MiG-29/ΜiG-35 Fulcrum: News #3

Maybe a MiG-41 presentation that was said to be carried this year will calm down all of you

Honestly this entire "airframe be old" thing just doesn't make any sense, look how many countries still operate mig-21s to this day.

Yet Isos's point i can understand, that while sukhoi is already moving on with the su-57 and now su-75, mikoyan's reliance and the mig-29 aiframe looks to him like they are draging their feet and becoming irrelevant.
Even though this has less to do with mikoyan and to more do with the MoD current focus on the new flankers.

The mig is simply the best bang for the buck for any country hoping to filll their inventory, even if the su-75 is deployed their is no chsnce in hell it will be able to match costs, reliability and long term costs of the migs proven design.
The only real compitition the mig has is the JF-17.

The other issue is the mig-29m, since countries would probly settle for it instead of the 35, as i see it, the only way to resolve this is to phase out production of the 29M and move on with the 35, this makes absolute sense when you look at the transition from vanilla 29 to 29M.

As for the mig-31, hosnestly one of the soviet's greatest.
Even now it would still be one of Russia's deadliest.
An absolute beast of raw power, both in its engines and radar.
Its older brother the mig-25 though capable thanks to a certian traitors actions, crippled the aircraft of its full potential.

The developmentment of the mig-41 will yield an extremely deadly aircraft with a potential 500+km ranged new zaslon radar and new engines that will put all before it to shame, creating what would a true BVR killer, flying high and fast, taking out enemies well outside their detection range and having more than enough thrust to outrun any potential return fire.

Tankers and awacs would be no more than fish in a barrel.

As for stealth, the 41 might potentially be the first to brute-force its way out of the stealth problem.
The technology of the Irbis and Byelka with the massive size along with the sheer power of the new engines, their is potential to deal with the stealth problem once and for all.

@AlfaT8

Not too many countries still operate the Mig-21 today. Those that do are either sanctioned to death or they are the poorest of the poor.
Aircraft airframes like fighter jets that can pull high G's tend to have a much shorter lifespan than say cargo planes or even bombers.

The only real compitition the mig has is the JF-17.

Actually the Mig-29/35 has a lot of competition. First and foremost the F-16. Others include the Rafale, Gripen, Typhoon, Su-30, then the JF-17 and FA-50's.
The Mig has not done well at all against the above competition with relatively few orders and then only in small number.

Come now, the F-16 is hardly worth mentioning anymore, american airfraft in general have so many strings attached that it makes them unnatractive in the export market.
Similar story for the gripen and fa-50, both use amirecan engines and we all know about the gripen scandal with brazil.

Typhoon and Rafale are in a league of their own, price wise.

So until the koreans and the swedes get their engines replaced, we only got the su-30, mig-29/35, jf-17 and maybe j-10c.
And the su-30 simply is not a light fighter.

@AlfaT8

we all know about the gripen scandal with brazil.

I guess you missed the MiG scandal


The F-16 Block 70 is still in production for the export market in the US. Turkey is one such a customer as well as Bulgaria and Slovakia. That is 70 brand new F-16's plus Bulgaria has another 16 on order.
The Block 70 is also offered as an upgrade package - this is a huge market with countries like Greece, Bahrain, South Korea, Taiwan and others opting for this option. Turkey will upgrade as well - but do it locally.
There is also a good second hand market (not counting Ukraine) - Argentina just got 24 F-16's pipping the JF-17 to the finish line. The F-16 remains a solid dog fighter with good BVR capabilities, despite it's age.

The FA-50 is doing great for South Korea with 130+ exported to 6 countries already! Many other countries are looking very seriously at the FA-50. Numbers mentioned exclude the T-50 trainer.
Needless to say a large number was ordered for the local market, with 60 FA-50's and 80 T-50 trainers.

Which scandal, the one with Algeria talking nonsense becuase they wanted flankers at the last minute?

And what does Greece, Bahrain, South Korea, Taiwan and probly the others all have in common?.. yes, they all lick uncle sams boots.
And Argentina is desperatly trying to make uncle sam its daddy too.

I am not questioningvthe f-16 capabilities, i am stating that making deals with the devil has its downsides, in perticular for said country's soveirngty.

The fa-50 is looking great, but as soon as they try to sell it to a country on uncle sam's list, thats when things get tricky.
The same go's for countries who already bought in and somehow end up on that list, and are blocked off from spare parts.

@AlfaT8

Which scandal, the one with Algeria talking nonsense becuase they wanted flankers at the last minute?

Now where do you get this fantasy from? GarryB.net?  

No sir MiG sold Mig-29SMT's with second hand parts paid for as new. That's the actual story.

The Russian Government intervened and all the SMT's was returned to Russia. Su-30's were offered at a discount after the fact through negotiations by the Russian Government to save face.
If you really want to learn something do your own research and then come back with the facts.

i am stating that making deals with the devil has its downsides, in perticular for said country's soveirngty.

There is a huge amount of politics involved sure - but that aside - the numbers are on the score board for all to see. Unfortunately that is the reality you have to deal with.
The Mig-29 did very well years ago, but sadly it's not the case today. I believe the Algerian fiasco has a lot to do with it. The Mig-35 has no takers despite the 6 samples ordered by the RAF.

