Shipbucket

I found this in a page of an old magazine (probably 1982-1983), in a article for Red Air Force. It seems to be a swing wing MiG-25, saying that this would be the successor of Foxbat. But the final MiG-31 Foxhound was very similar with MiG-25 in appearance (except some details). Does anyone knows something? I Know that West was not aware about Soviet projects until see the real thing, because of the notorious Soviet secrecy, so I believe that this aircraft is what West thought about the MiG-31. MiG had designed the swing wing MiG-23/27 and there were also the Su-24 and Tu-22M, so Western analysts believed that MiG-31 would be a swing wing fighter. Anyway, this would be a very good Soviet Never Built (if real) or a good Soviet AU aircraft (if fake). And say fake, because reference below shows wings without the dogtooth.

Personally, I first read an article for MiG-31 in a 1990-91 magazine and wondering since then for this fighter.



There is a reference here :

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthre ... 3-MiG-24BN

The Russians tried the swing wing with the Mig 23 Flogger and with the Tu-22 Backfire for what seemed good technical reasons.. Those planes were intended to be variable cruise speed variable altitude dash bombers. For a high altitude, high speed interceptor with a cropped delta wingplan like the Mig 31 (or the F-15), the variable altitude variable speed controlled stall solution to wings adopted by the B-1 Lancer, the F-14 Tomcat (a fighter intended to fight in thick air as well as at high altitude) and the F-111 strike interdictor makes no sense at all to apply to a dedicated strategic bomber interceptor or fast high altitude recon bird. The added weight of the joint is prohibitive to endgoal which is that high altitude and high speed.

Reasonable explanation.

There are several reasons to think that this image is hooey made up by somebody to sell magazines, but the best is probably the ~10deg change in angle of the vertical stabilizers. Not many folks in that era were thinking all that hard about RCS, and so fiddling with the control laws and structural calculations for no apparent reason doesn't really pass the smell test.

In the link thereally is also a reference from the page http://www.testpilot.ru, so I believe that this swing wing MiG-25 existed some point in model form in the period when the MiG-31 was on development. But finally MiG-31 did not adopted swing wing.

Does the F18 not have the same? could it be just to clear the fuselage shadow at high angles of attack?

That's actually a good guess. I'd be interested if that was the actual reason (signal interference from onboards). On the RCS side; I'm aware that the Hornet did have tail control canting, wing faring and intake tunneling mods late during its design to reduce billboarding, signal spiking and fan shutter strobe reflect effect: all to reduce its RCS; especially from the front up aspect and especially in the x to Ku bands.