MMRCA II: IAF Issues RFI for 110 figther jets

RTN wrote:

Backman wrote:India already knows the Mig 29 like the back or their hand. It's a smart move

Makes no difference. Mig-35 is a different aircraft. India knows nothing about it.

Russia needs to sell more Mig 29s to India.

It's just a mig-29K with AESA radar and probably more composite structure. The rest is the same more or less (newer version of some stuff).

India has signed a preliminary contract for the purchase of 110 Russian MiG-35 fighters
Yesterday

In 2010, the Indian Air Force decided to hold a competition under the abbreviation MRCA, its goal is to choose the best machine from different companies from among the applicants and to purchase or produce at least 126 multi-purpose vehicles in India. The following vehicles took part in the competition: Rafale, Typhoon, F-16C / D, F / A-18E / F, JAS-39 Gripen and the domestic MiG-35.

However, the MiG-35, like the F 16, quickly left the list, according to the Indian side, the same MiG-35 was supposed to have an on-board radar with AFAR, as well as the most advanced avionics at the time of the deal, but in fact, the car was not going smoothly with this. if everything is not so critical with avionics and avionics, then there were problems with AFAR. The MiG-35 is equipped with an AFAR H010 "Zhuk-A" radar and it would seem, what else is needed? And the fact is that the number of antipersonnel mines was 680 pieces, which is very small for such an airborne radar and did not ensure the detection of a fighter-type target in the front hemisphere beyond 145 km.

It should be noted that not everything went well with the rest of the participants, the competition lasted until 2019 and the French light fighter Rafale won it, a contract was signed for 36 aircraft and 4 vehicles have already been delivered. But it soon became clear that, despite all the advantages of the machine on paper, in reality, not everything is so wonderful. The car turned out to be capricious and demanding on the engineering staff, there were also problems with the supply of spare parts and repair kits, and most importantly, the request for a licensed assembly in India was refused. India has extensive experience in licensed production of military equipment, in particular from Russia, more than 1000 T90S tanks and 255 Su-30MKI fighters have been produced at local factories.

The country's air force again thought about an alternative that would not be inferior in technical terms to the French car and, at the same time, logistics and maintenance would be simple and not expensive. Just the other day in the Indian city of Bangalore, the aerospace salon Aero India 2021 opened, where the Indian side's gaze fell on the MiG-35 and many will ask the question, what's the point?

The fact is that the MiG-35 presented the other day and at Max 2019 is a completely different machine than the one that was shown in 2010. The machine received a new variation of the RD-33MKV engine with a controlled thrust vector, the airframe also underwent changes, the main empennage became larger in area, the rear empennage also increased in size, and other smaller airframe elements also changed. However, the main difference is the radar and avionics, this time NIIR "Phazotron" greatly improved the N010 "Zhuk-MA" by adding 1148 PPM to the canvas and increasing the canvas by 200 mm, they were able to obtain a detection rate of up to 225 km (fighter) in the X-band at 10 GHz with a wavelength of 3 cm.

Avionics also underwent strong changes, few people know that Russia was able to master its avionics only by 2012, and to produce mass production with the support of KRET by 2014. By 2018, 90% of the avionics were changed on the MiG-35, including flight instruments. There are no official photos of the cockpit of the export MiG-35, there is only a photo of the version for the Russian Air Force, and it is almost identical to the one on the MiG-29KUB. But there is an approximate idea of ​​the display devices in the cockpit of the export car, since a fragment of the cockpit was seen in one of the videos from Max 2019, and later I was able to find some of its components. The feature of the cockpit is a huge wide-format MFI-25SH, developed by the Elkus company, in functionality it is similar to that installed on the F 35, and supplemented by a new ILS from the Su-35S.

Taking into account all the changes in the car, after 10 years of the first tender, at Aero India 2021, Russian aircraft manufacturers and military representatives of India managed to reach an agreement on concluding a contract for the supply of the Indian Air Force of MiG-35 fighters after confirming the parameters set by the tender, as well as a possible licensed assembly. The plans include 110 combat aircraft, which, taking into account the cost of one combat vehicle, suggests that the contract is valued at more than $ 5 billion.

https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5f20a49cf01f506fcb80c60b/indiia-podpisala-predvaritelnyi-kontrakt-na-pokupku-110-rossiiskih-istrebitelei-mig35-601c75d26695f61b58eeb20e

So this is almost a done deal

AESA radar and 110 aircraft for less than the 8.4 billion they paid for 36 Rafales... all newly made avionics... what is not to like?

Most likely assembled in India...

They have an order for more MiG-29KRs as well... you would think they would be smart and mix them together for a larger volume order and pool the spare parts and support contracts and weapon orders.

Would think the new radar could be made standard on the MiGs and retrofitted to their other MiGs eventually and a variant could be used on their future medium stealth design

Certainly thrust vector engines would be useful for a carrier based aircraft too.

