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"It turned out that the weight of the aircraft necessitated large wings."

• dexen 12y ago
  > "It turned out that the weight of the aircraft necessitated large wings." As opposed to other combat aircrafts featuring large wings for high-altitude performance and maneuverability. Before we diss steel as viable aircraft material, note that weight was increased both by heavy engines† and presumeably heavy avionics, as those were based on vacuum tubes. Including a 600kW (!) radar, if we are to quote Wikipedia everywhere. † the engines alone, at 4900kg a pair are 25% of MiG's dry weight, add some overhead for support structures necessited by their sheer power. For contrast, F/A-18's engines are 20% of dry weight.
  • Shivetya 12y ago
    plus last I read it wasn't designed to dogfight but to chase down proposed mach 3 bombers the US was building; XB-70 and such
• trhway 12y ago
  of course. At those speeds you don't have much choice of materials - basically either steel or titanium - and that choice results in the huge difference in weight and thus in range. Compare MiG-25 with Blackbird: " On the SR-71, titanium was used for 85% of the structure, with much of the rest polymer composite materials." But you just can't build your interceptor/fighter force out of titanium - it is extremely cost prohibitive. The point here is that steel is pretty legitimate aircraft material in specific part of the performance/cost envelope.