Chapter 14 MiG-25PD

"Andrei, it's getting late. You should go back and rest. You have to be on combat duty tomorrow." The experienced Kozhidub found that some technicians did not like what Andrei said. In order to avoid more accidents and make these experts unhappy, Kozhidub immediately asked Andrei to leave.

"Young man, you have a lot of ideas. If you have a chance in the future, please come to Moscow for a talk." Just when Andrei had to leave under the order of the stern Kozhedub, he heard Simonov's words.

Originally, Andrei had many more ideas. The later Su-27 was completely dragged down by its abnormal radar with a total weight of more than one ton. If integrated circuits had been installed earlier and less time was wasted on electron tubes, the weight could have been reduced by several hundred kilograms. The Su-27 with its excellent appearance would not have to go back and forth between weight gain and weight loss, and finally ended up with congenital rickets.

After all, it is only 1976, and there are still ten years before the Su-27 is officially finalized. With the Soviet Union's planned economy and the right direction, progress will be quite rapid.

However, Andrei is just a pilot after all. If he talks about T-10 now, he will definitely be arrested by the KGB and taken to a small dark room to be questioned about how he obtained those performance data.

Now, hearing Simonov's invitation, Andrei was excited: "Okay, if there is a chance, I will definitely go!"

Andrei walked away from the reconnaissance plane with a relaxed step. He knew that he had done something very important this time. The Soviet experts in the field of electronics would be greatly touched by the most advanced electronic technology in the United States. He hoped that they would broaden their horizons and not go further and further down the wrong path of thinking that the world would be conquered by electron tubes.

Especially the radar manufacturers that produce the new generation of fighter jets, whether it is NIIP or NIIR design bureau, they should be inspired by this most advanced electronic reconnaissance aircraft in the United States.

After returning to the dormitory, Belenkov was already snoring loudly. It turned out that alcohol could make people forget all their worries. Andre knew that there were remedies for the advancement of electronic technology, but the guy in front of him was a bomb that might explode at any time!

What should I do? Do some ideological work on him? I remembered that when I just came here, this Belenko was my leader. Although this guy wanted to be a traitor, he still helped me cover up my mistakes in front of the commander, which was quite considerate. Unless it was absolutely necessary, I should try my best to save this guy.

Lying in bed, Andre tossed and turned, unable to sleep. How did he travel through time? On the first day in this world, his experience was extraordinary. It can be said that he had changed history. How will it develop in the future?

The next day, the sky was clear. When Andrei came out of the dormitory, the EP-3 at the airport had disappeared. The plane must have been dismantled last night and then transported to an unknown place, perhaps in a hangar at the base, or perhaps it had been transported to the factories of Sukhoi, Mikoyan or other companies.

After having breakfast in the restaurant of the base, Andre came to the hangar, and the brand new fighter plane came into his sight.

MiG-25PD is a deeply improved model based on MiG-25P, and the focus is on radar!

The huge front end of the nose is no longer the Tornado-A radar system. Factory 339 has made improvements to the Sapphire-23 radar of the MiG-23, using a 90cm diameter antenna. The maximum effective range is increased to 115 kilometers compared to the Sapphire-23 radar. It adopts a new scanning system and fire control computer. The new radar has a pitch scanning range of 52° upward and 42° downward. This enables the MiG-25 to have preliminary downward look/shoot capabilities, and its ability to independently search for targets has also been greatly improved. This radar is named Sapphire-25 radar, and its NATO nickname is Foxfire.

This radar is a pulse Doppler plus continuous wave system, which is a great improvement over the single pulse system of the Tornado-A. Although it cannot be compared with the AWG-9 with flat slot antenna used by the Tomcat fighter of the US Navy, which was already in service at that time, it is much better than the original one.

At the same time, Andre also saw the new equipment at the front of the nose, the TP-26-SH1 forward-looking infrared search/tracking system (IRST)!

In later generations, this system has been widely equipped on many fighters, especially the Su-27 and MiG-29. Now, although this system is not mature, it has also been used by Soviet engineers. In terms of electronic technology, the Soviet Union is far behind, but the combination of various simple systems can play a stable role. The level of system integration of Soviet engineers is even inferior to that of their American counterparts.

This system is to make up for the shortcomings of Soviet radar. The search range of the target reaches 45 kilometers, and it can provide a stable and reliable target search method for the aircraft in a strong electronic interference environment. In addition, the fire control system of the fighter has also been upgraded and improved, and it has the ability to launch R-60 combat missiles.

At this time, the fighter jet had completed maintenance, and two R-40 and two R-60 missiles were mounted under the wings.

Looking at his new plane, Andre couldn't help but feel excited. If it weren't for his performance yesterday, he would definitely not be able to fly this fighter. Although his own fighters will definitely have to be improved in the future to reach the same level, after all, he was the first to fly this improved plane!

Climbing up the gangway and into the cockpit, Andre compared the instructions and looked at the improvements on the panel.

In later times, the West criticized the ergonomics of the Soviet cockpit, believing that the Soviet cockpit design was unreasonable, requiring people to adapt to the machine, and that the placement of the buttons was disorganized and inconvenient. These are indeed disadvantages, but this also has advantages, that is, the pilot's modification is quite simple. It can be said that as long as you can fly one model, the instrument placement of other models is fixed, unlike Western fighters, where every time you change to a new model, there will be a drastic change in the cockpit.

Now, this improved MiG-25PD has almost the same cockpit layout as the original, except for a few more knobs on the radar panel.

Andre was fiddling with the knobs with great interest when he heard the sharp sound of an air raid sirens outside. It was an emergency!