Having a single engine fighter with a RD-33 engine (mig 29 engine) would make it a copy of the chinese/ pakistani JF-17 more than a single engine derivative of the yak-130.
The JF-17 is just a modification of the MiG-21 with a conventional nose for radar... it is not that special... the Yak-130 with a 6 ton thrust single engine would be more like a light MiG-21.
Possibly it would be cheaper and faster to copy or get production rights for that aircraft. After all mig corporation helped its development.
We are talking about potential modifications of the Yak-130 for poorer countries that want to use it as more than just a trainer, there would be no value in copying a Chinese copy and upgrade of an old Russian fighter.
It would make more sense for them to design their own light fighter from scratch than base it on anything else in that sense... except you would go the other way and develop a cheap light fighter and then a cheaper LIFT based on that light fighter...
Furthermore in Soviet times most nations that received those kind of airplanes never paid soviet union for them, but got them practically for free.
Not going to happen again...
At the moment Russia have already a lot of new projects in development and that require capable engineers, I do not believe that it would be worth to spend a lot of resources on something that is not a priority for Russia and would not bring a lot of money in return.
The obvious solution is to make a dual purpose aircraft suitable for both roles with minor changes... a small light fighter aircraft with AESA radar and modern ESM and ECM equipment and modern AAM and air to ground weapons and all electric systems and powerful twin engines to give it good flight performance could be used as a relatively cheap small fighter for Russia to operate from aircraft carriers and also densely populated areas in European Russia as well as small airfields in the far north for point defence, while a model without the radar and self defence avionics could be used as both a trainer in a two seat version and also a light fighter with cheaper components substituting the state of the art Russian bits they will be using...
Russian development of more capable systems offer potential for the poor country to buy perhaps two or four dozen cheaper types and a dozen top of the line types as well as a dozen trainers... so 72 aircraft with related parts and components... a bit like a Russian twin engined Gripen... but that is actually cheap to operate... and buy.
It would be different if another nation could work on it and russia would just offer the engines, the internal and weapon systems and support and guidance in the development.
Not many countries are both too poor to afford MiG-29M2s but also able to develop their own aircraft... if the money isn't there then the design potential probably isn't either...
Again, it is just a matter of priorities and cost return ratio...
But again that is the problem... if Russia needs a cheap attack plane then the Yak-130 can carry a wide range of sophisticated and dumb air to ground munitions... and so can the Su-25...
As for COIN turboprop etc yes it could be done fairly easily and would allow Russia to to cover every type of aircraft/need on the market not a bad strategy considering price of oil dropping they may need to increase sales of defence equipment to help increase short fall of oil sales. Super tucano is a good aircraft and dominates that market so this either needs to be better or cheaper. It's possible that Russia could not only do it cheaper but also much more cheaper and more variety of weapons which could be useful and useful for a country already operating such weapons. And yes a bigger engine would be needed as yak-152 as u said has 500bhp engine and only ceiling height of 13,000ft, compared to the super tucano having 1,604bhp and a ceiling height of 35,000ft which is much better performance.
And yet the work they are doing on high speed helicopters suggests that perhaps that might be a better area to branch in to.
I remember a small light plane from the 1990s that was a high wing turboprop or piston engined plane... FN-92 or FN-94 or something that had forward firing rifle calibre machine guns and underwing 7 shot 80mm rocket pods...
They certainly have a range of gun pods and rocket types and the introduction of laser guided rockets making accuracy and effective firing range less of a problem I think they could come up with some capable ideas.
A cheap turboprop aircraft is a good idea but having cheap guided rockets so you can fire outside HMG range makes your aircraft much much safer...
I suspect drones will replace the Tucano type aircraft... including suicide drones.
Nice planes but lets be honest. An upgraded mig-21 will obliterate it.
It really depends... keep in mind that the Yak-130s aerodynamics is designed to allow it to emulate the manouver performance of late 4th and also 5th gen fighters, so while it does not have thrust vectoring engines it is quite a capable little jet, but of course without R-77 it would be limited to close combat.
An ESM pod and a targeting pod to enable it to engage air and ground targets and it could be a useful little fighter that could be rather tricky if skill fully used...
The MiG-21s age limits its potential for growth, but it is its small size that limits the capacity for turning the Yak-130 into a fighter...
As you add things you add weight... you can put more powerful engines in to compensate, but then you need to find room to put in more fuel which makes it bigger and heavier and then needs bigger engines... pretty soon your light fighter is a rather poorly performing medium fighter that is not cheap at all... sometimes I think it would probably be better to start with a medium sized aircraft like a MIG-29M2 and just fit it with cheaper components to reduce costs.... it is basically a good fighter.
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