The Last Mig. Russia’s Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft

Ioannis Andris weighs in on the SU vs MIG debate, Russian fighter aircraft industry and its future

Всё пошло на сдвиг, наша жизнь, как миг

Коротка, как юбка у путан

Everything has shifted, our life is like a moment (mig)

Short like prostitutes’ skirts

Back in the good ol’ days of the Cold War, where the game was (mostly) played by gentlemen’s rules and the risk of a nuclear war erupting over a conflict in some backwater pathetic excuse of a country like the Ukraine was (mostly) low, the name Mig, acronym of Mikoyan-Gurevich, from the two aircraft designers that founded the bureau back in 1939, was synonymous with the best Russia’s military aircraft industry had to offer. The Mig aircraft bearing the red stars on their wings were known for being very nimble, deadly fighters, relatively easy to learn how to fly (but hard to master, as was the case with most complex soviet systems) that would appear in the air from the skies of Korea to those of Vietnam, scoring plenty of kills against their American counterparts, while ensuring the safety of the motherland and putting on stunning aerobatics shows in times of peace. Mig can even be credited with creating the sole aircraft having a geographic region nicknamed after it-the “Mig Alley”, during the Korean War, where the Mig-15s, one of the most numerous fighter jets ever produced, participated in deadly dogfights with US aircraft.

Sure, there were the Sukhois and Tupolevs, and the Yakovlevs and Lavochkins and a handful of less known names outside the aviation enthusiasts, like Myasischev and Bartini, but these bureaus would eventually specialize in non-fighter aircraft, the “boring” bomber types, tactical and strategic, or close air-support, with some forays into other roles, like Sukhoi’s heavy interceptors-but when it came to fighter jets, the stuff Tom Cruise would gallantly face in a Hollywood set, the name Mig was dominant for most of the Cold War.

Nowadays though, Mig’s fighters have fallen to second tier status within the Russian Air Force (RuAF), with only some upgraded versions of the last of the bureau’s design that was put into serial production being in service, and possibly seeing combat, the famed Mig 29. Ironically, Mig should thank the Ukrainian ministry of propaganda (no need to look for a particular ministry with that name dear reader-all Ukrainian ministries are ministries of propaganda) that by concocting the myth of the legendary ace pilot “Ghost of Kiev (Kiyv, whatever…)”, allegedly commanding a Mig 29 himself and in the process scoring more hits than Russia has planes, for providing a much-needed boost to its image.

But while the Migs have given their top place in the ranks of RuAF to their Sukhoi counterparts and the various evolutions of the Su-27 design (Su-30, Su-34, Su-35), arguably one of the most successful contemporary fighter aircraft produced, there is a larger issue, one we will discuss in this article, namely the lack of 5th generation fighters in Russian service, exactly when they would have been needed the most. The shortcomings that led to this will be presented in parallel with the story of the last (so far…) Mig fighter, the 1.44/1.42 MFI, a prototype originating in the last days of the Cold War, built to counter the superlative F-22 Raptor.

The 5th generation

It was only a few weeks ago that the final assembly of the 1,000th Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning 2 fighter jet begun at the company’s facility in Fort Worth, Texas, a milestone for the most expensive weapons system program ever, one that from time to time drew harsh criticisms from friends and foes alike. Of the 1000 jets already produced, the United States Air Force (USAF) received about 450, the rest delivered to allies and clients across the world. Coupled with 183 in service, of the earlier, and in many ways superior, F-22, this puts USAF securely at the first place of manufacturers and users of 5th generation fighters in the world, China being a somewhat distant second with about 200 J-20 fighters, and Russia lagging far behind with only 10 operational Su-57s. In-between there are US allies that have received and are receiving batches of F-35s but lack the extremely challenging industrial capacity to design and built a modern 5th generation airplane domestically. In that respect, US, Russia and China are in a league of their own.

