First Look At MiG Skat UCAV [Updated]
Alexey Komarov and Douglas Barrie/Moscow
MiG today revealed a full-scale engineering mock-up of its unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) design, nicknamed Skat (Skate). Work on the low-observable design began over two years ago, and MiG will produce a flight worthy prototype within 24-months.
The MiG program is one of two competing designs that will be presented to the Russian Defense Ministry as a strike UCAV. Sukhoi is also understood to be working on a UCAV.
MiG unveiled the program during the Moscow air show, though only a few journalists were taken off the show site to a MiG facility at the Gromov flight test research institute.
Skat has two internal weapons bays, capable of carrying air-to-surface missiles as large as the Kh-31 (AS-17 Krytpon). Possible roles include the suppression and attack of enemy air defenses.
MiG is working with a number of Russian companies and state institutes -- including the 2nd Central Scientific Research Institute -- on Skat. The institute is known to be closely involved in low-observable research and development.
The first version of Skat to fly is planned to be piloted in order to meet Russian flight regulations. A number of aerodynamic configurations have been wind-tunnel tested, including with small twin fins. MiG has settled on a tail-less configuration.
The single-engine subsonic design has an 11.5 meter wingspan, and it is 10.25 meters long. The UCAV has a maximum take-off weight of 10 tons, with a maximum speed of 800 kilometers per hour (497 mph) at low altitude. It is intended to carry a combat load of up to two tons, with a combat radius of 2,000 km.
The Skat will be powered by the Klimov RD-5000B, a derivative of the RD-93. Two demonstrators will be built, the second will be unmanned. The flight tests will be used to prove the design and air vehicle systems. Weapon firings will also be carried out.
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Skat - A Preliminary Filleting
Posted by Bill Sweetman at 8/23/2007 11:30 AM
MiG's Skat unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) mockup, first of all, is not a copy of an X-45, X-47, Taranis, Neuron or anything else. So far, nobody's figured out how to make a UAV detect a threat in time to shoot back or evade it, so the only valid approach to survival is all-aspect stealth over the widest possible bandwidth, and an all-wing tailless configuration is still the best way to do that. That's why all UCAVs look like B-2s, because the B-2 design addressed the same problem.
Logos on the weapon bay door show that MiG has quietly assembled a team to put the project together. Its existence is no surprise. MiG general designer Vladimir Barakovskiy was in attendance at IQPC's UCAV conference in London last November and is due to speak at this year's event, where DTI will be the featured media. (DTI does not expect many delegates to be in this old MoD hangout during that paper.) Barakovskiy told DTI at the Paris air show (46-47) that MiG was active in UAVs, including "special mission" types.
It looks as if MiG has selected a bifurcated inlet duct with a vertical "septum" for Skat. Not surprising really...
... since the MiG-15 inlet had pretty good line-of-sight blockage.
As Barakovskiy indicated in DTI's interview, integrated flight and propulsion control, demonstrated on the MiG-29 OVT, is applicable to UAVs as well. Skat appears (caveat - this is very much a first look) to have trailing-edge surfaces that are split into upper and lower segments, but it will not be surprising if they are backed up in pitch and yaw by a vectoring nozzle.
Russian stealth technology is very real - Sukhoi's new Su-35 brochure is merely the first marketing reference to what has been known for some time. However, don't expect plasma stealth on this design. It may work inside a radome or at very high altitudes but is not applicable to Skat.
Rather like Neuron (page 19), Skat appears to serve several purposes. It gives the designers a chance to integrate an all-new design. It demonstrates stealth and high-performance UAV technologies and explores the problems of internal weapon carriage (so that a production variant doesn't need to go through two bomb-door and tail designs, like the F-117 did). And it puts together a team that can go after manned or unmanned stealth if the requirement emerges.
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