MiG-29/ΜiG-35 Fulcrum: News #2

What I find amusing is that you make ridiculous statements (a few samples below) and when I respond with actual facts, that you find my response abusive.

Of course because everything you say is true and is not open to interpretation. All of your sources cannot be questioned and are the gods of truth that are never ever wrong about anything at all.

I find your response abusive like now calling statements ridiculous... lets have a look shall we?

Did you hear the story of the engineer that moved from MiG to Sukhoi and took with him the design of the MiG-29... the unsuccessful T-10 turned into the MiG-29 like T-10M overnight

So I am asking if you had heard that story... WTF is ridiculous about that?

The Su-33 was a warmed over Su-27P with folding bits and a tail hook.

The Su-33 is a warmed over Su-27P... apart from a bit of strengthening here and there and folding bits and tail hook it is hardly a completely new design.

But you claim that is ridiculous.

The T-10M looks rather more like a MiG-29 than the T-10 does.

I was meaning the T-10S but if you understand English and have a brain, what is ridiculous about that statement?

The T-10 did not look very much at all like the MiG-29... the T-10S and T-10M look more like the MiG-29 than the first prototype T-10 does.

Again you are saying that is ridiculous... fine... you can have any opinion you please... but that does not make my comment ridiculous... or even wrong.

Things like inflight refuelling probes were no advantage then either with strategic aviation being the only operators of inflight refuelling aircraft in their forces.

Russia is already at a numbers disadvantage in terms of fighters and you think using half your fighters as tankers to give their fighters extra reach that they don't need is a good idea?

Fine, but my statement is not ridiculous either.

The only planes on the Kuznetsov that could refuel the Su-33s would be the Su-25UTG

That is not ridiculous, that is just wrong.

It was going to be a strike aircraft but probably wouldn't make any sense without catapults to get airborne at any useful weight.

It was pitched as a strike aircraft like the Su-34 AFAIK.

It failed because they didn't have a strike role for aircraft... that is what the Granits and Kalibres are for.

Centreline pylon on the MiG-29 is normally occupied by a fuel tank... in a buddy refuelling situation both aircraft can carry a centreline fuel tank.

So you are trying to say the buddy refuelling pod cannot be carried on a wing pylon?

Post some evidence and I will accept that to be wrong but being a makes me not care so much about what is true from you.

Btw the picture you show was neither a Storm Shadow or drone attack at all, and your Migs would have burned just as well.

So if they burn on the ground it makes more sense to have smaller cheaper fighters...

Sukhoi has 1600km combat range

It is a bigger more expensive aircraft...

And most of the time it doesn't operate with full fuel so the range advantage is only theoretical most of the time.

Arkanghelesk, now your defence of MiG-35 it is becoming surreal: how many of these are been produced until now, six?

The choices of the Russian AF, rather than reflecting the value and usefulness of the aircraft.

Older MiG-29 still in service, Su-25 and even the An-72P of Border Guards with their gun pod would be enough or the task.

Of those aircraft only the MiG29 would be fast enough to chase down cruise missiles.... and gun pods would not come in to it... you remember the Georgian drone shoot down with the MiG-29 with an R-73.

Introducing the Mig-76 "Checkers" from the newly formed 1st Anti-Drone Guards Unit

So the MiG-76 flys before the Su-75...

My guess is that they were not really needed, but to increase the chances of export contracts. That's it.

Of course... that is why the Russians had such a bloated prewar budget of 65 billion... always wasting money on things they don't need just to enhance their export potential... right.

MiG has no capacity to build planes en masse, unlike Sukhoi,

Neither has the capacity... they are departments in the OAK/UAC.

But those 6 serial aircraft were built in a factory that I would wager probably were not also making flankers or Ilyusions or Hinds...

Currently, MiG is only upgrading MiG-31s and designing the PAK DP. Diverting personnel needed to build Sukhois to restart production of vintage fighters is a total waste of resources during a war for survival.

The Su-27 flew before the MiG-29 so ancient applies to the Flankers too.

Of course, restarting production is possible if there's a push from the top, but this would cause serious delays in the current projects.

Do you have evidence for that or just pulling that from somewhere dark and warm...

Regarding Kuznetsov's air wing, it is unlikely anyone will procure new fighters. The ship will keep its existing MiG/Su mix until they wear down. Eventually, some drones will be added. If/when a new aircraft carrier is built, which could be 15-20 years from now, the Su-57 will not be a new plane anymore—similar to how the Su-35 is viewed now. It will be good enough but not top-tier. So, either a navalized Su-75 (or similar) or the Su-57 will be considered, and perhaps something sixth-generation.