What happened to the once famed Russian aviation industry though, and took it so long to produce a new fighter jet? Was it lack of ideological motivation after the Soviet collapse, did the available funds really run out, or perhaps Russian designers just wanted to keep Tom Cruise waiting three more decades before giving him a villainous design good enough for filming a worthy sequel to Top Gun?

But first, let’s answer a more direct question-what exactly is a 5th generation fighter aircraft? The classification of jet fighters by generations is a way to categorize each design based on the technological advances it incorporates, and while not a very rigorous tool upon which all aviation experts agree, it is nonetheless an effective empirical way to distinguish between capabilities and attributes of each platform.

A 5th generation jet fighter can broadly be characterized as one incorporating a high degree of sensor integration and data fusion, creating a platform performing multiple roles in the battlespace, along with measures to reduce its radar signature-what is commonly referred to as “stealth”-supermaneouverability, supercruise capability (achieving speeds above Mach 1.0 without using afterburner) and advanced avionics. Not every 5th gen fighter necessarily combines all these attributes, and specific preferences of operational requirements reflect upon the end product. Currently, the bulk of fighter aircraft in service amongst leading nations belong to the 4th gen, gradually being phased out by 5th gen designs with some 6th gen projects in a very preliminary research and development phase.

Birth of the Last Mig

The first country to have started a 5th generation program were the United States, when in the early 1980s, it began the ATF (Advanced Tactical Fighter) project, setting the requirements the future replacement of the F-15 Eagle would have to fulfill, opting for an introduction of the type by the early-mid 90s. In response, the Soviet Union initiated its own effort to replace the Su-27 Flanker, a program named MFI (Mnogofunksionalni Frontovoy Istrebitel, "Multifunctional Frontline Fighter"), with a similar time frame envisaged. ATF resulted in two prototypes, named YF-22 and YF-23, made by Lockheed and Northrop respectively. Of the two, YF-23, Northrop’s “Black Widow” was clearly the more revolutionary design, its futuristic airframe resembling something that would not look out of place at a sci-fi setting, but, unfortunately for a lot of aviation enthusiasts, it was Lockheed’s YF-22 that would ultimately win, resulting in the F-22 “Raptor” serial production fighter. In the Soviet Union, the MFI program was awarded to Mig, with Sukhoi not even submitting an entry and design evaluation quickly progressed into what was to become the 1.42/1.44 Mig MFI jet fighter.

By the time the Soviet Union began to implode in the late 80s, the design of the Mig MFI had been finalized and approved, with a prototype/technology demonstrator, designated 1.44, being built. Coded “01-Blue”, the prototype was ready by 1994, after delays brought about by the diminished defense spending of the fledgling Russian Federation, and the reassessment of priorities in light of the geopolitical optimism (falsely) generated by the perceived end of great power rivalry. It was largely due to Mig having already-and in schedule-proceeded to an advanced stage of development that halting the project now would be unreasonable, a fate that befell other late 1980s soviet military projects. While little official information considering the specifications of the envisioned serial form of the 1.42 Mig MFI, the completed 1.44 airframe is believed to have only small differences compared to it, mainly regarding its internal components.

The MFI design is a single-seat, heavy multirole fighter of a canard delta wing layout, utilizing a statically unstable, tail first aerodynamic scheme with a single chin-mounted air intake. It is equipped with vectoring engine nozzles, makes extensive use of composite materials, with a clear priority in achieving superior agility and supermaneuverability while also paying attention to stealth, though not to the degree the United States designs did. Measures to reduce its radar cross section (RCS) involved both the aircraft’s shape, sporting aligned edges and surfaces, the presence of an internal weapons bay (along with exterior ones) and a prospected radiation-absorbent material (RAM) coating, though the latter was not used to paint the prototype.

