How Aleksandr Yakovlev's Rivalry with Pavel Sukhoi Did Him In

Aleksandr Yakovlev

The 1950s and 1960s in Russian combat aircraft development were marked by intense rivalries between the various design bureau (OKBs) heads. Nowhere else was this seen than with the rivalries between the respective OKBs of Artem Mikoyan, Pavel Sukhoi, and Aleksandr Yakovlev. During the Second World War, Yakovlev's OKB was one of the dominant forces in Russian aviation, having built thousands of fighters for the Soviet air forces. OKB MiG (Mikoyan and his partner, Mikhail Gurevich) was rapidly rising to prominence during the war. OKB Sukhoi really didn't start to establish itself until well after the war (some say that Stalin had a dislike of Pavel Sukhoi as one reason). As the jet age dawned, Yakovlev took a conservative approach that saw the first Yak jet fighters as jet derivatives of his wartime piston engined designs whereas MiG and Sukhoi were willing to push the envelope and advance the state of the art. A rivalry between Sukhoi and Mikoyan developed with Mikoyan gaining the upper hand against both Yakovlev and Sukhoi with the MiG-15, MiG-17, and MiG-19 fighter designs which outclassed comparable aircraft from Yakovlev. When in the 1950s the Soviet military command wanted a supersonic interceptor, it was Sukhoi's delta winged Su-9 (NATO code name Fishpot) that edged out Mikoyan's design based on an enlarged MiG-21 fighter. First flying in October 1957, the Fishpot was certainly fast, but it was handicapped by the poor reliability of its Lyulka AL-7F turbojet. In those days, it was rare for an AL-7F engine to last beyond 200 flight hours- and that's not time between overhauls, the reliability of the engine was so poor that few engine units lasted past 200 flight hours, an abysmal figure. The radar set in the conical shock cone of the nose inlet was limited as well. 

Sukhoi Su-9 "Fishpot"

Of course, having the Su-9 having much in common with the Su-7 (NATO code name Fitter) tactical fighter did make selecting the Su-9 for production much easier. But the Sukhoi OKB knew that the Soviet Air Defense Forces (PVO) was not pleased with the performance of the Su-9 and with only 924 examples built, an upgraded Su-11 was introduced. But it would be built in very limited numbers. At the time, the Soviet leadership had decreed that the "missile age" had made many aircraft designs obsolete, and like the infamous Duncan Sandys Defence White Paper in the UK that mortally wounded the British aerospace industry, numerous aircraft and engine projects were canceled and only those designs that were developments of existing designs were allowed to continue to develop. As the Yakovlev OKB had already in production the Yak-25/26 interceptor (NATO code name Flashlight) and attack variants, it proceeded with a supersonic design in the Yak-28 (the interceptor variant having the NATO code name Firebar and attack version being the Brewer). Three features made the Yak-28 more attactive than the Su-9/Su-11 family- first, it used the Tumansky R-11 turbojet was showing itself in the MiG-21 to be much more reliable and durable than the Lyulka AL-7F, secondly it had two engines which gave in a perception of safety over the single-engined Su-9/Su-11 family, and thirdly, having a nose free for a larger radar set than what was possible with the nose intake arrangement of the Sukhoi design meant that production was switched over to the Yak-28 instead, the interceptor version being the Yak-28P. 

Yakovlev Yak-28P "Firebar"