Sukhoi are working on a naval Su-57K type and I rather suspect they would reject a single engined carrier based fighter so that model of the twin engined light 5th gen fighter might start to make sense.

In terms of drones MiG had a drone model too and the S-70 could probably be navalised too.

With its new engines and lack of external weapons drag I would say the Su-57 could probably already take off from the Kuznetsov just fine... but I am sure Mir will tell me I am being ridiculous about that too.

Did Mig production staff get redeployed to Su?

How many Sukhoi production staff are working on Superjet and Su-57 and Su-75 and S-70 and Su-34 and Su-30 and of course upgrades to Su-33 and not to mention Su-25 upgrades and potential replacement... but of course give them more work that will help the Russian AF a lot.

If a statement is devoid of any truth then it could be considered ridiculous - right?

No.

In fact sometimes the truth is ridiculous.

That does not make it not true.

According to the dictionary "ridiculous" could for example mean that a statement is extremely silly or absurd, or even unreasonable.

Yes, but we are talking about the original opinion or statement being an opinion or statement, and your opinion of that statement being that it is ridiculous.

Your claiming it was ridiculous does not make it so.

I think your "story" qualifies simply because it is absurd and devoid of any truth. Maybe you believed the story - but it is still absurd. That makes it ridiculous.

You think. To be absurd it would have to be obviously not true. Therefore the story would need to contain facts and evidence that proves the story is not true for it to be obviously not true.

I don't think that is the case.

well RuAF decided what is useful or not for the isnt it?

Their decisions are based on current perceived need and also current budget.

Seems to be that both have since changed and it seems that these decisions have been changed.

You, and others claim light cheaper fighters are not needed... yet you also claim that the Russian AF needs Su-75s... so which is it...

So if they do need cheap fighters to create a bit of depth and numbers to their air power forces then there is currently only one option even if you don't like it.

Sukhoi factories make Sukhois,

They are not Sukhoi factories. They are aircraft factories that are set up to build specific aircraft, but they are not set in stone... when they finished making Su-25s they didn't burn the factories to the ground and build new factories to make different types.

Some factories make several different aircraft types at one time... not all designed by the same design bureau.

The factory that made 6 MiG-35s will likely also be making other types, or do you think they are sitting idle waiting for new orders?

The different types each factory makes is based on its space... you don't take a factory making Yak-130s and change the tooling and start pumping out An-225s.

But the assembly lines that made four Yak-130s in parallel might produce two MiG-35 lines, or maybe one Tu-214 line.

That is part of the management process for UAC/OAK.

The MiG-35 is a smaller lighter cheaper plane than the Flankers so mass production in numbers should be easier... that is the point.

Just the same as once their new vehicle families are up and running and in serial production Boomerang based vehicles will be made faster and cheaper than the heavier tracked Armata family of vehicle types.

Absolutely, the Su-27 is a legacy design, and its apex modification is the Su-35. Nothing more seems to be planned - Su-57 is the promising design and 6gen is the future, The difference is that Su-35 is for years and in numbers and MiG-35 is not.

If they continue to produce Su-30s and Su-35s and operate them in service with their newer types then why would it be obsolete to produce MiG-35s which are a comparable level of upgrade from the MiG-29 that the Su-30/35 is from the Su-27? They could also put tail hooks on some MiG-35s and use them as backup aircraft for their aircraft carriers so the 5th gen carrier aircraft don't need to be so rushed.

So in your warm and dark place manufacturing capabilities and skilled engineer and worker teams are endless and you can scale them in 0 time and establishing production doesn't take effort and time?

So if the Russian Air Force decides it needs a light numbers aircraft they should just forget that because they are only allowed to make Sukhois and there is no light numbers aircraft in their catalogue?

Taking workers off making 12 Su-35s a year and putting them to work making 24 or 36 MiG-35s per year would be a more efficient use of available resources and workers.

Not sure if they are working no official info but definitely Su-57 is one of strong candidates -m not much choice either unless 1 engine Su-75 will be chosen by Russian Navy

Sukhoi officials have mentioned quite often that a naval carrier based version of the Su-57 would be developed.

Why would you not want your best and most capable fighter on your aircraft carrier.

When you are only going to be carrying a couple of dozen heavy fighters in your fleet you want to make them the best you have.

In terms of light fighter right now that means MiG-29KR or MiG-35 and in 10 years time when they are looking at new CVNs the Su-33 wont be replaced by the Su-35... it might have already been upgraded to that level, but the Su-57 would be the obvious choice for replacing the Su-33 by then but MiG will have either produced a new single engined 5th gen fighter by then but will also have the option of a twin engined light carrier fighter too.