This is good news and it might have some good side effects for Serbia as well

If MiG-35s are back in the game with big order for fancy customer it would give us excuse to replace our fleet of 29s down the road

I remain cautious on this one, the rules of the tender have not even been published officially...

PapaDragon wrote:
This is good news and it might have some good side effects for Serbia as well

If MiG-35s are back in the game with big order for fancy customer it would give us excuse to replace our fleet of 29s down the road

Your mig-29A were a gift. You didn't had money to buy them. I doubt you can afford a mig-35.

Isos wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:
This is good news and it might have some good side effects for Serbia as well

If MiG-35s are back in the game with big order for fancy customer it would give us excuse to replace our fleet of 29s down the road

Your mig-29A were a gift. You didn't had money to buy them. I doubt you can afford a mig-35.

Hold your horses, we have our airforce covered for a foreseeable future when it comes to fighter jets with those 29s, I am talking about what happens after they reach expiration date which is 2 decades from now

India needs to make decision first, sign the contract and to receive and introduce 35s before we could start making moves, this will take quite a while plus we are too small to be early adopters of anything especially full size fighter jets (we have to early adopt our own stuff obviously but that's the pricetag of being arms manufacturer)

As for price we are already buying helicopters for cash from Russia and Europe and while they don't cost as much as airplanes they ain't exactly SUVs either

Plus at the moment it's the bombers/CAS that need replacing first so MiGs are ways​ off yet

Serbia is in the middle of europe... she really doesn't need a large number of super fighters.

The only external threat is from HATO, which means for policing your airspace upgraded MiG-29s will be fine if they are kept fully operational and have decent missiles.

If Serbia needs to defend itself with fighter aircraft it will likely be from other european countries in which case I am not sure what group of one or two dozen modern fighters would make any difference.

PapaDragon wrote:India needs to make decision first, sign the contract and to receive and introduce 35s before we could start making moves

I'm afraid this is fake news - India has not made any decision regarding the purchase of Mig-35, leave alone signing a contract.

In the ongoing Aero India 2021 all that UAC has said is that Mig-35, Su-35 and Su-57 are on offer.

Apart from the 21 mothballed Mig 29s that India is trying to purchase, India certainly can do with a few more Mig 29s. Whether Russia is in a position to sell/lease more Mig 29s to India is not something that UAC has shed light on.

PapaDragon wrote:this will take quite a while plus we are too small to be early adopters of anything especially full size fighter jets (we have to early adopt our own stuff obviously but that's the pricetag of being arms manufacturer)

In the interim, build a sizeable missile force that includes TBMs, cruise missiles and SAMs. Missiles that bring London and Brussels within range and keep US carrier groups at bay.

GarryB wrote:Serbia is in the middle of europe... she really doesn't need a large number of super fighters....

This is correct, for reference average New Delhi suburb is larger and more populated than Serbia

Fighter jets are there to do air policing in peace time and to play support for bomber aircraft (armed jet trainers) in wartime, as in carry extra bombs just in case

We don't need more than one squadron of them which is what we have now, next thing on a shopping list for airforce are those jet trainers

MiG-35s staying in production would be useful way down the road when our MiG-29s reach the end of service life because it would allow us to just switch quickly without the need for any additional investments in infrastructure and training

This is also why Russia donated those additional MiG-29s, it means we will keep using their products until we can make bigger order later when situation changes, if we switched to different manufacturer now it would have been harder for them to make future sales

Many experts were shocked when we got rid of our fighters and LIFT trainers... how will we defend ourselves... the Russians and the Chinese... not to mention the French or the Americans...

But the reality is that they didn't do anything... we used our Skyhawks at the odd occasional airshow and other than that we used them for training with the Australians... our A4s would fly low and fast and pretend to be anti ship missiles for them to practise against.

They cost millions of dollars a year in upkeep and it was going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to replace them with old model F-16s and we still didn't have a use for them...

We help out in the odd conflict... usually part of a peacekeeping force rather than a peace making one so the last thing we need is a fighter plane to park over by all the other fighter planes everyone who as come to help has brought.

What we should have done is get rid of the Skyhawks and Aermacchis and bought some Il-76 transport planes (we could never afford even one C-17 or A-400M).

We could fly out to the Pacific Islands much faster and much easier and more efficiently than with the C-130s we have now that are slow and low flying and short ranged... so you fly through weather rather than over it... you need lots of refuelling stops... not ideal. It is a strategic very light transport.... a theatre light transport.

The MiG design bureau have unified the design of the naval MiG-29KR with the new MiG-35, so the Russians are buying and evaluating some MiG-35s and I would expect while that production line is still working they will also make some extra MiG-29KRs for the Russian Navy too.

They will want a few MiG-35s in Russian Air Force service because new engines and systems being developed for the new LMFS or what ever it will be called will likely be tested in the 35 similar to what Sukhoi did with the Su-35 and PAK FA.

Other countries seem to be buying MiGs so even if India doesn't bother it should be OK.