The bad Algerian Mig-29SMT deal was all over the news back then. Here is what Reuters (Moscow) had to say:

https://www.reuters.com/article/world/russia-investigates-jet-part-sales-to-algeria-idUSJOE58H0HQ/

Russia investigates jet part sales to Algeria
By Reuters
September 18, 20095:20 PM GMT+2Updated 15 years ago
By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian prosecutors said on Friday they had launched an investigation into the supplier of substandard parts for MiG warplanes to Algeria.
Algeria last year returned 15 MiG fighter jets it had bought under a $7.5 billion arms deal signed in 2006.
After Algeria signed the MiG contract with then Russian President Vladimir Putin in January 2006, a firm called ATK AviaRemSnab struck a deal with MiG to supply spare parts for the warplanes worth over $14.3 million, Russian prosecutors said. "But it was established ... the parts for the aircraft to be supplied to Algeria's Defence Ministry were used ones, made in the 1980-90s, while the accompanying documents registered them as new ones," the Prosecutor General's Investigative Committee said in a statement posted on its site, www.sledcomproc.ru. "At the moment, an investigation is being conducted to establish all the details of the crime and those who committed it," it said.

The above basically falls well within the excepted definition of a fraudulent transaction bro!

You have received the very same old /stored frames with the Gripen deal - just saying
As well as the Croats.

Don't know anything about old frames but that the contract was a fraudulent affair is a fact. SAAB admitted that following its own investigations, it found “supposed” evidence of large scale corruption by BAE systems.
Using old frames would not surprise me though, considering that the whole so-called "Arms Deal" was fraught with corruption - not just the Gripen.

You obviously missed this point that I highlighted in my earlier post.

it was established ... the parts for the aircraft to be supplied to Algeria's Defence Ministry were used ones, made in the 1980-90s, while the accompanying documents registered them as new ones

Trying to soft-soap this is not going to change anything - get real.

Anyway we've been over this a 100 times already

Welp, that's Algeria's problem, and from what i recall, they did not get the su-30MKAs for the same price, Russia gave them a discount after the incident.
Also, it looks like Algeria is buying the mig-29s again, i wonder why, they can just buy more flankers, right?...... such a mystery.

Anyway, back the the Mig-35, after looking up the the competition it's become crystal clear that their will be serious challenges for the fulcrum.
In particular its old rival the F-16, which received a substantial upgrade with the AN/APG-83, reportedly wielding a range close to that of the Irbis.

This could partly explain why development of the mig-35 is taking so long.

@AlfaT8

I see you've come a long way in just a couple of posts!  

AlfaT8 wrote:Come now, the F-16 is hardly worth mentioning anymore

AlfaT8 wrote:it's become crystal clear that their will be serious challenges for the fulcrum.
In particular its old rival the F-16,

Amazing!  

AlfaT8 wrote:Also, it looks like Algeria is buying the mig-29s again, i wonder why, they can just buy more flankers, right?...... such a mystery.

They did - so no mystery - they bought an additional 16 Su-30MKA's + the 14 Mig-29M2's in the same deal. Their old Mig-29's was gifted to Sudan. Algeria is set to be the first Su-57 export customer, and the SU-35 is apparently also being considered.

Many years ago in Pakfa thread was interview of high ranking military or sukhoi aviation specialist who compared different fighter designs and why they were good and what problems some have.
There was two examples of fourth generation fighter jets. First one was F-16, which was huge success at its time. It was cheap to acquire, cheap to operate, it could be upgraded and could do a lot of things. Thats because it was small and single engined jet.
Second one was Mig-29. It supposed to be cheap to acquire, cheap to operate, but it ended up neither. It was twin engined, relatively big aircraft with high maintenance cost and due to twin engine configuration. Limited volume of airframe reduced amount of fuel, which made it also short legged.
The first one has shown its potential through the decades and second one is abandoned by its parents (parents == Russian Airforce). Problems are fundamental and conseptuals, not so technical or performance issues. Why buy a plane which costs overall nearly the same as Flanker but can do only fraction of things what Flanker can? Therefore, there is no point develop it further.
MIG-29 was very agile and deadly in close combat, but Flanker is very deadly close and BVR combat, has practically unlimitted range for most of the countries. Due to its size it can carry a lot of weapons and have huge radar with very long detection range. And, it is nowdays relatively cheap.
In my opinion, two best 4th generation aircafts are F-16 in light series and Flanker in heavy series. The F-16 is engineering and commercial masterpiece which obviously Mig-29 was not.

@Pavi

Whilst I agree with you that the F-16 was a superb 4th generation design for it's time the Mig-29 (which came a few years later) was actually one up on the F-16 in many respects. The Mig-29's helmet mounted sight and the IRST coupled with the R-73 missile gave it a huge advantage in dog fight capabilities over the F-16. The R-73 missile itself was also far more advanced than the latest Sidewinder at the time and the IRST meant it did not have to switch it's radar on, making it hard to detect, whilst it could track the enemy. The F-16 lacked all these capabilities. This advantage was clearly demonstrated when the Mig-29 became part of the German Air Force.

By the way the Mig-29 is actually quite small despite it's twin engine design - seen here between 2 Sukhois. The early Mig-29's downside was it's very short range.

Many years ago in Pakfa thread was interview of high ranking military or sukhoi aviation specialist who compared different fighter designs and why they were good and what problems some have.