It is interesting to note here, an often not-mentioned and not known outside the expert community fact, namely that the principles of stealth technology were for the first time explored in their mathematical foundations by a Russian, the physicist and mathematician, Pyotr Ufimtsev, earning him the title of “Father of Stealth”. Ironically, it was Ufimtsev’s pioneering work that later Lockheed Martin expanded and developed in practice to produce the first stealth aircraft prototypes for the United States.

In order to achieve its superb performance in terms of speed, the Mig MFI is powered by two Saturn-Lyulka AL-41F afterburning turbofan engines, developing almost 40.000 lb of thrust each, resulting in a very fast flying aircraft, with a projected top speed of about 2.35 Mach, greater than that of all its contemporary and would-be future 5th gen counterparts.

By the mid 90s, everything needed to proceed with the maiden flight and subsequent development of the Mig MFI was there, and all that was needed was a little push by the powers that be, namely the Russian government. But alas, 90s was a chaotic period for Russia, struggling to heal a deeply traumatized society and restore its economy after successive failed neoliberal experiments applied to it, with little time or money to allocate to major weapons programs, particularly since the prevailing wisdom was that a major conventional war was a thing of the past, and thus, they were a waste of resources. This hubristic view materialized in RuAF receiving only a single newly built fighter jet in 1996 and funding for research and development being practically non-existent.

Mig executives spend the next part of the decade trying to convince the ministry of defense to allocate funds to the MFI project, but mostly to no avail. The situation was more complex given the secrecy by which MFI was surrounded. It was public knowledge that a Russian 5th gen fighter aircraft prototype was either built or on the final stages of completion and yet no image or design had been leaked to the public, its specifications a closely guarded secret by the ministry of defense. Mig hoped that a grand reveal of the prototype would help generate enough public interest and support amongst influential government figures to kick-start the frozen project. Finally, realizing that any further delays would mean that Russia would fall far behind the US in modern fighter development, in need of some good publicity, and coupled with an improving financial situation for Russia, the necessary decisions were made, and almost six years after it was readying to do so, the Mig MFI in the form of its 1.44 prototype, went to the sky on the 29th of February of 2000.

Unfortunately for Mig, and we argue unfortunately for the short sighted and terrible at planning, Russian State, nothing would come out of it. Wrongly viewed as a relic of the Cold War and too heavy and expensive to mass produce, instead of acknowledging it as a virtually ready design, able to soon replace the already ageing RuAF fleet, it was rejected. Unfounded and unrealistic optimism that a new design could quickly be produced from scratch, in parallel with the naïve and self-defeating belief that for decades no need for a modern fighter jet would emerge, sealed the fate of the last Mig.

Figure 1. Mig MFI 1.44 technology demonstrator

Sukhoi’s golden (but mostly black…) Eagle

In the meantime, Mig’s archrival, Sukhoi, had wasted no time, taking advantage of its competitor’s misfortunes and proceeding with a 5th gen design of its own. As mentioned, initially Sukhoi had not participated in the MFI contest, possibly because it was confident of the potential of its Su-27 fighter to continue serving well into the 90s and beyond as a very capable platform, able to compete with the new 5th gen, a belief that history proved was not unfounded. Other factors pertaining to internal policies might have also played their part but when it did decide to pursue its own experimental design, helped by a very advantageous financial position due to significant export volumes of its jets, it quickly delivered an innovative plane.

Sukhoi came up with a truly unconventional design, one with forward swept wings configuration (FSW) combined with canards, a layout termed an “horizontal integrated triplane”. The forward swept wing arrangement was not something tried for the first time. Prior and during World War 2, such designs were built and tested, with examples like the Soviet Belyayev DB-LK, the American Cornelius Mallard and the German Junkers Ju 287. This unusual arrangement offers certain distinct advantages, most important for a fighter jet being increased agility, particularly in high angles of attack coupled with increased stability, with the aircraft being essentially spin-proof. These attributes significantly improve am FSW jet fighters’ potential in a dog fight and in fact similar research was undertaken contemporaneously in the United States during the 1980s, in the form of the X-29 Grumman Aerospace demonstrator.