The Chinese have proven that a good fix for the F-35 is two engines...

Can they start full rate serial production NOW?
I mean in the space of a pair of month let's set all things needed and start?

Probably not... there is a difference between producing 6 aircraft over a couple of years and full serial production at a rate to fill spots in an air force.

They will also have to set up new units to take these aircraft and the training and tactics to utilise them which will likely be rather different from those with the heavier Flankers.

The MIG-35s will likely operate closer with the Russian Army ground forces and perhaps cooperate with drones and Su-25s and attack helicopters in that they will be operating near the same airspace and the MiG-35s will have modern AESA radars able to scan air and ground for target information which would be useful to share with the mentioned air assets as well as ground forces.

When the Americans were in Afghanistan their F-14s were able to use their radar and IIR Lantirn EO systems to scan the terrain on the ground and send the information to troops on the ground. The ground commanders could look at this real time aerial view of the battlefield and pick out friendly forces and find targets and objects of interest that the aircraft could engage or take another closer look at respectively. Such coordination and input from ground forces would greatly reduce the chances of friendly fire and also give the ground forces commanders an unpresidented view of the battlefield they had never had before.

No reason why radar and EO systems on helicopters and Su-25s and MiG-35s could not be used in the same way... that is how the MiG-29KR is supposed to be used on Russian ships... even when they run out of missiles they can be flying 150km away from the ships they are supporting with an airborne view from space down to sea level to detect threats and targets like surface ships for a missile strike from the ships it is supporting ( anything from Onyx and Granit down to Kh-35... and even 152mm artillery shells when they get the 180km range rounds in service) through to air threats like low flying missiles or aircraft that can be 9M96 missiles (S-350) or the 250km range or 400km range S-400s.

Essentially they are working as drones with powerful radar an EO systems and communications equipment to find targets for longer ranged systems to hit... the difference is that a drone is tiny and slow, while the MiG-35 can be very fast but also operate from greater standoff distances to find targets and pass on target data to platforms to deal with the threat. In case of air defence systems it can carry its own ARMs to deal with that.

During Desert Storm the Patriot shot down a western aircraft... I seem to remember it was a Tornado... and it locked onto an F-16 but before it could shoot down the F-16 the F-16 launched an ARM and took out the Patriot batterys radar to prevent it intercepting the F-16. (This is a surprise to me because Tornados normally carried ALARM as an ARM which appears to be to be a rather good missile, perhaps the Tornado was out of missiles or expected the IFF system to prevent the attack...)

In any different case,their utility almost in the current conflict is less than zero...

They will likely need more than a dozen or so which are not going to be made overnight, so putting them into serial production as soon as possible makes them available sooner rather than later.

But even worse it would be to divert such potential capabilities to produce something that would became operative AFTER the conflict would be ended.

I don't think you can assert that considering no one knows how long this conflict will continue... it is up to Zelensky and his mob of criminals and they are making good money right now... they don't want this to end... if they cared about the future of Ukraine they would have honoured the Minsk agreements. every day they are losing men and that does not seem to bother them at all.

This conflict might go on for a couple of years.

Investment in the production of MiG-35s would also give MiG a platform to test and experiment for their 5th gen fighter technology for land and carrier based prototypes which they likely will have been working on for the last decade or so.

In any different case,their utility almost in the current conflict is less than zero...

Americans call them force multipliers... having light fighters is like having the combination of recon and attack capacity all wrapped up in one affordable platform.

It can fly over the battlefield and attack targets at the same time but unlike a recon platform operating on its own it will be in groups that provide mutual support and in this case can also work with drones and coordinate their operations.

Remember the MiG-35 can be set up as a single seat or a twin seat aircraft so for this role they could all be two seaters with a pilot and an extra crewman communicating with ground forces and drones and other aircraft...

If a statement is devoid of any truth then it could be considered ridiculous - right?

A key word there is could.

To say someone, who is just expressing opinions, is being ridiculous is abusive, unless those opinions had already been proven wrong in that conversation, or are logically false...

My comments were not ridiculous, you just didn't agree with them.

You can make all the claims you like and quote from any books you please... for all we know the Algerians might have been given the choice of spare parts options and they chose the cheap ones without questioning why they were cheaper... but probably being able to guess.

MiG likely told them that these parts could be made but there will be a delay while they are being made and they will cost rather more than these used parts that are available now but your government probably wont be pleased about getting these old parts so what do you want us to do?

The Indians were notorious for buying counterfeit parts which probably explains their rate of aircraft losses. (in addition to rather difficult flight conditions in some situations).