This story is disputable.
First and foremost, it was Soviet aviation that requested a twin-engine aircraft for a newborn generation, not the opposite.
Second, we are dealing again with the western delusion and fanboys' premature ejaculation as usual.
Vanilla F-16A range was less than 1000 km, with maximal configuration of external fuel tanks - slightly more than 2000. Phenomenal values of "2100 miles" are simple lies.
MiG-29A has a longer range with internal fuel - almost 1500km, and more than 2100 km with external fuel tanks.
It is funny to watch and observe the level of bullshit that the west is capable of only to keep deluding itself, especially from the perspective of someone who have seen both types being operated in the same structure for the last 20 years.
Only with conformal fuel tanks, a story well into 90s, F-16 gained range.
Exactly the same way as the SMT gets extra fuel on its back. Only the dissolution of the SU ceased the process, otherwise SMT variant and its followers would be accepted for duty in the same timeframe.
From a technical point of view, the Soviet concept was much more mature and easier to maintain than the path F-16 followed.
If any of you have an opportunity to talk with some technical staff that maintain the F-16 fleet, you can ask them by yourself. Assembling external tanks on F-16 requires a hell of a job and skills. Sealing of the connection between the hull and the tank can be used once only, is applicable only in a small range of temperature conditions, and is very time-consuming.
However, it can't change the fact, that since the 90s, F-16 has been regularly upgraded, and those upgraded pieces are being serially produced with decent volumes.
Nothing like that applies to the 29 - even if the modernization program is in progress, the numbers are pathetic low.
That makes them expensive, closing the gap between something that was made as a cheap plane to be purchased in numbers and the expensive, heavy and complicated weapon system of the Su family.  
As a technical conditions of the Russian new engines allow to consider a single-engine aircraft - this is a path MiG should have followed rather than keeping an ICR in the 29 platform.

"he R-73 missile itself was also far more advanced than the latest Sidewinder at the time and the IRST meant it did not have to switch it's radar on, making it hard to detect, whilst it could track the enemy. The F-16 lacked all these capabilities. This advantage was clearly demonstrated when the Mig-29 became part of the German Air Force."

yes, it was very good close combat fighter and I have read the article from test made in east Germany after fall of soviet union. Still, the flanker could do the same trick.

"First and foremost, it was Soviet aviation that requested a twin-engine aircraft for a newborn generation, not the opposite. "

That's true also, but it was also mistake in that sense, that cost benefit ratio was not met. Which is clearly visible nowdays and no additional orders have done. If RuAf still loves the plane they would purchase and upgrade it?

As I said. The problem was not technical issues. It was conceptual failure which is clearly visible when time has passed by. There was two plane type Flanker and Fulcrum and latter didn't offer enough benefits to justify too little difference in operational costs. There is reason, why RuAf likes Flanker over Fulcrum. Fulcrum was too much Flanker but not as good as Flanker.

On the other hand F-16 was cheap when compared other western aircrafts and it was also agile and upgradable basic concept. It had huge commercial succes and performed well in as bombing truck. Therefore I prefer it better design over Fulcrum which obviously was not so much liked in RuAf.

To say that it was a conceptional failure is nonsense. Both the Sukhoi and the MiG designs mirrored the concept that was adopted by the American designers.
One design was a heavy air superiority fighter (Su-27/F-15) and the other was a point defense lightweight fighter (Mig-29/F-16).
The MiG's twin engine design came from the believe that a twin engine fighter was more survivable than a single engine aircraft.

The actual problem for MiG came after the fall of the Soviet Union. MiG's money came from the State - the State had no money to support MiG.
Sukhoi on the other hand used their own money to develop and promote their aircraft and fortunately it worked out great for Sukhoi.
Their business plan was simple - all new contract money coming in was used on developing new projects for the RF. They survived the nasty 90's.

Here is a couple of examples of what I wrote in the Mig-29/35 threads:

You did say those things, but you also said things like MiG is terminally corrupt and MiG is dead.

Yet Isos's point i can understand, that while sukhoi is already moving on with the su-57 and now su-75, mikoyan's reliance and the mig-29 aiframe looks to him like they are draging their feet and becoming irrelevant.

So Sukhoi, despite its success and income still sells Su-35s... the west uses planes mostly built in the 1980s, the US has put the F-15 back into production and at sea still uses F-18s.

Their only new planes are the F-22, which is over and will not be produced again, and the F-35 which was enormously expensive and not such a great performer, though Americas colonies have snapped it up as ordered to do so... the more they make the worse it will be for them I suspect.

Aircraft are delivery systems for the weapons they carry and there are two types right now... stealthy and the rest.

No one has gone all Stealthy... stealthy in the west is horribly expensive and still largely untested in combat against a peer enemy... except the Su-57.

Russia has never said it is even interested in going all stealthy.

In theory an enlarged Su-57 should be the next stealthy aircraft from Sukhoi that fills the role of the Su-35 F-15E type role, but I suspect they would prefer to continue with the Su-34 because lots of ordinance does not gel well with internal carriage for the purposes of stealth.

The mig is simply the best bang for the buck for any country hoping to filll their inventory, even if the su-75 is deployed their is no chsnce in hell it will be able to match costs, reliability and long term costs of the migs proven design.
The only real compitition the mig has is the JF-17.

Would have to agree, but would suggest the JF-17 is aimed at a cheaper dumber numbers plane for countries already operating F-16s... which would make it more like the MiG-21 than the MiG-35.

The JF-17 is probably more like the MiG-29M2 a modern low cost plane that does everything but not amazing at everything.

You could make targeting pods and jammer pods to improve performance in some areas but it is just a useful low cost plane with reasonable flight range and reasonable payload.

The other issue is the mig-29m, since countries would probly settle for it instead of the 35, as i see it, the only way to resolve this is to phase out production of the 29M and move on with the 35,

I think different countries would appreciate the price difference of about 10 million dollars per aircraft between the two... some countries don't need a MiG-35 or high end F-16, and a cheaper simpler model makes more sense.

The airframe is the same so if you decide in 10 years time you want something more you could upgrade to MiG-35 level stuff which should become more affordable over time.

