New soviet interceptor...

[Archibald]

In the late 70's, a KH-8 donkey ear satellite took this photo some hundreds kilometers over Domodedovo. It was obviously a new Russian aircraft... NSA, CIA, DLI all the service were in alert...

[GeorgeC]

Very atmospheric pic.  You sure you got the KH-8 codename right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Reco...e_United_States

[Archibald]

Hmmmm I'm very, very far from Matrixone level (king of "more-than-real" models).
This was my first atempt
Ok, here's the beast...
In the 60's, the soviets massively introduced heavy interceptors (Tu-128, Su-15, MiG-25). Each of them responded to a precise need
- Su-15 was a "conventional" inteceptor guided by GCI
- MiG-25 added speed to that
- Tu-128 had range

Now what the Soviets needed was a plane with more AAM as all the interceptors above only carried four. The plane also needed a big range to reinforce the
Tu-128, and in a similar way to the Tupolev was to have a reduced speed (this time mach 1.2).
After Krutchev was fired in October 1964, Simeon Lavochkine (as Myassichtev in 1967) managed to create for the second time an OKB for aircrafts. He won the competition for the long-range AAM platform with a radical design, the La-270.

To reduce cost, the plane used the short and medium-range AAM in development for the MiG-23. Older missiles from the MiG-21 were also used. These designs were not particularly efficient but the plane carried a big number of it (it was really a long range AAM platform, not more!)
The mach 1.2 speed combined with an enormous wing area (Ie high ceiling, around 68 000 ft) was sufficient for its role.

[Hobbes]

Cool idea. It's got 10 missiles?

[Archibald]

After meeting one of the Horten brothers, Lavotchkine opted for a big flying wing design. There was room in the wing to carry a big amount of fuel, room below the wing for hanging a big number of missiles and less drag (good for range). More, the big wing area (around 150 m2) allowed a good maniability a high heights.

Main problem was the inherent lack of stability of these designs. As the CDVE - particularly in USSR- were still some years in the future, the only solution was to add vertical surfaces.
Starting from the Horten general design, canted wingtips were added, but this was insufficient. A vertical tail (similar to the MiG-23) was then added, but this was still unsufficient. Two smaller tails finally gave "acceptable" handling... reduce to nothing when the plane had more than 10° of incidence (the tail were blanked by the huge wing).  
That's why an enormous, fourth (!!!) vertical fin was added...  below the fuselage. This in turn needed a very high undercarriage...but well, there was space in the wing!
Crew was two below a small canopy. The two turbojets (borrowed from the
MiG-23) were fed by an oval air intake, with the radar radome on it. This was quite similar to the La-190 design...

[Archibald]

More pics...

[Brian da Basher]

Woah that's wild, Archie! She looks ready to take on all comers! I like that all black color scheme...very intimidating! THis has got to be one of your most imaginative builds yet!

Brian da Basher

[Ollie]

I see that the Soviets have mastered the wooden runway...

[Archibald]

It is a land-based carrier, with four wheels (in fact it look like a big table) they used for STOL . In fact it was the soviet reply to the short P-17D (the flying thing allowing the TSR-2 to make VTO   )

In fact I had a madness moment some days ago. I have a stock of spares left by various building, particularly Mirage-2000 wings (two Mirage F-2 and one Mirage  G mean three M2000 slaughtered). I also had a big stock of russians AAM, many fins (Viggen, MiG-23, Mirage 2000  again).
So the result is here

[John Howling Mouse]

Truly inspired, Archibald.    

And a bonus: it also looks like something Batman would fly!

[Eddie M.]

Very cool! I especially like the gloss black finish. Well done!
   Eddie

[Archibald]

thanks for the cheers comments! The canopy come from a Fouga Magister, main wheels from the Mixfortress (former B-29... I have to finish this one!), decals from a MiG-23. For the intake I use the same glue caps as the N-21 aiguille. It's really a flying patchwork!!!
I have to find a NATO name for this thing...  
hobbes, I added ALL the russians AAM I had in my spare box  
In fact it carries 14 AAM (four bigs from the MiG-23, two bigs from the MiG-21 and the rest look like some kind of AIM-9 equivalent...)
Concerning the black paint, I think I had the Su-47 in mind...
Lots of fun doing this model. All started from these 3 pairs of delta wings... I tried for some minuts to find the better way of assembling all these remains, and the result was (quite logically!) a big... flying wing.
Hmmm wing area of the Mirage 2000 is around 46 m2, so it gave something like 138 m2 of wing area  

ZA RODINA!!! as would say our productive comrade  ^_^


More pics

[Archibald]

To diminish costs, a design similar to the La-190 had been used for the the radome/ air-intake combo...



La-270

Span 20m
Length 11m
Wing area 138 m2
Speed mach 1.25
Range 4200 km
Armement :
4* Vympel R-23
6* R-60
2* R-13
Ceiling 68 000ft
Powerplant two R-29 rated at 10 000 kgp each

The role of the La-270 was to operate at long range, guided by Tu-126 "Moss".

[Tophe]

Nice!  Amazing...

[B777LR]

I like da name of the satelite