"Is Russia's MIG-41 Program Closer To Reality?" Topic

"MiG-41. This superfast interceptor is not yet off the drawing board at the Mikoyan military aircraft design bureau, but the final draft may be ready already within the next couple of years with mass production scheduled to begin before 2025, Zvezda television channel reported on Friday.

There is not very much known about the MiG-41 because everything about this plane, just like with all top modern military projects, remains classified.

All we know is that the Mikoyan bureau has been working on the design of a long-range interceptor, based on their MiG-31, since 2013 as part of a plan to replace the ageing fleet of MiG-31 fighter jets whose active service life expires in 2028…"
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Amicalement
Armand

The Russians still haven't grown out of the pure interceptor concept. The MiG-31 was itself based on the MiG-25 design. We haven't had a true blue interceptor since the F-106 Delta Dart, which is capable of Mach 2.5 but has a poor turning radius.

Interceptors like the Foxhound are even worse in dogfights and the "unmaneuverable" F-35 will make mince-meat out of them.

My bad. The F-106 was the last pure interceptor in the USAF. The last true American interceptor was actually the AIM-54 Phoenix equipped F-14A Tomcat "Fleet Defense Fighter" with the AWG 9 radar made famous by the movie 'Top Gun.' A real beauty wouldn't you say?

I'd like to see how the Russians manage to get their flying brick up to mach 4+.

The Russians still haven't grown out of the pure interceptor concept.

I think it's because they have such a huge territory to patrol, their CAP aircraft need to cover ground quickly. The alternative is building a larger number of small airbases, which has a lot of inefficienies/poor economy of scale.

I'd like to see how the Russians manage to get their flying brick up to mach 4+.

Hopefully the same way they got the MiG-25/31 up to speed: by mounting the most ridiculously huge jet engines they could find.

Makes sense, Noble.

The Mach 3 MiG-25 was developed to intercept the SR-71 and XB-70 (which never went into production of course). The Russians gave the Foxbat the biggest and most powerful turbojets available at the time, but they had an abysmal lifespan and had to be replaced after every one or two missions.

Victor Belenko defected in one to Japan and we found out what an inelegant POS it really was, but one can also argue that the simplicity itself reflects a certain genius from a strictly practical standpoint.