Why Russia's Super | mig 47
In1996,theMarch/AprilissueofRussianmilitaryperiodicalAirFleetBulletinpublishedaninnocuous-seemingphotoofameetingbetweenRussianmilitarychiefsandaviationindustrycounterparts.Sittingonthetablebeforethemweretwomodelairplanes.Onewasanadvancedvariantoftheby-thenwellknownFlankermulti-rolefighter.Theotherwasastrangeblackjetwithforwardsweptwings—thatis,thewingsseemedtobesweptthe“wrongway.”Whethertheimageamountedtoanaccidentalleakoranintentionalplant,itsetoffafirestormofexcitedspeculationinWesternandR...
In 1996, the March/April issue of Russian military periodical Air Fleet Bulletin published an innocuous-seeming photo of a meeting between Russian military chiefs and aviation industry counterparts. Sitting on the table before them were two model airplanes. One was an advanced variant of the by-then well known Flanker multi-role fighter.
The other was a strange black jet with forward swept wings—that is, the wings seemed to be swept the “wrong way.”
Whether the image amounted to an accidental leak or an intentional plant, it set off a firestorm of excited speculation in Western and Russian press forecasting a new cutting-edge jet that could outperform the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, the production model of which made its first flight the same year.
In fact, the model represented an advanced tech demonstrator—the Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut (“Golden Eagle”).
Early in the 1980s, as the Soviet Union introduced the fourth-generation Su-27[1] and MiG-29[2] jets to o...