As I mentioned with India... they could have bought 400 planes for the price they were talking about for the Rafales (22 plus billion), So they could have ordered 100 MiG-35s and 300 MiG-29M2s and operated them for 5 or 10 years and then decided what on the MiG-35 that was better but also more expensive was worth adding to the MiG-29M2s, and what wasn't and given their Mig-29M2s an upgrade and had a fleet of good aircraft to give them better coverage...

The developmentment of the mig-41 will yield an extremely deadly aircraft with a potential 500+km ranged new zaslon radar and new engines that will put all before it to shame, creating what would a true BVR killer, flying high and fast, taking out enemies well outside their detection range and having more than enough thrust to outrun any potential return fire.

The potential for scramjet powered AAMs is enormous... the increase in missile speed and range would be amazing... imagine a Kh-31 that is 850kgs so tactical aircraft can carry it in large numbers.... the same rocket ramjet system but with square intakes and waveriding shape and a scramjet replacing the ramjet...

Instead of mach 3.5... mach 10... diving from 50km altitude plus at 3km per second... and perhaps 1,000km range... but of course it would not need such a huge warhead... in fact a 20kg warhead of metal cubes or metal balls with a 200 gramme bursting charge that detonates just before impact scattering the metal in a super shotgun blast that would cut through almost anything...

Not too many countries still operate the Mig-21 today. Those that do are either sanctioned to death or they are the poorest of the poor.

Sounds like a job for BRICS...

Not every country needs to spent trillions on super stealth fighters... even operating MiG-35s by Argentina would be a serious challenge to the UK in the Falklands.

The MiG-35 could easily carry Kh-35 and Kh-31 and a range of air to air and air to surface weapons that would make things difficult for the UK forces there.

First and foremost the F-16. Others include the Rafale, Gripen, Typhoon, Su-30, then the JF-17 and FA-50's.
The Mig has not done well at all against the above competition with relatively few orders and then only in small number.

And what sort of outcomes has that created for those customers who didn't want a cheaper fighter from Russia?

Those Gripens are supposed to be not so cheap to buy because they are amazing Super Flanker killers, but it is OK because you buy them because they are cheap to operate... isn't that true?

Are those planes lied about at all?

You could argue whether the Rafale and Typhoon are better planes but they are certainly not cheaper. You could buy about 5 MiG-35s for the going price of your average Rafale and have they ever actually been used in combat where they blew everything away and really stood out as being amazing and worth the price spent on them?

If you spent half of what India spent on its Rafale you could have bought 10 spare engines and 10 AESA radar sets to go with each of your MiG-35s and still had change.

Is the technology on the Rafale better than the MiG-35... I don't know, but I do know that for the price of one Rafale they could have gotten dozens of MiGs and one Rafale is not better than a dozen MiGs... to buy or in terms of operating costs too, which is also important.

I understand... they want to keep a balance of French and Russian planes and the Mirage 2000s needed to be replace with a French type... but I think it is funny they wasted decades on that programme to get France to reduce its prices and they didn't and now they have to run it all again because they only ended up buying 36 Rafales when they needed 126 planes ten years ago.

The French knew all the other planes in the competition were a bluff... India should have been smart and bought MiG-29M2s to replace their existing MiG-29UGTs, but that would have meant someone might point out that the MiG-29M2 is everything the Tegas II is and it is a mature aircraft with better payload and range and speed and probably cheaper to buy and to operate too... they didn't want the MiG to kill their local programme so they crippled it... Germany did the same with their MiG-29s... and SMT upgrade and they could get rid of their Phantoms... but then they might also think if they can upgrade their MiG-29s why bother with the horribly expensive Typhoon project... so they killed the MiG instead... politics over common sense.

How much is their energy costs right now?

All part of the same problem... so why blame MiG... their solution is a good solution but most purchases are not Sovereign...

Can't fix stupid.

The F-16 remains a solid dog fighter with good BVR capabilities, despite it's age.

Funny that the MiG-29 is shit because it is not quite as old as the F-16. With modern air to air missiles the MiG-29M2 and MiG-35 are probably about as good as the Su-35 in BVR combat because they will be operating within the same IADS system and receiving target data from the same platforms... it will climb to the same height and accelerate to the same speed to launch those missiles... the target will not know the difference.

No sir MiG sold Mig-29SMT's with second hand parts paid for as new. That's the actual story.

You mean MiG sold airframes that had been made but were still sitting in the factories that made them, and Algeria claimed that meant they were not new build airframes... which is a bit ridiculous because the SMT is an upgrade and not a new aircraft... they have never been new builds AFAIK.

There is a huge amount of politics involved sure - but that aside - the numbers are on the score board for all to see.

The merits of the MiG were irrelevant. The politics decided the outcomes. Which is also why Sukhois got sold to some customers and that MiG sales were quite rare.

BTW if MiG are so evil and cannot be trusted why did Algeria buy MiG-29M2s and Egypt buy MiG-29M2s as well?

Are they idiots or are you listening to western sources and pro Sukhoi sources for your information.

[quote]The Mig-35 has no takers despite the 6 samples ordered by the RAF.

And the fake news continues... 6 serial aircraft in service with the Russian military for quite a few years, tested in Syria and Ukraine in real conflicts... but you describe it as an order of samples... funny.

Here is what Reuters (Moscow) had to say:

Could you not find an article by the Moscow Times?

Reuters is a known CIA and western run enterprise for propaganda... they have no credibility at all.

The above basically falls well within the excepted definition of a fraudulent transaction bro!

From the same article:

The aircraft were eventually returned to Russia in April, and after thorough testing were approved for the service with the Russian Air Force.

Funny they are magically good enough for Russia but not for Algeria.

