MiG-29/ΜiG-35 Fulcrum: News #2

Not sure that they would bother with radar absorbing paint for an airshow... especially if it is like that American stuff that cracks and makes a mess without an air conditioned hangar and kid gloves.

Well to be honest if I was buying aircraft at the moment I would probably buy MiG-29M2s with some components of the MiG-35... because a MiG-35 is just a MiG-29M2 with all the MiG-35 components added.

Egypt might not want or need all the features of the MiG-35, plus it would also save a lot of money if they buy M2s to start with and then with experience and as the costs go down components of the 35 they are interested in.

Personally I think a smart move by the Russian Air Force would be to buy the 48 or 50 odd MiG-35s they are going to buy, but also buy 250 odd MiG-29M2s as well and over time add MiG-35 components to the MiG-29M2 as they see fit... they might find with experience that some parts of the 35 are really good, but they also might find some parts of the M2 are good enough most of the time so in 5 years time when they are looking at a MiG-35M upgrade their might be a few things they want to upgrade their M2s with and some things they wont need to upgrade them with, but essentially they could upgrade their M2s to 35 ish status and so have 250 MiG-35s and perhaps 50 MiG-35Ms... or just 300 MiG-35Ms.

They might even make some for the Navy as well as a cheaper stopgap fighter for new carriers too.

It might have all sorts of new technology including all new AAMs and photonic radars and quantum ESM systems and an EMP gun replacing a cannon for all we know.

A while back I was reading an article on a Russian language website that had been linked to by a member here and while I was reading the article i noticed another story on that website written by an Indian expert. That article wasn't new as it said that India should not buy any PAK FAs because even Russia is only buying a dozen and clearly does not have any confidence in the aircraft so India should wait a couple of years and then when it hasn't sold internationally very well swoop in and get it really cheap.

The guy clearly thought that Russia has no money and could only produce a 5th gen fighter if they can get someone else to pay for it and he thinks that if India leave things for a while they could get a much better deal because the Russians will be desperate to find someone to fund their newest fighter.

At the time I thought... well they are probably spending rather more money on the White Swan and PAK DA as they will be very expensive programmes too, but you really don't see them trying to export them do you?

Perhaps they might think the Su-57 is going to be a good aircraft and they might think their number one trading ally might want some for their armed forces... but clearly not.

For the 10 billion they were offering for the MRCA competition they could have bought a mix of say 50 MiG-35s and 200 odd MiG-29M2s and solved all their problems... both aircraft are fully multirole and could be enhanced with decent external pods like targeting pods or jammer pods where appropriate and replaced all their MiG-27, Jaguar, and MiG-21s, together with their Tegas II fighters... but they would rather negotiate and haggle and not put new planes in service.

Indian media articles are not really a representation of what IAF thinks. Most are total bullshit articles.

That is true, but certain Indian media outlets like to give the impression that India is being held back by Russia and if only India would turn to the US then they would get everything they want and need and be invincible...

Why buy mig29M2 and mig 35 ? Mig 35 won't be so much more expensive than the M2. They propose it with Zhuk ME and with aesa radar which is the only big and expensive difference with M2. And they already have around 100 mig-29 upgraded to the best standard.

The MiG-29s they have are the old model and can only be upgraded so far.

MiG-29M2 is the basic design of the MiG-35, but pretty much with MiG-29SMT+2 level systems and equipment... it is all tried and tested and would basically equate to an Su-27SM3... which is actually pretty good and certainly much much better than the stuff it is replacing.

The MiG-35 is more like the Su-35... it uses the same airframe as the MiG-29M2 and the MiG-29KR naval model... it is the best of the best they can manage, and of course that is expensive... and because it is new it might need a bit of work to get everything working together... it is not a mature system like the Su-35 actually is, but it is also a very capable system and worth aiming for eventually.

The Russians are buying 48 MiG-35s at the moment so it is in production technically, but this is a new specs MiG-35, it is not what the Indians were offered a few years ago... the Russian AF had specific requirements that were different from the MRCA that the old MiG-35 was designed for.

