Newly declassified Soviet X-plane

[Shasper]

 Everyone stood in awe as the Sukhoi S-37 took to the air in the early part of the 21st Century. What was not known at the time is that the S-37 wasn't the first time the Russians dabbled into FSW technology. Back in the late '80s the PVO & the TsAGI institute contracted the Mikoyan OKB to build a modest proof-of-concept forward swept wing demonstrator. MiG responded with a single S-30 a/c, based on a modified MiG-32 airframe. The first flight was undertaken from Zhukofski airfield in early '88 & the aircraft was used for both advance airframe design tests and the first attempts at thrust-vectoring. The S-30 was semi-retired in late 1990 as the political & economic infrastructure brought an end to the USSR.

Ok, I was playing around w/my MiG-32 project for the Spring Break GB when a gear flipped in my brain & this idea popped on so I dug out my extra X-29 kit & began to rummage for some spare F-20 parts.   

[Howard of Effingham]

very nice idea shas'..... the shrunken berkut! [wasn't that italeri kit called the berkut?]

keep us posted.

[Shasper]

Yeah the S-37 (Su-47) was called the Berkut.

In between house-hold projects I managed to get the cockpit painted & installed (Yep, no "blue canopy of death" treatment!), fuselage sealed up, intakes on & the new rudder (ex- 1/100 F-14) installed. Here's the portside mockup view, the F-20 radome is sticky-disc mounted, but y'all get the general idea of how she's gonna look shape-wise.

[Eddie M.]

Great looking start! Beautiful lines.
   Eddie

[Sisko]

Looks good!!!

[McGreig]

Now that looks so right! Why didn't I think of that one!???

What he said! Looking forward to seeing progress on this.

[Shasper]

And now we have a completed nose job!

[Shasper]

And now sanded & primed. Seen here with one of the first MiG-32's destined for the Ceylonese AF (see http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,19109.new.html#new)



And a close up, this one worked out better than my other nose job at the moment.

[Shasper]

Just a random thread revival thought here, but I'm thinking about repositioning the canards from the lower part of the intakes to the upper part, with maybe a LEX taking the canard's places in front of the wing. Thoughts anyone?

Shas

[ysi_maniac]

Just a random thread revival thought here, but I'm thinking about repositioning the canards from the lower part of the intakes to the upper part, with maybe a LEX taking the canard's places in front of the wing. Thoughts anyone?

Shas

IMHO your proposal is nice, but ... very small LERX, I would say.

[waynos]

Really looking forward to seeing this one, when you mention moving the canard, when I did my own 'F-29' I moved them to the top of the intake to allow for the missile pylons, I also used Typhoon canards instead to make it look different without working too hard.

[sotoolslinger]

Forward swept wings are shiny!

[AeroplaneDriver]

Really looking forward to seeing this one, when you mention moving the canard, when I did my own 'F-29' I moved them to the top of the intake to allow for the missile pylons, I also used Typhoon canards instead to make it look different without working too hard.

I did the same thing with my F-29 (kept the kit canards though).  I figured that in high-G maneuvering it may be conveivable for the low mounted canard to interfere with missile launch.


Looking forward to seeing this one finished.  You do seem to have a knack with F-5 derivitives Bud...

[Shasper]

Thanks AD, I forgot about your well done example!

My thoughts now are that this "test article", aside from the FSW & thrust-vectoring experiments, would be used to test something I call the "total lift" concept (meaning that more that 60% or so of the aircraft's surface has lifting-generating ability). To accomplish this I'll add a LERX ahead of the wing where the canard use to be, which means about 80% of the aircraft will have some sort of "flat" area.


Shas

[sotoolslinger]

Damn all you guys are outstanding. Those are freaking awesome.