They were unused parts that Algeria wanted made from scratch brand new... someone clearly decided to take a shortcut. So what.

These should have been upgraded to the SMT/UBT standard, but following shipment of the first batch last year, the Algerian air force found that some "new" equipment actually dated back to the early 1990s, when the aircraft had been manufactured.

RSK MiG says all avionics and targeting equipment supplied with the aircraft is new, and reflects its current production variants.

Some of the equipment was made in the 1990s but the avionics and targeting systems and the upgraded stuff was new...

Couldn't possibly be any explanation other than MiG is criminal...

   One-Sided Cooperation

   // Russia cannot get mutuality from Algeria
   Russian companies encounter more and more difficulties in Algeria, a country which was until recently regarded as Moscow’s key partner in Africa. Sonatrach oil and gas company declared that it stops cooperation with Gazprom, while Algeria’s authorities suspended weapons supply from Russia, although it had already been agreed upon. Russia-Algeria relations cooled down while new French President Nicolas Sarkozy became more active in the African region. Russia lays its last hopes on the upcoming summit: Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika scheduled to visit Moscow in January, as Kommersant learned. So, he is to explain to the Kremlin what caused his country’s unexpected U-turn.
   Natural Gas

   Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported with reference to Sonatrach head Mohamed Meziane that “the cooperation pact between the state gas companies of Algeria and Russia, signed in August 2006, expired a couple of months ago”. The pact provided legal support for projects of hydrocarbon and liquefied gas production.

   Two sources in Russia confirmed that the agreement expired in August. The first source, a Gazprom manager, said: “We sent several letters offering to carry on our cooperation, and have received no answer yet, -- neither affirmative, nor negative. So, we regard the agreement as prolonged.” The source expressed indignation with the fact that Algeria has not yet provided any official notice, while ‘loud statements are periodically thrown in press”. The cooperation was just about to settle when the situation changed drastically, the source said. The parties created a working group and held its first session, where Algerians chose four out of eight projects proposed by Gazprom for implementation in Russia, and Russians said they are interested in Algeria. However, the working group did not even get enough time to write a report: Sonatrach cut off negotiations.

   The Algerian company may be waiting for the decision concerning one of the discussed projects. Sonatrach wanted to have a share in the project of building a gas liquefying factory by Baltik LNG. Gazprom has not answered that inquiry so far, because it has not approved the project yet. Gazprom CEOs several times returned the project for revision, because of economic efficiency risks. The document will be once again discussed on December 19. If it is approved, Sonatrach will get a chance to become a partner in building the gas liquefying factory, said the Gazprom source off-the-record.

   Besides, Russia and Algeria were trying just a while ago to present a unified position in the international energy policy. For instance, Algeria’s authorities supported in 2006 Russia’s suggestion on creating a ‘natural gas OPEC’.

   The Sonatrach head’s strange statement was delivered soon after French President Nicolas Sarkozy honored Algeria with a state visit. Sarkozy confessed he had signed contracts worth over $7.3 billion in total with his Algerian counterpart. First of all, these are the gas cooperation agreements. For instance, Sonatrach and Gaz de France signed a contract for gas supplies to France till 2019.

   Algeria is the third largest supplier of natural gas to Europe, after Russia and Norway. Algerian gas comes via pipelines to the markets of France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal. Liquefied natural gas can be transported in tankers to Great Britain, Turkey, Greece, and the United States. Algeria plans to increase the total gas export up to 85 billion cubic meters a year by 2010, from the current 62 billion cubic meters, by means of building two gas pipelines to Spain and Italy. These pipelines will allow expanding the EU export capacity by 50 percent in the next three-five years.

   Weapons

   Russia and Algeria have similar disagreement in their military equipment cooperation. Back in March 2006, when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Algeria, the two parties signed a package of contracts worth around $8 billion in total. For instance, it included 28 Su-30MKI(A) fighter jets, 28 single-pilot MiG-29SMT planes, 6 two-pilot MiG-29UB planes, 16 Yak-130 operational trainers, four S-300PMU-2 air defense missile systems, 38 Armor-S1 anti-aircraft missile systems, 185 T-90S tanks, 216 Kornet-E missile launchers, 8 Kransopol precision weapon systems. Besides, there was concluded an agreement on re-equipping 400 BMP-1 which had been purchased earlier. In June 2006, they also signed a contract for building two Project 636 diesel-electric submarines at Admiralty Dockyard in St. Petersburg. In return, Russia completely wrote off the entire foreign debt of Algeria to the former USSR worth $ 4.7 billion.

   However, Algeria soon afterwards stopped financing a number of signed contracts. Thus, after the first supply of MiG fighter jets arrived in late 2006, Algeria stopped buying them. A source in Russia’s Federal Service for Military Equipment Cooperation (FSMEC) said the supply of more MiG planes was initially suspended due to Algeria’s claims to the quality of two MiG-29UB operational trainers. “The FSMEC council discussed the claims to those MiG in March, working out the recommendations for eliminating the problems. The problems were removed,” the source said. However, Algeria continued setting unfounded claims to MiG jets, the FSMEC official added.

   A source in MiG said the corporation received a prepayment and payments for the first supply of jets. “All planes from the first supply were accepted by the customer’s representatives in Russia. After they were transported to Algeria, the jets were accepted by Algeria’s air force. Then, the jets were put into service. Then, however, there appeared claims to their quality,” the source said. “That is when Algeria stopped financing the contracts. Consequently, the next stage of contract implementation has been suspended, while MiG and Russia in general are suffering losses”, the MiG source added. Elena Fedorova, MiG corporation’s spokesperson, said that “all jets supplied to Algeria met the requirements of the customer. There came no official claims from Algeria to MiG corporation,” she added.