They will also get them quickly as mig production is near 0 right now so they can produce only for india. If they still go with french rafale they will get 1 or 2 per year so if they buy 114 of them they will need 50 years to get all of them. And western countries won't let them produce the jets locally as proven in the first rafale contract.

I am sure the Russians would be happy to sell India a TOT to build MiG-29M2s and probably even MiG-35s, though I don't think they will get exactly the same aircraft the Russian military is getting... it will likely have secret bits for delivering tactical nuclear weapons, and they will likely want their own local components and the odd foreign components added too... that is what they have done in the past and I don't see them changing soon.

Even the basic MiG-29M2 is vastly better as a strike aircraft than the MiG-27 and as a point interceptor than the MiG-21 no matter what upgrades those two older aircraft get... and with the -35 upgrade potential they can upgrade it over time to the level they need or want.

Well, have you miss the recent russian order of 76 Su-57?
This alone would have been enough to put the said article in the trash bin.

Yes, I know.... some people think the Su-57 was a joint venture between Russia and India and the only reason Russia has anything to show for its efforts is because of Indian funding, but of course India hasn't paid a cent towards the PAK FA which is a Russian programme funded only by Russia.

The PAK FA has certainly benefited by the joint Indian and Russian development of the Russian Su-30M into the Russian Indian Su-30MKI, but then they also benefited from the development of the joint Su-30MKK with China and the other programmes to make modifications of these Russian aircraft.

The FFGA programme with India is like the Su-30MKI... it is modifying an existing Russian type to suit the needs of India and potentially other countries as well.

The Su-35 would not be as capable and as powerful as it is without the Su-30MKI, and the Su-57 will probably benefit from work done with India developing a new fighter for them... whatever they end up calling it, but then they could end up learning a lot working with Turkey on an Su-57KT or even a Su-35KT (K meaning export model and T in this case standing for Turkey in the same way the Su-30MKI means Su-30M upgrade for export with India and Su-30MKK means Su-30M upgrade for export with China).

The Flankers and the new stealth fighter are impressive, but the new MiGs are also rather good and offer 95% the performance of the new Flankers but with probably a 40% reduction in operating costs... which means it makes an excellent numbers aircraft that should be able to integrate well with the bigger aircraft too.

India already has Flankers and might or might not get Su-57s... I think on balance they will because the F-35 is just too expensive and high maintenance and fragile, so the MiGs should work rather well with them... besides the US has already refused to sell F-35s to Turkey because Turkey has S-400, so they can hardly now sell India F-35s if they have Su-30MKIs and S-400s.

As mentioned in that article the MiG-35 has new avionics a generation ahead of previous models, so of course it will likely be more expensive than the MiG-29M2, but they share the same airframe, so buying both will enable India to evaluate which features are worth the money and which are not.

Keep in mind not every fighter they own needs to be super dooper state of the art... sometimes something not much more complicated than a MiG-21 is all they need, so the cheaper MiG-29M2 could do the job.

After 5 years in service they could upgrade the elements that are good value for money and leave out things that are expensive and not needed... they could buy 24 MiG-35s and perhaps 96 MiG-29M2s for the same price they might have paid for 96 MiG-35s...

The R-37 RVV-BD 300km range AAMs will put Pakistan on the back foot... I think the export model is about 200km and the Russian model is about 295km in range, but I would expect they could negotiate local production perhaps and the better model.

Technically it is a completely redesigned MiG-29, it is designed from the start to be a two seater, so the single seat model is the same shape and same design, but with an extra fuel tank where the second seat and cockpit would be located.

It means both single and two seat models are fully operational, and the minor loss in ready to use fuel for the two seater is made up for with two crew who can share the workload and provide better capabilities.

They have mentioned that it has upgraded more automated systems so two crew should be more aware of their surroundings and so if they coordinate their actions properly should be able to hunt enemy targets quite efficiently.

The big new missile range should also make it rather more capable too...