However, both the United States Air Force (USAF) and the Soviet Air Force never adopted the FSW concept for an operational design. Despite that, Sukhoi, using its own funds, went ahead with building a prototype of its fighter, and although it had its efforts hampered by the Soviet collapse, by 1997, earlier than the Mig MFI, and after several revisions of its initial design, it had it ready. The Su-47 (other designations S-37 and S-32) Berkut (Golden Eagle), as it came to be called, first flew on the 25^th of September 1997, and immediately became a sensation with the public. Clad in a menacing all-black scheme, its figure like a hellish bat ready to plunge upon its prey, it became a regular at Russian air shows, and speculation was about whether it would be adopted as the next fighter of the Russian Air Force.

The PAK FA wins the day

But alas, as we mentioned, these were troubling times for the Russian defense industry. The Russian Air Force was struggling to get its hands on even a few of the newest jets currently in (only in name) serial production, like the Su-27 and Mig-29. The threat perception environment was deemed to have dramatically changed, and heavy fighters like the Mig MFI and Sukhoi’s were viewed as obsolete, relics of the Cold War with no place in the modern battlefield. It must be acknowledged that similar discussions were taking place in the United States, and the main rival of the MFI, the F-22, while originally being planned to produce 339 units of it, ended up with less than 200, with USAF already opting for a lighter jet, one suited not so much for the air-superiority role but rather on strike missions, an effort that led to the F-35 Lightning II.

Even before the Mig MFI went to the skies for the first time, the Russian Ministry of Defense had issued a new set of requirements, one essentially disqualifying both Mig MFI and Sukhoi Su-47 designs from becoming the future fighter jet of RuAF. These called for a medium sized fighter, one able to replace with a single model, both the heavy Su-27 and the lighter Mig-29, and a competition for designs began.

Eventually, the contract to develop this new multirole, one-size-fits-all fighter was to be awarded to Sukhoi, winning over its Mig rival and resulting in the Su-57, initially known as the T-50 or PAK FA (Perspektivnyy Aviatsionnyy Kompleks Frontovoy Aviatsii-Prospective Front Line Aeronautical Complex). With a modest initial budget for research and development of about 1.5 billion USD, soon to grow to 5 billion, that would eventually balloon to 20 billion (cost overrides are nothing strange to the troubled F-35 Lightning II program either), and rather optimistic timelines, PAK FA would take a whole decade to reach the skies, making its first flight on the 29th of January of 2010. Russia’s best foreign customer of defense products, India, was for a time considered a prospective partner of the PAK FA project, opting to produce a variant for its own air force, but a combination of factors led to an amicable divorce, and Russia was left to bear the development costs by itself.

The Su-57, NATO codename “Felon”, is a blended wing body design (BWB) of mid-set cropped delta wings and outward canted vertical stabilizers, with air intakes flanking its fuselage, in an arrangement similar to that of the Su-27. It has a main central internal weapons bay for its primary mission payload and two smaller ones for short-range anti-aircraft missiles (AAMs), as well as external pylons when the need for stealth is not paramount. It makes extensive use of composite materials but differs from its predecessors by putting greater emphasis on stealth than the Mig MFI or Su-47 did, with the focus being mainly on the frontal sector, optimized for fighting in or close to areas with a robust friendly anti-air coverage complementing it. Overall, the Su-57 appears to be a well-balanced design, though whether the classification medium fighter still applies for an aircraft of its dimensions is rather doubtful. It’s worth mentioning that the Russian Ministry of Defense was rather... accommodating towards Sukhoi when during the development stage it lowered the requirement for the top speed to Mach 2.0, adapting its needs to what the manufacturer would achieve instead of the other way round.