   Anyway, Algeria presented claims to the jets right after their first supply, and Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika sent a corresponding letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin in August, said a source in the Russian president’s staff. In November, the Algeria export stalemate was discussed in the Military Equipment Cooperation Commission headed by Putin. “We prepared a letter in response, but we have not so far managed to pass it to the Algerian president, even via the ambassador,” said the FSMEC official. “Algeria does not respond to our inquiries. The talks on new contracts worth around $7 billion in total have been suspended as well,” he added.

   Clans

   Apparently, the scandals, one after another, are a consequence of the inner struggle in the Algerian government. Thus, Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Strategy and Technology Analysis Center, believes “there is a confrontation of interests between military and energy officials” in Algeria’s political elite. “In both groups, there are pro-Russia, pro-France, and pro-American groupings which fight for their partners’ interests. Those at least six ‘clans’ confront each other, winning in turns,” the expert said.

   For instance, the clan confrontation manifested itself in the Algeria-France scandal shortly before Sarkozy’s visit. Ahead of the visit, Mohamed Cherif Abbas, Algeria’s minister for veterans’ affairs, suddenly said that Sarkozy owes his election as French president to the Jewish lobby, because he is a Jew by a quarter. The French president’s visit was nearly frustrated. Bouteflika himself had to interfere. He telephoned his French counterpart and said the minister’s statement is his personal opinion and does not reflect the position of Algeria’s authorities. Eventually, the so-called pro-France clan won.

   By the way, giving more attention to Africa, and primarily to Algeria, was a key point in Sarkozy’s campaign program. During his visit to Algeria, he did everything he could to produce the best impression on the local elite. For instance, he termed France’s colonial regime as an “utmost injustice”.

   France’s “courting” Algeria is definitely a part of the united European strategy. After the last-year talks on creating a ‘gas OPEC’, the EU is strongly interested in preventing any alliances between Russia and Algeria.

   Meanwhile, the clan struggle in Algeria goes on. A source in Arab diplomatic sources said the relations between Russia and Algeria can be restored during Bouteflika’s visit to Moscow scheduled for January. During the last personal meeting of the two presidents, they managed to reach agreement on writing off Algeria’s debt and on new military equipment contracts. However, Bouteflika’s health has aggravated lately, and there is no certainty in Algeria that the visit will not be cancelled, the diplomat said.
   Natalia Grib, Konstantin Lantratov, Mikhail Zygar

http://www.kommersant.com/p835597/EU_does_not_want_Russia-Algeria_cooperation

So the whole military deal was Russia writing off Algerias debt to the Soviet Union and buying military hardware... except it was more complicated than that...

This could partly explain why development of the mig-35 is taking so long.

Getting the radar right might be the main reason to delay the large scale purchase of MiG-35s... they are not like the US who will accept stuff that does not pass tests and hope it will eventually work...

If MiG had a modern, single engine aircraft, I would be willing to bet it would have sold quite well.

The number of engines is irrelevant... the single engine of the F-35 costs 30 million dollars... the engine in the F-16 is not particularly cheap either, though in the later models it did have commonality with the engine in the F-15.

MiG started work on a single engined fighter and the Soviet air force weren't interested.

The fact they dont even have a production plan for AESA radar when GaAS and GaN modules have been made for quite some time now and already in operation in the Su-57, gives indication MiG isn't serious.

MiG don't make AESA radars... never have and never will. Sukhoi don't make them either.

Why have a twin engine aircraft like MiG-29 when you can have a twin engine aircraft like Sukhoi series which offers better everything.

The purchase price for the MiG is half and the operational costs are 1/3rd or less.

For a flight of 800 Flankers you could operate probably 1800-2000 MiGs... which would provide better coverage?

In this case, if they had a single engine aircraft, beyond mockups and models, that offered modern avionics and not the same rehash PESA that is the Zhuk-M series. They could have made the JF-17 much earlier than China made the JF-17 and it would have done well. But they didn't. Funny enough, JF-17 was a design from Mikoyan in the first place.

They could have had the F-35 ready to go... the Russian Military were not interested in a light fighter of any type or any performance... they didn't want to spend the money and didn't realise that facing HATO is going to require more men in planes with missiles and radars and weapons. They can't afford to make enough Flankers to fill the gaps, the cost of operating that many heavy fighters is not sustainable for the US.... how the hell could Russia hope to manage that?

Amazing!

The challenges are political. There wont be any competitions where a MIG-35 and an F-16 can be entered where either has any realistic chance of winning.

They did - so no mystery - they bought an additional 16 Su-30MKA's + the 14 Mig-29M2's in the same deal.

He said if MiG are evil and MiG-29s are shit then why do they keep buying MiGs... that is the mystery.

And you say there is no mystery because they bought some Flankers when THEY BOUGHT MORE MIGS.

So why did they buy 14 MiG-29M2s?

How could they trust MiG... or was it all bullshit in the first place...

Second one was Mig-29. It supposed to be cheap to acquire, cheap to operate, but it ended up neither. It was twin engined, relatively big aircraft with high maintenance cost and due to twin engine configuration. Limited volume of airframe reduced amount of fuel, which made it also short legged.

The MIG-29 was built for war while the F-16 was built for peacetime.

The MiG-29 is simple to maintain and operate and for the 500-1,000 hours it will operate for in a combat situation the MiG-29 will have better availability rates and up times and be simpler to support... put in the fuel and arm it and keep the batteries charged and working and the lubricants and it will work and continue to work.

Things have lifespans so after x number of flight hours they are replaced... no need for inspection. This means things that are perfectly fine are discarded.

