Saturn AL-41
turbofan aircraft engine
The Saturn AL-41 is a designation for two different Russian military turbofan engine variants by NPO Lyulka-Saturn. The original AL-41F, development designation izdeliye 20, was a variable-bypass ratio turbofan engine, designed for supercruise flight for the MFI (Mnogofunktsionalni Frontovoy Istrebitel, "Multifunctional Frontline Fighter") program, which resulted in the Mikoyan Project 1.44. It is considered to be the Russian counterpart to the General Electric YF120 engine which lost to the more conventional fixed-bypass Pratt & Whitney YF119 in the Advanced Tactical Fighter engine program.
Since the cancellation of the MFI program, the AL-41F1S (izdeliye 117S) and AL-41F1 (izdeliye 117) designations were assigned to engines developed by Lyulka-Saturn, now NPO Saturn, that respectively power the Sukhoi Su-35S and Sukhoi Su-57, but these are heavily upgraded fixed-bypass variants of the AL-31F, rather than variants of the variable cycle izdeliye 20 design.
Design and development
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Soviet Defence Ministry identified the need for a 1990s fighter, or I-90, that would eventually succeed the MiG-29 and Su-27, resulting in the MFI fifth-generation multirole fighter program. The AL-41F, with development project designation izdeliye 20, was launched in 1982, and was intended to power the MFI, which was to be developed by Mikoyan under its 1.44/1.42 project. The first prototype engine flew in a MiG-25 Foxbat testbed. An 18–tonne (177 kN, 40,000 lbf) class engine, the AL-41F used a variable bypass architecture to facilitate the aircraft in supercruise, or fly at speeds of Mach 1.5 without afterburner. It had the ambitious goal of increasing the turbine inlet temperature by 250 °C over its AL-31F predecessor, and was expected to incorporate thrust vectoring to enhance the fighter's maneuverability. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, both the MFI and the AL-41F suffered from severe funding disruptions and lengthy delays; production plans for the MFI was halted in 1997 due to high costs.
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