An initial order of 76 Su-57s was placed, and it is being carried out, with an horizon set up to 2027 to fulfill it. The Russian Air Force’s needs of course are much greater than this, assuming a 1-1, or close to that, replacement ratio of older units is the goal, and future orders should follow soon. Apart from continuing with the Su-57 production though, Sukhoi developed, apparently with its own funds, a smaller, truly light multirole fighter design, the Su-75 “Checkmate”, meant to perform its first flight in 2024. In some ways this is Su-57s smaller brother, sharing internal components in order to bring down development costs, with an eye set for export orders, but also as a complementary for the Su-57 fleet, perhaps in a similar manner that the Mig-29 and Su-27 complemented each other. Though given the strict sanction regime under which Russia is, mass exports do not appear as a very promising prospect.

Z Forces in the skies of Ukraine

In my view, Russia would have been better off if it had either continued with the development and production of the Mig MFI, or by choosing alternative design parameters for its PAK FA program, resulting in a light/medium fighter, similar to the Su-75 prototype that would have been already in serial production and in large enough numbers. Yes, the MFI would leave much to be desired in terms of stealth, it could only marginally be categorized as a “true” 5th generation fighter, but even assuming a very protracted development phase, say one lasting more than ten years, resulting in serial production commencing no earlier than 2012, twelve years after its first flight, it would still have resulted in more than 100 aircraft in service by 2022-when Russia’s most important war after World War 2 begun, and when the country needed a platform that would ensure air superiority the most. And that number is a rather conservative estimate. Currently, Russia has only about 10 operational Su-57s, a negligible quantity to make any meaningful difference in the skies over Ukraine.

Of course, directly comparing performance characteristics of fighter jets or weapons systems in general, is a poor way to derive combat potential. A fighter jet is a platform, as good as the weapons it is equipped with, the training of its operators and the underlying military doctrine informing the mission profiles it is assigned to carry out. RuAFs inability to decisively affect the Ukrainian battlespace so far, is mainly due to the following factors acting in tandem: Poor SEAD/DEAD (suppress/destroy enemy air-defenses) capabilities, lack of PGMs (precision guided munitions) and lack of stealth platforms, along with a concept of operations that subordinates the Air Force to a role of an extended artillery branch of the ground forces and not a truly independent force.

Taking this into account, and assuming the Russian state had actually provided its air force with the tools it needed in the form of enough PGMs and sufficient SEAD/DEAD weapons and training, it’s interesting to pose the “what if” question of how would the Mig MFI perform compared to the best platform RuAF can field in sufficient numbers in Ukraine now, the Su-30/Su-35? First and foremost, it Is safe to say that it would surpass it in terms of survivability-higher survivability achieved due to stealth, far superior sustained speed because of supercruise and greater agility. Moreover, while Su-30/Su-35s are much more advanced versions of the best platform Kiev’s forces have available, the Su-27, the MFI would totally outclass it and Ukraine’s Mig-29s (except perhaps the one the “Ghost of Kiev” is piloting) in terms of air superiority/dogfight potential, having been designed as a successor to both.

There is little doubt the Su-57 is a better and far more modern design overall, one that will mature to be a worthy successor of the very successful Su-27 family, but when the battle calls, a rusty sword is better than an Excalibur stuck in the rocks of poor planning, Sisyphean development cycles and poor policy decisions.

Sources

⦁ Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov, Sukhoi Su-57, Famous Russian Aircraft (Crecy, 2022).

⦁ Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov, Mikoyan MFI and Sukhoi S-34, Russian Fifth-Generation Technology Demonstrators (England: Midland, 2001)

⦁ Yefim Gordon and Dmitriy Komissarov, Soviet Secret Projects, Fighters since 1945(England: Midland, 2005)

⦁ Jay Miller, Lockheed Martin F/A-22 Raptor Stealth Fighter (England: Midland, 2005)

⦁ Doug Richardson, Stealth Warplanes, Deception, Evasion and Concealment in the Air (USA:MBI, 2001)

⦁ Bill Gunston and Yefim Gordon, Mig Aircraft since 1937 (England: Putnam 1998)