In many air forces this was where counterfeit parts came from because they were not discarded.

The MiG-29SMT upgrade included diagnostic systems and testing and dramatically improved operational costs and performance in that regard.

New engines are actually lower maintenance than the older engines so the issue with twin engines is ridiculous.

The PS-90 engines for the Il-76 were 6 million dollars each, while the old D-30 engines were 800K each. The operational costs for the new engines were higher too so lots of commercial users of the aircraft did not rush to buy the new engines because 24 million dollars pays for a lot of extra fuel consumption and the new engines were more expensive to maintain too... the parts were more expensive.

The MIG-29M2 and MiG-29KR and MiG-35 use sealed compartments so any section can be filled with fuel.

BTW if you look at the saddletanks on the new F-16s it clearly needed more fuel too... but for most users it was their primary fighter, for the MiG-29 the longer ranged stuff was performed by the Flanker... that was its job.

The first one has shown its potential through the decades and second one is abandoned by its parents (parents == Russian Airforce).

They bought 6 new planes and are reportedly about to start serial production. The Russian Navy also bought MiG-29s too for their carrier.

Why buy a plane which costs overall nearly the same as Flanker but can do only fraction of things what Flanker can?

If that were true the MIG-29 would never have existed... for most of the last 40 years it was the MiG getting capability upgrades and the in service aircraft being dumb vanila aircraft because the Russian military didn't want multirole.

The MiG-29C was the first Russian fighter to have the R-77 capability...

The Mig-29's helmet mounted sight and the IRST coupled with the R-73 missile gave it a huge advantage in dog fight capabilities over the F-16.

The comments are about 1980s MiG-29s so compare 1980s MiG-29s with 1980s F-16s and the helmet mounted sight and R-73 and of course the R-27 BVR missiles means the MiG was superior in WVR and BVR combat.

As a technical conditions of the Russian new engines allow to consider a single-engine aircraft - this is a path MiG should have followed rather than keeping an ICR in the 29 platform.

MiG made the MiG-21 and MiG-23 and MiG-27, they were perfectly happy to make single engined designs, but the Soviet military and then the Russian military were not interested.

yes, it was very good close combat fighter and I have read the article from test made in east Germany after fall of soviet union. Still, the flanker could do the same trick.

If the flanker cost the same to buy and to operate there would never have been any requirement for a lighter fighter... the idea that the MiG-29 costs as much as a Flanker to operate is a myth.

That's true also, but it was also mistake in that sense, that cost benefit ratio was not met. Which is clearly visible nowdays and no additional orders have done. If RuAf still loves the plane they would purchase and upgrade it?

So if the engine of the Flanker works out the same price as the engine of the Fulcrum, then why did the Chinese... who operate the Flanker and have already bought engines for the Flanker for their own aircraft buy the engine from the MiG-29... an aircraft they haven't bought and don't operate, for their new light single engined fighter for Pakistan to operate with its F-16s?

How could a light fighter with a single MiG-29 engine be cheaper to operate than an F-16 or be cheaper to operate than a single engined fighter using a single Flanker engine?

Almost like different engines have different prices and costs to operate. Like the F-5 with two engines tended to sell rather well, while the F-20 upgrade with the more powerful single engine was not as cheap to operate and didn't sell at all.

Couldn't possibly be a lesson to aircraft designers and makers not to make things customers don't ask for could it?

There was two plane type Flanker and Fulcrum and latter didn't offer enough benefits to justify too little difference in operational costs. There is reason, why RuAf likes Flanker over Fulcrum. Fulcrum was too much Flanker but not as good as Flanker.

Actually the upgraded Fulcrums were all rejected because the Russian AF didn't want their cheap light fighter to be multirole... they wanted it cheap and simple and basic.

Now they have clearly decided they want expensive and multirole but cheap to operate... the MiG-29M2 was cheap and multirole but to a budget. The MiG-35 was the best plane they could make for the size while affordable to operate and the Russian Military bought the MiG-35.

On the other hand F-16 was cheap when compared other western aircrafts and it was also agile and upgradable basic concept. It had huge commercial succes and performed well in as bombing truck. Therefore I prefer it better design over Fulcrum which obviously was not so much liked in RuAf.

The F-16 was the cheap light fighter and became just as expensive as the F-15 in many ways. The current models have ugly external fuel tanks scabbed on the outside like it is the elephant man.

BTW do you know how the elephant man died?


...

Freak Accident.

To say that it was a conceptional failure is nonsense. Both the Sukhoi and the MiG designs mirrored the concept that was adopted by the American designers.
One design was a heavy air superiority fighter (Su-27/F-15) and the other was a point defense lightweight fighter (Mig-29/F-16).

Or if you were not embedded in the western propaganda pool it was a continuation of the point defence light fighter to deal with bombers and other threats (MiG-21) and the heavier longer ranged interceptor fighter (MiG-23).

One was supposed to clear the enemy aircraft from the skies while the other took out the enemy on the ground and in the air on the battlefield...

The MiG's twin engine design came from the believe that a twin engine fighter was more survivable than a single engine aircraft.

Plus the fact that two 8 ton thrust engines produce 16 tons of thrust, while a single 12 ton thrust engine from the Flanker means your light fighter has to be a bit smaller and lighter or it wont have the same power to weight ratio.

The actual problem for MiG came after the fall of the Soviet Union. MiG's money came from the State - the State had no money to support MiG.

The other problem was that to start with in the 1990s the MiG-29 was the boogeyman, but the west quickly realised if they talked it up too much too many countries might buy it instead of western crap they wanted to push now the cold war was won by the west.

