The LTS seems indeed to be se second type, so no official competition is needed. Either VKS likes it or not.
That is not true... the best example of the second type would have to be the Su-25 to replace the Su-17 and MiG-27 in short range strike support roles in frontal aviation, but even then there was competing designs from other design bureaus.
The myth that the Soviets don't have competition for contracts is just that... a myth... Kalashnikov fought off three or four other rifle designers in the 1970s to win the contract for the AK-74 and in the 1990s the Abakan beat the AK-74M and more recently the AK-12 became the new standard rifle for Russian Army units.
Both MiG and Yak made their own CAS aircraft in competition to the Su-25 and tests were made to work out the winner... it was not just handed to anyone.
The current need is a cheap lighter numbers fighter that can essentially replace the MiG-21 and Su-17 families of light strike and light fighter aircraft for the role of Frontal Aviation swing fighter bomber... an aircraft that can be bought in useful numbers and deployed fairly widely that does not suck all the funding from the Air Force budget... so cheap to buy and cheap to operate.
Previously that was the MiG-29 and currently that is MiG-35 but obviously with issues that need to be sorted out... they have been told all this time that funding was focusing on what has become the Su-57 and that when that is entering service in serial production then funding will be shifted to a light fighter to compliment it, so all this time MiG will have been working on their own 5th gen designs not just to work with the Su-57 on land but also at sea and they will likely have two models a single engined aircraft and twin engined aircraft to choose from.
MiG was insisting on their MiG-29 based approach and extremely delayed with the -35, so they opened the door to Sukhoi, that simply ran over them with a much better thought and competitive approach.
Bullshit... there is no way MiG had the power or influence to demand the light fighter design be frozen while the heavy fighter was perfected and sorted out... that was a decision for the ministry of defence.
Now it will be difficult for them to match that and VKS should not be held hostage to keep MiG running when they did not perform.
The tests have not been run and nothing is flying yet... for all we know MiG might have been working with China on some of their products... some of which do have similarities to recent MiG designs... how far advanced are they really and how much are they revealing?
If they don't want to be held hostage by one design company branch the risk is greatest that that will be Sukhoi... they have the power and control to do so.
Probably they will go to the interceptor branch and leave fighters to Sukhoi, that would be also a honorable solution for the company
Honour has nothing to do with it... and besides if they withdraw in this who is to say Sukhoi wont start looking at interceptor designs next...
The deal was supposed to be delaying funding for the light fighter while the heavy fighter was worked out and Sukhoi screwed them over on that using the funding for Su-57 to make a smaller little brother design to screw MiG with...
Not likely, they didn't care for an AESA radar with the Su-35.
They cared enough to make the radar a hybrid...
A pure AESA will be a lot more expensive... for only a few advantages over the set they use now.
MiG-35 is late to the party and once the Su-75's are ready, I don't see the Russian MoD or any export client choosing the MiG's over the Checkmate.
Which means they have at least 5 years to sort their shit out and prove their worth and show their next step and tell us why it is better than the Su-75.
That's too bad. I know Egypt loves their customized MiG-29M/M2s (I mean they are super happy with them) and they even put in a request for the MiG-35 but they insisted on it having the Zhuk-AE and the built-in target designator (instead of the T-220 pod) and they were going to put in a rather large order to up their current 50 or so MiG-29M/M2s with an order of 100 or so. But we haven't heard anything beyond the request.
MiG gets a lot of shit, mostly by people who don't understand them and recognise why they made them the way they made them, but they make very good aircraft... the Russian military love the MiG-31, and the MiG-21 was popular around the world.
That was the next thing I was going to say; if the NO36 can fit in the Su-57, that radome on that aircraft isn't necessarily that big anyway, so it's likely it would fit in the Checkmate and maybe even in the MiG-35. If it does, they should stick that bad larry in all the jets, including the newly-built Su-35s.
One of the interesting things I am looking forward to is seeing the Checkmate in the air is comparing its size to Flankers and Su-57s... I don't think it is going to be very small at all.
During combat training with the US one comment the US pilots made was how small the MiG-21 looked and how hard it was to keep track of visually...
Home
Latest images
Register
Log in
LMFS
