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The Sukhoi Su-9 (
NATO reporting name NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment from Russia, China, and historically, the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw Pact). They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform manne ...
: Fishpot) was a single-
engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...
, all-weather,
missile In military terminology, a missile is a guided airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight usually by a jet engine or rocket motor. Missiles are thus also called guided missiles or guided rockets (when a previously unguided rocket i ...
-armed
interceptor aircraft An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are cap ...
developed by the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.


Development

The Su-9 emerged from aerodynamic studies by
TsAGI The Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (also (Zhukovsky) Central Institute of Aerodynamics, russian: Центра́льный аэрогидродинами́ческий институ́т, ЦАГИ, Tsentral'nyy Aerogidrodinamicheskiy Institut, ...
, the Soviet aerodynamic center, during the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
, which devised several optimum aerodynamic configurations for jet fighters. The design first flew in 1956 as the T-405 prototype. The Su-9 was developed at the same time as the Su-7 "Fitter", and both were first seen by the West at the
Tushino Aviation Day In the life of Soviet Union, air shows were a highly regarded type of parade, almost always of military nature. They happened on various occasions and anniversaries, in many locations across the country. A notable air show was the Tushino Air Show ...
on 24 June 1956, where the Su-9 was dubbed Fitter-B. It entered service in
1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
. Total production of the Su-9 was about 1,100 aircraft. It is believed that at least some Su-9s were upgraded to Su-11 "Fishpot-C" form. None were exported to any of the
USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
's
client state A client state, in international relations, is a state that is economically, politically, and/or militarily subordinate to another more powerful state (called the "controlling state"). A client state may variously be described as satellite state, ...
s nor to the
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
nations. Remaining Su-9s and later Su-11s were retired during the 1970s. Some were retained as test vehicles or converted to remote-piloted vehicles for use as
unmanned aerial vehicle An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
s. It was replaced by the upgraded Su-11 and the much-superior Su-15 "Flagon" and MiG-25 "Foxbat". The combat record of the "Fishpot", if any, is unknown. It is possible that it was involved in the interception (or even shoot-down) of
reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
missions whose details remain classified, but nothing is publicly admitted. It was reported that a Su-9 was involved in the interception of
Francis Gary Powers Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 i ...
' U-2 on Soviet territory on 1 May 1960. A newly manufactured Su-9 which was in transit flight happened to be near Powers' U-2. The Su-9 was unarmed and was directed to ram the U-2. One ramming attempt was made and the Su-9 missed the U-2, primarily due to large difference in the speed of the two planes. No further ramming attempt was made due to Su-9's lack of fuel. Its pilot, Captain Igor Mentyukov later claimed that his slipstream had caused the U-2 to break apart. He discounts the official version that the U-2 was shot down by an
SA-2 The S-75 (Russian: С-75; NATO reporting name SA-2 Guideline) is a Soviet-designed, high-altitude air defence system, built around a surface-to-air missile with command guidance. Following its first deployment in 1957 it became one of the most w ...
missile, saying that Captain Powers could not have survived such a hit. On September 4, 1959 a modified Su-9 (designated T-431 by the bureau) piloted by Vladimir Sergeievitch Ilyushin set a new
world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...
for absolute height, at 28,852 m (94,658 ft). In November of the same year Ilyushin set several new sustained speed/altitude records in the same aircraft. This record was later broken on 6 December 1959 by Commander Lawrence E. Flint Jr., who performed a
zoom climb A zoom climb is a climb where the rate of climb is greater than the maximum climb rate using only the thrust of the aircraft's engines. The additional climb rate is attained by reduction of horizontal speed. Before a zoom climb, the aircraft ac ...
to a world record of 98,557 ft (30,040 m) while piloting an F4H-1 Phantom.