They got quite a few shocks with their training against the Germans and it made them very much prioritise their AMRAAM programme which was not seen as important but when they realised the Russians had deadly WVR missiles and helmet mounted sights as standard on their fighters, and the R-27 was not amazing but was certainly better in every department compared with Sparrow in the BVR role they panicked and for a while it was the Russian super fighter. Flankers had not been exported... in the late 1980s aircraft were seen landing in Finland on a good will visit and then they went to Farnborough.

When they realised the MIG had been overhyped they ripped it down because they knew there was the Flanker to justify the new planes they wanted, so the MiG was ridiculed... especially after its poor showing in Iraq and Serbia.... but the former were little more than MiG-23 level export models and the Serbian planes didn't even have operational radars because of corruption and neglect... and yet both going up against the best the west could afford with all the shiny American AWACS and other platforms so the guy who gets to launch the missile can do it from behind from a safe distance with no warning...

That was how they measured the plane so of course it did not do well.

GarryB wrote:You did say those things, but you also said things like MiG is terminally corrupt and MiG is dead.

If I criticize MiG for whatever reason it does not mean that I'm a "MiG hater".

GarryB wrote:The JF-17 is probably more like the MiG-29M2 a modern low cost plane that does everything but not amazing at everything.

The Mig-29M2 is light years better than the JF-17.

GarryB wrote:Funny that the MiG-29 is shit because it is not quite as old as the F-16.

Maybe you missed it but perhaps you saw that in a recent post I regard the old Mig-29A superior to the F-16A/C series.

The new F-16 I'm talking about is the F-16 Block 70/72 - also known as the F-16V.
This is a totally modern new built machine that first flew in January 2023. It's a deep modernization of the F-16 - much like the Mig-35 but with one tiny technical difference - IT HAS A WORKING AESA on board. The Mig-35 first flew in 2007 (a 16 year difference) but in all those years they still can't get the AESA to work properly  
The F-16V is also available as an upgrade package for older machines. This is a huge market with many takers already.

GarryB wrote:With modern air to air missiles the MiG-29M2 and MiG-35 are probably about as good as the Su-35 in BVR combat

Both Migs that you mentioned are not nearly as good as Su-35. Firstly the Migs are not R-37 compatible. But even if they were - as opponents - the Mig's radar's range and weapon's load is dismal compared to the Su-35 - not to mention combat range. Much of this and all the rest below have been discussed many times before...but anyway  

GarryB wrote:You mean MiG sold airframes that had been made but were still sitting in the factories that made them, and Algeria claimed that meant they were not new build airframes

All old news now but NO. They used second hand parts but indicated in the documentation that it was new.

GarryB wrote:The merits of the MiG were irrelevant. The politics decided the outcomes. Which is also why Sukhois got sold to some customers and that MiG sales were quite rare.

No. Sukhoi had a business plan - Mig had none.

GarryB wrote:BTW if MiG are so evil and cannot be trusted why did Algeria buy MiG-29M2s and Egypt buy MiG-29M2s as well?

As I've said before - both Egypt and Algeria were quite clever actually. They rather opted for the Mig-29M2 than the Mig-35. The Mig-35 is expensive, whilst the Mig-29M2 is virtually identical to the Mig-35 and a lot cheaper. Nobody ordered the Mig-35 with the AESA - not even Russia, because it's not working as it should.

Algeria is actually a good example. They bought a small number of 14 Mig-29M's and gifted all their old ones to Sudan. Meanwhile they ordered more Su-30MKA's (for a total of 86) and are set to buy both the Su-57 and the Su-35.  

GarryB wrote:6 serial aircraft in service with the Russian military for quite a few years, tested in Syria and Ukraine in real conflicts... but you describe it as an order of samples... funny.

It's not even a squadron's worth of Mig-35's so yes they are basically evaluation samples. Samples is actually a correct description.

GarryB wrote:Funny they (the Mig-29SMT's) are magically good enough for Russia but not for Algeria.

You always seem to forget that during that time Russia could not afford any new aircraft - they had no money. The RAF was just too happy to get some crumbs coming their way!

GarryB wrote:And you say there is no mystery because they bought some Flankers when THEY BOUGHT MORE MIGS.
So why did they buy 14 MiG-29M2s?

As I've said. The deal was included as a package. Normally known as an "Arms Deal".  Both the Su-30MKA (16) and the Mig-29M2 (14) was ordered in that arms deal. Algeria currently have 86 Su-30MKA's in service and 14 Mig-29M2's.

GarryB wrote:Could you not find an article by the Moscow Times?

The source of the article does not really matter. You can go look for other Russian sources if you want - you'll find the same story.
What really matters is what the Russian Prosecutor General have found. That is set in stone - like a criminal record.  I'll repeat it again - let it sink in.

[quote]"But it was established ... the parts for the aircraft to be supplied to Algeria's Defence Ministry were used ones, made in the 1980-90s, while the accompanying documents registered them as new ones," the Prosecutor General's Investigative Committee said in a statement. "At the moment, an investigation is being conducted to establish all the details of the crime and those who committed it," it said.

If you read the paragraph all the way to the end you will get to a line where the Prosecutor General states -"an investigation is being conducted to establish all the details of the crime and those who committed it".
Do you think you can you grasp the implications and meaning of - "to establish all the details of the crime and those who committed it."?

@GarryB you're clearly experiencing a forum burn out, judging by unnecessary length and content of your recent posts, where you continue to make things up, lie or go ad hominem against other members in order to prove your point.
Maybe you should consider taking few weeks off from posting or even avoid forum completely for some time?
I'm sure things will be fine while you're away.