Key Points and Summary – Innovation in the Soviet aerospace industry thrived not in the centralized hubs of Moscow, but “far away from us,” in the provinces.
-The USSR’s most powerful and reliable jet engine, the D-30F6 that powered the formidable MiG-31 interceptor, was developed in Perm, where its designers overcame the rigid dogma of the Moscow-based defense establishment.
-While the capital’s design bureaus produced adequate but less impressive engines like the AL-31F, which ironically became the backbone of China’s modern air force, the true technological leap forward was happening in the hinterlands, free from the stifling micromanagement of the “imperial center.”
Russia’s MiG-31 Special Engine
LONDON, UK – In the Norman Jewison film adaptation of the musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” there is a classic scene that captures the dark humor that prevailed in Imperial Russia. Young men from a Jewish settlement in Ukraine who are studying the Torah come clamoring to their Rabbi and ask breathlessly, “Is there a proper blessing for the Tsar?”
“Yes, there is,” replies the Rabbi, looking and speaking thoughtfully. “God bless and keep the Tsar,” he tells them. He stops short, pausing for dramatic effect, then exclaims, “Far away from us!”
Soviet governance held over many traditions from the Tsarist period, although its rulers would never have admitted it. One strong carryover was that there was always an imperial seat where power was heavily centralized – Moscow in the case of the USSR. Very few matters of any significance were decided by anyone not sitting in an office in the capital.
A professor in graduate school once explained it to me like this: “In the U.S., the financial capital and main city of live dramatic theater is New York, Washington is the political capital, the auto industry’s home is in Detroit, movies are mostly made in Hollywood, and the big cities for aerospace are in Seattle, Palmdale, Long Beach, St. Louis and Fort Worth.
“But in the USSR, Moscow is the proverbial ‘center of the universe’ for all those industries and more,” he continued. “The Kremlin controls it all, and anyone who wants to succeed in any vocation will find their best career prospects in the capital.”
This arrangement did not always produce the best results. The level of administrative control and micromanagement of any activity is usually inversely proportional to productivity and positive outputs. The aerospace sector is a good example.
Aeroengines and Power
When the Su-27 first appeared as the Soviet Union’s next-generation air superiority fighter, it was obvious that the engines powering this aircraft were a significant leap in performance over previous Soviet designs. For the first time, Soviet-made aircraft had a reliable turbofan model that was in the class of the GE F110 or PW F100 series: the AL-31F. The design features a two-shaft afterburning turbofan with a 0.571 bypass ratio, a four-stage fan, and a nine-stage compressor, in addition to single-stage high- and low-pressure turbines.
To a lesser extent, the MiG-29’s Isotov RD-33 engine, which came from the NPO Klimov design team in St. Petersburg, also deserved some recognition. It was comparable to the U.S.-made F404 that was installed in the F/A-18A/B and C/D models. The design was not initially modular like the AL-31F, but the engine was considerably more reliable and fuel-efficient than the turbojets that had powered the MiG-21 and MiG-23/27 aircraft.
Both these engines ushered in a new era in Russian propulsion technology. Not only did they turn the Soviet Air Force into a proper fourth-generation service, but from the 1990s forward, Russian-made engines also powered almost all of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF’s) latest fighter aircraft.
The AL-31F was used in the PLAAF’s Su-27SK models, as well as the illegally reverse-engineered copies that were dubbed J-11B. The engines were also used for most of the initial production runs of the Chengdu J-10 and J-20. A single-engine installation of the RD-33, redesignated as the RD-93, became the engine for another Chengdu product, the JF-17 fighter that is jointly produced with the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex.
Without these Russian engines, the Chinese air force would not pose the same threat to the Indo-Pacific region as it does today.
Far Away From Us
What these Russian aeroengine programs have in common is that they were designed and even partially built within the Moscow-St. Petersburg corridor.
But far away from the imperial center – too distant for the people running the major defense industrial ministries to hold much sway – something much more impressive was being developed.
That distance from Moscow’s administrative apparatus turned out to be a blessing for the Perm/Aviadvigatel design team that completed the D-30F6 engine. This engine became the power plant for the Mikoyan MiG-31. It was first developed and tested in 1968-69, long before the AL-31F and RD-33.
The D-30F6 was the best-performing engine ever developed in the USSR. Not only was it the engine for the MiG-31, the most important interceptor aircraft in the Soviet armed forces at the time, but it was also the engine selected for the experimental Su-47 forward-swept-wing demonstrator aircraft.
At the time of that aircraft’s first flight, there was a huge emphasis on developing this aerodynamic concept. In the post-Soviet 1990s, Sukhoi aircraft were designed with supermaneuverability as one of the main requirements. When this aircraft’s single demonstrator was designed and built, the D-30F6 was selected because it had better dry thrust than anything else produced by Russian industry.
Had the design bureau been situated within the orbit of the Moscow defense industrial ministries, it probably never would have seen the light of day.
In the history of this engine told by the Russian-language book Aeroengines of Military Aircraft of Russia, recollections are shared of some of the hostility of the time toward the principles of this engine’s design.
As the authors recount:
“The OKB-19 designers had to disprove several theoretical dogmas that scientists at that time considered unshakable. One of them stated that the maximum gas temperature in front of the turbine should be maintained starting from takeoff mode near the ground. But it was not possible to obtain frontal thrust at a speed of 3000 km/h, which was specified in the technical specifications for the aircraft…the TsIAM [Central Institute of Aviation Motors] scientists still considered the creation of a bypass engine with afterburner with such high parameters for such high flight speeds to be impossible in principle.”
“They wrote about this in the official negative conclusion on the project. But in spite of everything, the general designer of the Mikoyan Design Bureau R. A. Belyakov decided to take a risk and accepted P. A. Solovyov’s [the head of the design bureau at Perm] offer. According to Pavel Aleksandrovich’s memoirs, “we were still terribly afraid. For example, meetings with Ustinov [the secretary of the CPSU Central Committee responsible for defense production] began with a discussion – is it possible to make such an engine? They did not believe it. All the time they raised one question, then another.”
Essentially, the designers were able to prove that the impossible could be done, adapting a commercial jet engine design to a military application. It is one of those chapters of the old Soviet aerospace industry that shows how the system stifled innovation and creativity. Those latter qualities only prospered and produced the best results when the commissars – like the Tsars before them – were kept far away.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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Swamplaw Yankee
July 21, 2025 at 2:21 am
The technique of keeping facts gossamer, certainly nebulous.
There is a specific date when the orc Bolshevik costumes were discarded by the muscovite tsar elite. That is, the USSR was magically turned into the Federation.
Many technical engineer skills were lost by the Russian peasants when Ukraine became independent of the fascist muscovites. The facts are there.
So, the author fails to be clear what technical skills remained in orc muscovite control and exactly what was lost to independence.
The recent destruction by Ukraine of Soviet era planes shows that the orc muscovites can not re-build that tech. So, what was retained and what was lost is absent from the op-ed?
The absent data begs the needed next op-ed that details what Ukraine has evolved and what the orc muscovites have evolved since the date of dropping their Bolshevik halloween costumes. -39-
Thomas
July 22, 2025 at 12:14 am
The Russians still have not solved that pesky problem of the engines having to be rebuilt just about every time that it flies at Mach 3 plus