The “race for hypersonics” is currently on at the international level; the United States and Russia have made significant breakthroughs in their aerospace projects. The development works are promising in providing the future of military aviation, though they pose formidable challenges in engineering and finances.
The Elusive MiG-41 Project
Its MiG-41 project, built as a follow-on to the completed MiG-31, should allow the realization of ultra-high-speed performance with a ramjet engine to enable it to release and destroy hypersonic guided weapons, even working within the near-space belt to destroy satellites. But these are huge engineering challenges.
Apparently, in 2018, things turned around and the MiG-41 entered an “experimental design stage” under the management of Ilya Tarasenko, director-general of Mikoyan. But practically nothing has been revealed in the public domain ever after. With the proposed extreme speeds the aircraft is supposed to achieve, the designs of the MiG-41 stretch to its limits and pose demands on the materials and design features to be able to prevent the aircraft from further burning up, which in turn demands constant extensive maintenance.
MiG-41 should either be inspired by SR-72 Darkstar from Lockheed Martin or based on MiG-31’s platform since the latter one will still fly for the next decade. But a brand new aircraft to replace the MiG-31 in due course of this decade seems wishful thinking. The problem arises from the fact that getting a set-aside budget for MiG-41 will be difficult because the Russian aviation industry is already faced with the challenge of “limited edition”, which implicates production and deployment of Su-57 and is now out in the market looking for financial partners to fund Su-75.
This is compounded by the problem of budgets. Due to its extensive involvement in the Ukraine Crisis, the finances required to support a defense project as brazen as the MiG-41 are circumscribed for Russia. Although the Russian military has stated that the project is not merely “mythical,” its reality is far off—one where the MiG-41 remains more of a dream than a viable project.
The US Hypersonic Drone SR-72
Across the ocean, the United States is developing a hypersonic unmanned reconnaissance plane, the SR-72, commonly called the “son of the SR-71 Blackbird,” using the golden oldie as a reference. The SR-71 Blackbird was taken out of commission in 1998, without problems, and was capable of flying at altitudes of 25 kilometers with speeds of up to 3,300 km/h—literally an inconvenient target for air defense systems.
The SR-72 will blaze at Mach 6, 7,200 kilometers per hour. That speed, in combination with a high flight altitude, would render the SR-72 just about invulnerable to modern air defense systems. The problem, however, is not without complications. The main problem is how to make an aircraft both for takeoff and landing at much lower speeds and simultaneously with hypersonic flight.
Lockheed Martin has been working on a combined cycle engine with Aerojet Rocketdyne. The SR-72’s power plant, therefore, will have two turbojet engines for sub-Mach 3.0 speeds, and a hypersonic ramjet engine—scramjet—for its hypersonic flights. However, there has been no indication as to whether the SR-72’s power plant is ready.
The project for SR-72 is ambitious and expensive to carry out. The urgency of the project made the economic component a suffering factor since many of the estimated costs turned out to be enormous as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The CEO of Lockheed Martin once mentioned that producing a demonstration hypersonic aircraft of the same size as the F-22 fighter jet would require one billion dollars in 2016.
But despite these insurmountable obstructions, the US Air Force is resolute that they will continue with the project, convinced that it is important to at least do what is necessary to be able to maintain its technological superiority. The SR-72, was originally developed by the US to bring military aviation to unimaginable speed and unprecedented reconnaissance capability not experienced as yet in world history.
Both the projects of MiG-41 and SR-72 underline the very serious face-to-face competition of hypersonic technology between Russia and the United States. However badly encumbered by cost and engineering problems, completion of either project could seriously redefine the future of military aviation and shake the balance of power in the skies.