Design

The Su-9's fuselage and tail surfaces resembled those of the Su-7, but unlike the
swept wing A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than in a straight sideways direction. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigate ...
of that aircraft, the "Fishpot" used a 53°
delta wing A delta wing is a wing shaped in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta (Δ). Although long studied, it did not find significant applications until the Jet Age, when it proved suitabl ...
with conventional slab tailplanes. It shared Sukhoi features like the rear-fuselage air brakes as well as the Su-7's
Lyulka AL-7 The Lyulka AL-7 was a turbojet designed by Arkhip Mikhailovich Lyulka and produced by his Lyulka design bureau. The engine was produced between 1954 and 1970.Gunston 1989, p.100. Design and development The AL-7 had supersonic airflow through th ...
turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and ...
engine and nose intake. The translating
shock cone Inlet cones (sometimes called shock cones or inlet centerbodies) are a component of some supersonic aircraft and missiles. They are primarily used on ramjets, such as the D-21 Tagboard and Lockheed X-7. Some turbojet aircraft including the Su-7 ...
contains the
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
set. The Su-9 was developed from earlier work on a developmental aircraft designated T-3, to which the Su-9 was very nearly identical. Internally at Sukhoi, the Su-9 was known as the T-43. The delta wing of the Su-9 was adopted because of its lower drag in the
supersonic Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound ( Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times ...
flight regime. Its greater volume also allowed a very modest increase in fuel capacity compared to the Su-7. The Su-9 was capable of Mach 1.8 at altitude, or about Mach 1.14 with missiles. Its
fuel fraction In aerospace engineering, an aircraft's fuel fraction, fuel weight fraction, or a spacecraft's propellant fraction, is the weight of the fuel or propellant divided by the gross take-off weight of the craft (including propellant): :\ \zeta = \fra ...
remained minimal, however, and operational radius was limited. Furthermore, rotation speeds were even higher than the Su-7, which was already high at 360 km/h (225 mph). Unlike the Su-7, which had very heavy controls but docile handling characteristics, the "Fishpot" had light and responsive controls, but was very unforgiving of pilot error. The Su-9 had primitive R1L (
NATO reporting name NATO reporting names are code names for military equipment from Russia, China, and historically, the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union and other nations of the Warsaw Pact). They provide unambiguous and easily understood English words in a uniform manne ...
"High Fix") radar in the shock cone and was armed with four K-5 (AA-1 "Alkali")
beam-riding Beam-riding, also known as Line-Of-Sight Beam Riding (LOSBR) or beam guidance, is a technique of directing a missile to its target by means of radar or a laser beam. The name refers to the way the missile flies down the guidance beam, which is ai ...
air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying a ...
s. Like all beam-riders, the K-5 was so limited as to be nearly useless for air-to-air combat . Unlike the Su-7 and later
Su-15 The Sukhoi Su-15 (NATO reporting name: Flagon) is a twinjet supersonic interceptor aircraft developed by the Soviet Union. It entered service in 1965 and remained one of the front-line designs into the 1990s. The Su-15 was designed to replace t ...
, no Su-9 carried
cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...
armament, although two fuselage pylons were reserved for the carriage of
drop tank In aviation, a drop tank (external tank, wing tank or belly tank) is used to describe auxiliary fuel tanks externally carried by aircraft. A drop tank is expendable and often capable of being jettisoned. External tanks are commonplace on modern ...
s. A two-seat trainer version, designated Su-9U, was also produced in limited numbers (about 50 aircraft). It received the NATO reporting name "Maiden". It had a full armament and radar system with displays in both cockpits, allowing trainees to practice all aspects of the interception mission, but because the second seat further reduced the already meager fuel fraction, it was not truly combat-capable. The Su-9 has been frequently mistaken for the
MiG-21 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-21; NATO reporting name: Fishbed) is a supersonic jet fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Its nickna ...
due to the many similarities in design. The primary distinguishing factors are size and the Su-9's bubble canopy.


Variants

;T-405 :Prototype of the Su-9. ;Su-9 :Main production version, about 1,100 built. ;Su-9U :Training version, armed and equipped with all operational systems but not fully combat ready, about 50 built. ;T-431 :Su-9 modified for setting of the
world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...
for absolute height in 1962. ;
Sukhoi Su-11 The Sukhoi Su-11 (NATO reporting name: Fishpot-C) was an interceptor aircraft used by the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Design and development The Su-11 was an upgraded version of the Sukhoi Su-9 ('Fishpot') interceptor, which had been developed ...
:Development of the Su-9.


Operators

; *
Soviet Anti-Air Defense The Soviet Air Defence Forces (russian: войска ПВО, ''voyska protivovozdushnoy oborony'', ''voyska PVO'', ''V-PVO'', lit. ''Anti-Air Defence Troops''; and formerly ''protivovozdushnaya oborona strany'', ''PVO strany'', lit. ''Anti-Air De ...
:894th Fighter Aviation Regiment, Ozernoye, Ukraine, 1959-1979.Michael Holm, http://www.ww2.dk/new/air%20force/regiment/iap/894iap.htm, accessed December 2012.


Specifications (Su-9)


See also


References


External links


Su-9 from NAPO (Novosibirsk Aircraft Production Association)

Su-9 from Global Aircraft


{{Authority control Su-09 1950s Soviet fighter aircraft Single-engined jet aircraft Delta-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1956