Sukhoi wasn't going to be one-upped by Yakovlev, though. Taking as a baseline the limitations of the Su-9/Su-11 family. OKB Sukhoi set about to create a vastly improved interceptor in the shape of of the Su-15 (NATO code name Flagon). The Su-15 was designed from the outset to be superior to the Yak-28P- it used two of the same Tumansky R-11 engines and used lateral box intakes to leave the nose section free for the same large radar set used on the Yak-28P, the Oryol-D radar. Being a development of the Su-9/Su-11 family, though, it managed to avoid cancellation like so many other projects in the 1958-1959 timeframe in the Soviet Union. Interestingly, the Yak-28P and the Su-15 were produced in the same factory- in the Soviet Union, the OKBs only did design and flight test work with workshops for building prototypes. The designs were then handed off to independent factories for production.  At the time, the Novosibirsk aircraft factory No. 153 was responsible for the Yak-28P production and it was assigned production of the Su-15 once it had passed its State acceptance trials in 1962. Given that both the Yak-28P and the Su-15 used the same powerplant and radar, producing both at the same plant made logistical sense. And there was irony in the decision as the same plant built the Su-9/Su-11 interceptors that were replaced in production at that very plant by the Yak-28P. And now the plant was gearing up to produce more Su-15s with the intent of replacing the Yak-28P with the PVO. 

The sole Yakovlev Yak-28-64 prototype

Not willing to lose out to Pavel Sukhoi, Aleksandr Yakovlev dispatched one of his sons to the Novosibirsk plant to learn as much as he could about the Su-15 design (Yakovlev had two sons who worked for him- one would end up designing the Yak-40/42 airliners and the other would be responsible for the Yak-52 trainer). Seeing the threat posed by the Sukhoi design to the Yak-28P, Yakovlev set about designing an upgraded version provisionally designated the Yak-28-64 (due to work on it beginning in 1964). Many of the features of the Su-15 were incorporated into the Yak-28-64, primarily in moving the Tumansky R-11 engines to the rear of the fuselage from the wings. One of the criticisms of the Yak-28P was that having wing-mounted engines gave the aircraft a poor rate of roll and adverse handing characteristics in an single engine-out situation. Moving the engines to the fuselage resolved these concerns. The tail unit and the wings remained close to that of the Yak-28 and the unique bicycle landing gear was retained. The single ventral fin of the Yak-28P was changed over to a twin ventral fin arrangement for stability. Given that OKB Yakovlev had little experience with fuselage-mounted lateral intakes, Yakovlev incorporated a copy of the Su-15's lateral box intake design on the Yak-28-64. 

Yak-28-64

The prototype Yak-28-64 was rolled out in 1966 and it proved in flight tests right off hand to be a dog. In fact, the Yak-28-64's performance was even worse than that of the Yak-28P, the very aircraft that was being superseded by the Su-15. Numerous unpleasant handling characteristics were also uncovered and some of the landing issues present in the Yak-28P thought to be cured in the Yak-28-64 persisted (such as aileron reversal at high speeds). It didn't take long to realize that the Yak-28-64 was a dead end and the project was abandoned by Yakovlev. 

Sukhoi Su-15 Flagon

A look at some of the production figures during this rivalry is telling. Just over 900 Sukhoi Su-9s were built at the Novosibirsk factory. Less than 100 Su-11s were built. Replaced in production at the factory by the Yakovlev Yak-28P, over 400 examples were built before it was completely supplanted by production of the Su-15, of which over 1,200 were built. The attack versions of the Yak-28 had to be continually upgraded with no less than 10 versions, each in relatively small production batches around 200 or so. Having been topped by Sukhoi in the interceptor arena with the Su-15, the Soviet air forces replaced the attack versions of the Yak-28 with another Sukhoi design, the Su-17/Su-22 family (NATO code name Fitter) which proved more reliable and versatile operationally. 

The Yak-28-64 and the rivalry with Pavel Sukhoi damaged OKB Yakovlev for good. His designs were considered by the Soviet air forces to be unreliable and obsolete, at the worst, limited in performance at best. For years no other Yakovlev combat aircraft design was taken seriously by the Soviet military high command and even the VTOL Yak-36 design was supremely limited in its utility. Even Yakovlev's submissions to the  competition that resulted in the MiG-29 Fulcrum and the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker (Yak-45 and Yak-47, respectively) were decidedly archaic in appearance and failed to use some of the latest advances in aerodynamics. Most Yakovlev designs following the abandonment of the Yak-28-64 were either light aircraft or airliners, areas that were more heavily influenced by his sons than by Aleksandr Yakovlev himself. 

