lawmakers. “The new plane should replace the existing fleet by 2028,” he said. Bondarev spoke out against restarting production of the MiG-31, which was stopped 20 years ago, saying the country needs a totally new interceptor to meet modern requirements. The Russian Air Force has 122 MiG-31 interceptors in service and more aircraft in reserve, he said.

[tanknetter]

SR-71 retired because it was no longer needed as satellites were able to do a better job for lower cost.

Not true at all.

I know people who were involved in the SR-71 program leading into its first retirement. The issue was internal USAF politics. The USAF had a Chief of Staff (McPeak maybe?) who HATED the Blackbird, apparently because he hadn't been selected for the program.

On top of that, the SR-71 community was extremely elitist and pretty close to cloistered. They'd done a p*ss-poor job of positioning Habus (as SR-71 drivers were called) into positions of power within the USAF.

So when the USAF CoS decided to kill the program, there was no one in a position to fight it.

As it was, it turned out he also misled Congress on the retirement. One of the reasons why Senator Byrd (D-KKK) single handedly reinstated the Blackbird a few years later (only two aircraft were brought back into service, and only for a short time before Clinton killed the program again using his short-lived line-item veto) was because he'd felt the USAF had lied to him about a pending SR-71 successor platform that turned out to be vaporware.