But no, lets not be realistic and expect any fault anywhere except at MiG... those evil schemers... they screw over everyone which is why no one buys their stuff.... except Algeria and Egypt and the Russian Air Force...

Or is Garry, regardless of how logical it might be, just flogging a dead horse?

Very delicately put, well done...

What is clear, however is that with modern AESA radar and electronics, a MiG-35 would not have anything to envy to the latest upgrades of F16, F18 and Rafale.

But MiG is bad... there have been decades of accusations of counterfeit parts and corruption against MiG, but when properly investigated it generally turned out the problem as the customer.

If you go to the nearest BMW car dealer and you say you want a super special support deal with cheap parts and low labour charges for the life of the car, they will likely rub their hands together and say... sure... which one do you want to buy?

When you tell then that you bought your BMW already from a guy that bought a fleet of BMWs and wanted to increase his spare parts pool relative to his fleet by selling off some of the older models at reduced prices... but not selling any spare parts with them... watch his face.

You can't buy cheap planes second hand and then expect first class service and cheap parts and support when you don't buy new from the company that makes them.

Claims of counterfeit parts dog the Russian planes because most of the customers are cheap and dodgy and are happy to by cheap parts no questions asked but most of the cases I read about it turned out they were getting cheap parts from Eastern European countries or the Ukraine and when checked their certificates didn't check out.

Furthermore the Su-75 has not flown yet.
I really doubt 2027 is feasible for the introduction of the plane.

And those claiming they don't need MiG-35s... why would they need Su-75s then?

More importantly do you think stealth planes are invincible?

Really?

Even if it would share many technologies and system with the Su-57 I doubt it could be put into operational service in less than 3 years after the first flight of the first prototype, but most probably it would be something like 5 years.

Assuming no problems at all 5 years is being very generous... 8-10.... but thanks to the open hostility of the west and attempts to damage Russia I rather suspect the Russian defence budget is going to be a bit higher than 65 billion for the next decade or so.

Russian MoD or Air Force that share his view?

Like any defence force or ministry of defence there will be factions for the various options... the fact that Sukhoi has showed their light 5th gen fighter and MiG have shown models of two aircraft and a drone suggests a light fighter is wanted and funded.

So why is the west pissing around with F-16s... if the alternative to stopping Russia is sending in HATO troops surely sending F-35s would be the solution... Russian air defences would not be able to touch them... they could fly far and wide and nothing could touch them... you know... like over Syria...

If stealth was that amazing then Storm Shadow and Scalp would be getting through every time shouldn't they?

Instead they are hit and miss like Ukraines non stealthy air fleet.

BTW 1.5 trillion dollars spent on F-35 and you get reduced drag?

Actually the internal volume to carry all your normal weapon load internally... along with your entire fuel load of course actually makes the surface area of a stealthy aircraft bigger leading to a bigger aircraft than would be needed for a non stealthy aircraft.

Yeah, normally I would have thought the same. However if it is just a export model with downgraded and/or downscaled su-57 systems it will not need many years of parallel component testing to bring the technology readiness level of each component to the needed value.

I would argue that the future of aircraft sales means it is worse than a domestic only fighter... just look at the Su-30MKI... incorporating French and Israel and Indian systems didn't make it cheaper or faster or easier to develop... it made everything much worse and of course with certain sales western companies will be keen to sell components to certain customers they trust like India or a few Middle East countries that are not on the American naughty boy list.

This should not be true for an eventual Su-75, which would require less component testing and mainly integration testing.

Sorry, I can't be bothered reading that, but I would say the integration and testing is going to be complex and time consuming for any 5th gen fighter... whether it has super secret super high tech stuff Russia does not want to share or lower tier export grade stuff... it still has to be integrated to work together and not jam itself.

As far as MiG-35, as far as I know all technologies planned for it are mature. The only doubt is if the Zhuk-AM AESA radar is fully mature,

I would guess the first 6 were probably mostly hand made and are not fully mature or even partially mature... but I suspect they work.

Maturity comes from experience so even with old parts an export Su-75 is not going to start serial production being mature either.

and if the mig-35 which is they will order will have full thrust vectoring like the mig-29 OVT demonstrator (since it was only offered as an option in the export version).

I suspect they will order it with TVC... if it is expensive then getting it into service might allow them more experience and allow improvements that make it more affordable and easier to support. The Su-35 certainly has TVC so in the interception mission they think it is useful, so in the fighter bomber role where dogfighting could be necessary I would say it  is more likely to be useful rather than less useful.

That could realistically be 6 in 2025, 12 in 2026 and 2027 and maybe 20 in 2028 till 2030, making about 90 new mig-35 by 2030.

