Su-27 Fighter: Beginning of Story by Ildar Bedretdinov et al

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Thanks to the efforts of forum members Muxel and Flateric I have received a copy of Part 1 of Ildar Bedretdinov's amazing Su-27 history in English. 360 pages long, plenty of colour.

For anyone with an interest in the evolution of this modern "classic" fighter, this is pure gold. Using Sukhoi and other archive materials, this book is as close as you can get to being a "fly-on-the-wall" inside the Sukhoi OKB. Every twist and turn of the development process is covered, with plentiful drawings of the different configurations and good coverage of the personalities as well as the technical details. Bedretdinov doesn't gloss over mistakes or shortcomings either. There are really interesting insights into the avionics and weapons systems development too including cockpit shots from the mockup stages which show Sukhoi's own ideas.

The pictures aren't brilliant - many are very small, and there's a general lack of artist's impressions or model shots of many variants, but the text more than makes up for this.

The only problem? It ends at the T-10 stage. I'll have to wait for the second and final volume to be translated to English to read the rest of the story.

 

[Antonio]

Is that book already available on stores?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I believe it was on sale at MAKS 2007.

Its not easily available, hence Muxel and Flateric's kind assistance.

 

[flateric]

Antonio, you can try contact directly Bedretdinov & Co. Publishing House http://www.be-and-co.com/.
Ildar gave me their bank account info...they sadly don't have PayPal account...other weird way could be Western Union.
And prepare - book is pricey...somewhat around 100-150 bucks incl. S&H if I remember right (will check figure in the evening)

 

[mrdetonator]

Thanks to the efforts of forum members Muxel and Flateric I have received a copy of Part 1 of Ildar Bedretdinov's amazing Su-27 history in English. 360 pages long, plenty of colour.

Finally you got it Paul, but do not miss to read the chapter 5 "Aerodynamics" which describes shortcommings of the so called sinusoidal wing used on the initial T-10 and why did they abandon this wing platform with the T-10S. Hovewer, more on this in the second book. Anyway, I think it was a good idea to end the part 1 at the T-10 stage, one more reason to visit MAKS in 2009. What you think? ;D

M

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Yes, its interesting how early they were considering the trapezoidal wing design, but it appears that Pavel Sukhoi himself was very keen on the sinusoidal design, which is why it was pursued so long. It had very high lift characteristics but poor high-alpha with buffet above 12 degrees. With Sukhoi's death it seems Simonov was already keen on a redesign to a trapezoid wing. Its interesting to speculate if the original sinusoidal wing design could have been made to work...

 

[mrdetonator]

The sinusoidal "ogival" wing worked well on the supersonic passenger airliner Concorde for several decades. This could be the missing piece of the puzzle what Oleg Samojlovich overlooked when he was "sniffing" english aviation magazines in 60ies. He probably misinterpreted the article about the sinusoidal wing in a way that it suits high-alpha manueverable fighter rather than supersonic airliner only. Then no wonder when P.O. Sukhoi trusted and respected him, therefore he pursued the sinusoidal wing as well.
They ran into problems immediately after T-10 prototype test trials began, the Tsagi adviced to get rid of the wing as well. They had tried to fix it by installing wing fences, to prevent vortex burst prematurely to reduce lift at high alpha caused by vortex asymmetry bcs of the ogival LE sweep. Thanks to M.P. Simonov the change became unavoidable, even if P.O. Sukhoi never trusted him, huh.... :

 

[RAP]

Just obtained a copy of the English translation, expensive but well worth the price. Any information on Vol. 2 in English?

 

[sferrin]

Just obtained a copy of the English translation, expensive but well worth the price. Any information on Vol. 2 in English?

Where? Oooh, ouch. 160 bucks on ebay.

 

[sferrin]

The sinusoidal "ogival" wing worked well on the supersonic passenger airliner Concorde for several decades. This could be the missing piece of the puzzle what Oleg Samojlovich overlooked when he was "sniffing" english aviation magazines in 60ies. He probably misinterpreted the article about the sinusoidal wing in a way that it suits high-alpha manueverable fighter rather than supersonic airliner only. Then no wonder when P.O. Sukhoi trusted and respected him, therefore he pursued the sinusoidal wing as well.
They ran into problems immediately after T-10 prototype test trials began, the Tsagi adviced to get rid of the wing as well. They had tried to fix it by installing wing fences, to prevent vortex burst prematurely to reduce lift at high alpha caused by vortex asymmetry bcs of the ogival LE sweep. Thanks to M.P. Simonov the change became unavoidable, even if P.O. Sukhoi never trusted him, huh.... :

I wonder if he was also convinced of the ogival / gothic wing because North American Aviation was looking at it for their F-15 competitor. I seem to recall there being a bit of that at work.

 

[flateric]

Just obtained a copy of the English translation, expensive but well worth the price. Any information on Vol. 2 in English?

Quite unlikely it's gonna be translated and published at the current moment.