Source: OKB Yakovlev: A History of the Design Bureau and its Aircraft by Yefim Gordon. Midland/Ian Allan Publishing, 2005, p215-230. Additional material from Paul Martell-Mead at the Secret Projects forum. 

Soviet Wild Weasels: Part Two (Aircraft)

Yakovlev Yak-28PP "Brewer-E"

Last night we took a look at the nuts and bolts of Soviet suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) doctrine and tactics. Tonight we'll continue along that them with a look at the aircraft that filled the role of  "Wild Weasels" in the Soviet air forces. Like the United States, the Russians had put into service several specialized aircraft that were used to knock out and/or jam enemy radars and surface-to-air missile sites. These aircraft were based upon established production types much in the same way the USAF Wild Weasels were adaptations of production fighter aircraft. The first aircraft to fill this role was the Yakovlev Yak-28N, an experimental adaptation of the Yak-28 "Brewer" attack aircraft. This version of the Brewer was the first Russian development for a Wild Weasel-class aircraft; work began by OKB Yakovlev in 1964-1965 with a production Yak-28I being set aside in 1965 for conversion to the -28N configuration. The attack Yak-28I had the "I" suffix as it was equipped with the Initsiativa-2 ground-mapping/bombing radar in a ventral radome aft of the nose gear. On the Yak-28N, the Initsiativa-2 radar was replaced by radar pulse detection unit that would seek out and locate enemy radar emissions and provide targeting data to Raduga Kh-28 (NATO code name AS-9 "Kyle") missiles, one each under the outer wings. The Kh-28, which I'll discuss in a subsequent post, was the first Russian anti-radiation missile to be fielded with the first operational examples coming out in 1964. 

By the time operational testing of the Yak-28N was completed around 1972, it had been far outclassed by contemporary Russian and American designs and the project was canceled. However, the work that had been put into the Yak-28N wasn't wasted as the Soviet air forces still needed a battlefield electronic warfare aircraft that better performance and was more flexible than the existing design in use, the Tupolev Tu-16PP Badger which clearly by 1972 was too big and too slow to survive in hostile airspace. The Yak-28 was again used as the basis for the Yak-28PP electronic warfare aircraft that crammed the jamming equipment of the Tu-16PP into a much smaller airframe. All of the armament provisions of the Yak-28 were deleted and four different jamming systems were installed in the Yak-28PP, which was marked by a number of dielectric bulges and blisters on the fuselage. The jamming systems generated so much heat that two heat exchangers were installed in the lower aft fuselage ahead of the aft bicycle gear to help cool the avionics. The outer wing pylons were fitted with rocket pods that fired chaff ahead of the aircraft to help sow chaff corridors to protect inbound strike packages. Below each engine nacelle of the Yak-28PP was a system for deploying bundles of fiberglass-based chaff strips in mass quantities. The role of the Yak-28PP was to accompany inbound strike packages with three of the ECM -28PPs sowing a chaff corridor on each side of the strike aircraft formation as well as using its powerful jamming equipment to blind NATO air defense radars. The first Yak-28PPs completed their State acceptance testing just as the Yak-28N was canceled. Most of the Yak-28PPs that were built (NATO code name "Brewer-E") were based with the Soviet forces in East Germany. 

MiG-25BM armed with Kh-58 missiles

The cancellation of the Yak-28N in 1972 came about due to the arrival of an aircraft with significantly higher performance that would become the first Russian production Wild Weasel-class aircraft, the Mikoyan MiG-25BM "Foxbat-F" based on the production interceptor version. It was recognized early on in the Foxbat's flight test program that a high-flying, high-speed aircraft would make an ideal SEAD aircraft- as it was proved itself immune to interception during operations over the Sinai prior to the Yom Kippur War, a SEAD Foxbat could out-fly defending fighters, fire its anti-radiation missiles, and streak back with impunity. While early anti-radiation missiles like the Kh-28 mentioned already were heavy, the newer generation of anti-radar missiles like the Raduga Kh-58 (NATO code name AS-11 "Kilter") were much lighter and imposed little performance penalty on the Foxbat. 