This order will also help for the plant modernisation and keeping capabilities for production of future jets.

You not only get up to 90 new MiG-35s but you have serial production going that could be shifted to the new light 5th gen fighter when it gets ready for testing and serial production too.

Furthermore other aircraft plants (including baranovichi in Bielorussia) can be involved in the production of parts and modernisation of older planes to ease the Sokol plant workload.

Whether it is wingman drones or light 4th and then light 5th gen fighters I would say their capacity to make light fighterbomber/drones is going to be important.

Lavrov has said that it is going to take a generation before Russians can trust the west... meaning the Russians today now realise how angry and hostile the west really is... or the people in control of the west which are the ones making the decisions.

And he was not saying... give it 10 years and things will be fine... he means the west needs to change its colonial attitude and its actions towards Russia (and other countries) and it will still take a generation before trust could be considered... the trust is gone and wont come back with an election or a new angle of attack for the propaganda centres in the west.

Fortunately the west is clumsy and stupid... hey guys... China is the real bad guy... lets be nicer to Russia and use them to damage China... well Russia isn't that stupid because it knows if you damage China that they are next and they wont have China to work with... but some Americans think that is a good idea...

Are you sure the production alternative of MiG-35 being the Su-75?

Where they would produce S-70 Okhotnik B in such a case?

Except if S-70 could replace MiG-35s and Su-75s then why not make a bigger model and have it replace Su-57s and Su-35s as well?

The S-70 is a wingman drone that is intended to operate with other aircraft, or as a cruise missile that can return to be reused... I don't think anyone is suggesting it could be sent on its own to replace fighter aircraft completely.

It is an expendable set of eyes and weapon bays because Su-57 can only carry so many weapons before it loses its stealth with external weapon loads.

You can send it ahead into enemy airspace and it can operate radar and sensors to look for targets and if it gets shot at it can launch ARMs at anything operating in radio wavelengths, but is ultimately expendable... something fighters are not... even if you will lose some from time to time.

They billed the Su-57 as being a two seat plane with AI as the second crew member, yet they are upgrading the Su-30s  to Su-35 level meaning a two seat fighter is still considered useful... which would bring into question the idea of replacing light fighters with aircraft with no crew at all.

You are correct in the sense that S-70s should boost numbers and increase ready to fire missiles in Su-57 airgroups and allow them to take more risks and engage larger groups of enemy forces, but it is not intended to be used so the Su-57 and Su-35 airgroups can perform frontal aviation missions along the front line I suspect.

In terms of the size of their air fleet it always used to be quite big but was also affordable because a large number of types were cheap simple aircraft, many of which were single engined that had a swing role of fighter bomber over the front lines.

Ironically MiG developed a light propeller driven aircraft called the MiG-110 that was rather interesting... it came in a range of versions including CAS and the idea was to make it simple and cheap. It was powered by two engines based on helicopter engines which were widely used so spare parts and support would not be expensive.

The straight wing and twin boom layout made it look rather like a US Bronco aircraft and it was intended to be used for a wide range of roles and be cheap and simple and easy to repair and keep operational.

There were of course other variants including recon and ambulance and transport models.

With the new digital version of the engine for the Yak-130 I started looking up potential uses for the engine beyond the Yak-130 and the new single engined MiG-UTS, and so I was looking at the UAC/OAK website and found a document of interest.

I had to access the file by a round about way but if you are able to, you can go to the english front page of the www.uacrussia.ru/en/ website.

If you scroll down below the news area top left is a brochure area with a download link... if you are on the english version of the page then the brochure is in english.

The reason I post this here is because on the pages of the pdf describing the products they are producing, it lists the MiG-29M/K as in use, and the MiG-35 is listed as testing and mass production. (The Su-57 is also listed as testing and mass production, while the Su-35, Su-30SM, Su-34, and Yak-130 are listed as in mass production, while the Yak-152 is listed as being in testing.)

The Il-76MD-90A and Be-200 are also listed as mass production, while the Il-112V is listed as flight testing, and the MTA (IL-276) is described as being under design and the PTA (perspective transport aircraft) (super heavy military transport) is at the operational characteristics definition stage.

If this link works then try right clicking and choosing save as a file to download.

https://roro.su/browse.php/CHa9C_2B/lUsE4J4e/Lv_2Fcz1/SpbqfDx_/2Bbq2G7p/csJdyXBk/WEi2cEBq/CQPm_2Bv/cx6QgFc5/wUOlqNLw/UATxSGK4/urkjrBAz/FAr1_2BV/6X7Yxr/b29/

If it doesn't work try the www.uacrussia.ru/en/ page or try a web proxy link to get it indirectly.