Mikoyan MiG-25BM Foxbat-F in East Germany

At first the MiG-25BM was to be a dual-role reconnaissance/SEAD aircraft, the concept being that it would use its SEAD capability to allow it to penetrate deep into NATO airspace to complete its reconnaissance mission. By 1977 both the Soviet air forces and Mikoyan realized that the aircraft would be compromised in both roles and different Foxbat variants were developed for each role, with the MiG-25BM being the definitive SEAD variant. The MiG-25BM featured an integrated avionics package called Yaguar (Jaguar) that not only detected and located enemy radars, but it also networked with the Yaguar systems of other MiG-25BMs to allow a "wolf pack" of SEAD Foxbats to operate deep into NATO territory and share data and targeting information with other members of the wolf pack. The Yaguar system included target designation functions that cued the seeker heads of the four Kh-58 missiles that the MiG-25BM carried. In addition to the missiles, nuclear warheads could also be delivered to either knock out SAM missile sites or generate an EMP to short out communications and electronic systems. Several internal active ECM jammers were also carried which not only protected the MiG-25BM from air defense radars but could also counter fighter radars as well. The Foxbat-F was in production from 1982 to 1985, but the complex systems of the aircraft meant that only 40 examples were built. Nearly most were assigned to units stationed in East Germany and were unusual in being the only Foxbats to wear camouflage as the reconnaissance and interceptor variants were gray in color. Despite production ending in 1985, continued technical problems that had to be resolved meant that the first MiG-25BMs weren't operational in East Germany until 1988 with the Group of Soviet Forces Germany (GSFG), which ultimately withdrew from German soil in 1994. 

Kh-58 missile on an Su-24M, Fantasmagoria pod below it

The last SEAD aircraft developed for the Soviet air forces was the Sukhoi Su-24M "Fencer-D", but by this time the Fencer-D was less an dedicated SEAD asset and more an attack aircraft that had SEAD capabilities. Unlike the Yak-28N and the MiG-25BM that housed a large amount of equipment internally, technological advances meant that the Fencer-D could carry most of the radar detection and location equipment in a pod mounted on the centerline underfuselage which was called Fantasmagoria, with -A, -B, and possible -C version depending on the internal configuration of the pod. This was similar to the USAF where the Lockheed Martin F-16CJ replaced the specialized F-4G Phantom Wild Weasel. The F-16CJ had a small pod called the HARM Targeting System (HTS) that performed the same role as the Russian Fantasmagoria pod. The Su-24M could carry two kinds of anti-radiation missile, either the Kh-58 as was used by the MiG-25BM or the newer Kh-31 (NATO code name AS-17 "Krypton") missile. 

Sukhoi Su-24M Fencer-D, note the Fantasmagoria pod

The closest that Russian SEAD aircraft came to being committed to action came during the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan fron 1979 to 1988. During the war, Tupolev Tu-16 Badgers were used to bomb Mujaheddin positions, but were often tracked by Pakistani air defense and early warning radars. It was proposed to use the Su-24Ms to knock out the Pakistani radars which were providing warning information to Mujaheddin forces, but it was realized that it represented a significant escalation of the conflict and only limited cross-border raids were conducted with SEAD protection. During the Russian-Georgian War of 2008, it is believed that Su-24Ms were used against Georgian air defense positions, but poor tactical coordination resulted in the Georgians shooting down two Fencers. 

The last installment of this series will take a closer look at the anti-radar missiles that the Russians fielded for their SEAD assets. Stay tuned!

Source: Wild Weasel Fighter Attack: The Story of the Suppression of Enemy Air Defences by Thomas Withington. Pen and Sword Aviation, 2008, p100-102.