Indian Navy MiG-29Ks

Anyone knows how they fared against rafales-M during the recent exercice varuda btw the two carriers ?

In defence I would expect the MiGs to be every bit as good as the Rafale, but in strike roles I would expect the Rafales are more mature systems.

The purpose of the MiGs and Sus on Soviet and Russian carriers has traditionally been air defence, which is why they picked the Su-33 air to air fighter over the fully multi role 1980s MiG-33.

These days however they will be bringing out brand new AAMs and strike weapons in a variety of weight ranges that could be used by aircraft.

Off topic racist stuff moved to talking bollocks section... this section for discussion about the Indian MiG-29KR

Indian MiG-29K fighter jet crashes in Arabian Sea

An Indian Navy aircraft - MiG-29K - operating at sea crashed around 5pm on Thursday evening. While one pilot managed to eject safely, a search operation is under way to find the second, The Times of India reported on early Friday..

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4196505.html

Hope the second crewman is found OK...

GarryB wrote:Hope the second crewman is found OK...

Unfortunately his body was found in Arabian Sea, 70 meters deep.

I was going to click on like, because it is good for his family that his body was found, but could not bring myself to click on like for such a post...

But thanks for the follow up... so often in situations like this we never get follow up stories.

It was not that long ago there was a US marine accident where one of their amphibious vehicles sank and they reported some dead but also quite a few missing... it is pretty like those missing were dead because there is not much chance of survival when you amphibious vehicle sinks in deep water, but for the people involved it is important to know.

RIP for someone serving their country...

Ground test complex for practicing takeoff and landing of carrier-based aircraft (NITKA) of the Indian Navy

New interesting photos of the Indian Navy's ground test complex for taking off and landing of carrier-based aircraft (NITKA), located in the state of Goa. In 2014, Russia supplied India with a set of equipment for a complex in Goa, which trains pilots of MiG-29K / KUB carrier-based fighters of the Vikramaditya aircraft carrier.





https://dambiev.livejournal.com/2254398.html

Same reason most armies don't train with live ammo only so if you make a mistake you get shot and die...

MiG-29K fighter jet crashed again in India

An official representative of the Indian Navy said that on the morning of October 12, 2022, a Russian-made MiG-29K naval fighter of the Indian Naval Aviation crashed near Goa in the sea. The aircraft was returning to the Indian Naval Air Base Ganza (Dabolim) near Goa from a scheduled training flight, but due to a technical malfunction, it crashed into the sea. The pilot successfully ejected and was picked up by the search and rescue service.

This is the fifth loss of the MiG-29K series fighter aircraft of the Indian Navy.

The first loss of an aircraft of this type in the aviation of the Indian Navy occurred on January 3, 2018, when the Indian MiG-29K crashed during takeoff at the Hansa airbase, the pilot successfully ejected.

On November 16, 2019, shortly after takeoff from the Hansa air base , a MiG-29KUB two-seat ship fighter crashed , both Indian pilots successfully ejected. The cause of the accident was the collision of the aircraft with a flock of birds, with birds getting into the engine and subsequent fire.

On February 23, 2020, during a training flight from the Hansa airbase , a single-seat MiG-29K fighter crashed over the sea, the pilot successfully ejected.

On November 26, 2020, a two-seat MiG-29KUB fighter crashed in the Arabian Sea during flights from the Indian aircraft carrier R 33 Vikramaditya . One of the pilots of the aircraft ejected and was rescued, and the second (instructor commander Nishant Singh) died.

In total, under the contracts of 2004 and 2010, the Indian Navy received 45 MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB (9-41 and 9-47) shipborne fighters manufactured by RAC MIG JSC, the deliveries of which were made from 2009 to 2016. These aircraft consist in service with the 300th and 303rd Indian Naval Aviation Squadrons at the Ganza (Dabolim) airbase in Goa

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4597194.html

Another crash. The Mig-29K for the Indian Navy are a total disaster. A totally corrupt Indian Navy ordered another 29 of these aircraft despite having tried the first batch of 16 aircraft for a couple of years.

The only option that now remains is to shift these remaining Mig 29K to the Air Force.

Sujoy wrote:Another crash. The Mig-29K for the Indian Navy are a total disaster. A totally corrupt Indian Navy ordered another 29 of these aircraft despite having tried the first batch of 16 aircraft for a couple of years.

The only option that now remains is to shift these remaining Mig 29K to the Air Force.

Serves you right....a fool and his money.

Indian Navy starts to equip its Mig-29K with the Rampage air to surface missile

Why don't they put a water pool behind if it doesn't take off it will blow up and kill the pilot ?

The fuel will explode.

Reducing the risk of fire is not compensation for introducing the risk of drowning... assuming the ejection seats work the chances of the pilot or pilots landing on the burning wreckage is pretty low, but people parachuting into water quite often results in a drowning.

Another crash. The Mig-29K for the Indian Navy are a total disaster. A totally corrupt Indian Navy ordered another 29 of these aircraft despite having tried the first batch of 16 aircraft for a couple of years.

Operating aircraft from carriers is dangerous, of the five crashes listed only one reason is mentioned... birdstrike... which would happen to any aircraft.

The fact that you blame the aircraft immediately without knowing any other facts suggests you already decided you don't want MiG-29s... so is it Rafales or Hornets?

You would be looking at 10 or 12 billion for the 50 odd Rafales you would need to replace these MiGs... that would buy you four carriers...

The Hornets wont be any cheaper because you would have to buy US carriers to operate them and also buy US aircraft and weapons and equipment... in fact it would probably be even more expensive than the Rafales because you would need US Congress permission to use them... which essentially means you could use them against China but not Pakistan... depending on relations with the US at the time.

The fact that you blame the aircraft immediately without knowing any other facts suggests you already decided you don't want MiG-29s... so is it Rafales or Hornets?

India will learn the hard way like it always does, for some reason they believe they're doing Russia a favor by buying Russian arms when most of the time it's the opposite. I wish they would try to get an aircraft carrier with 2 dozen planes from the Americans or French for the same price they got from Russia.

GarryB wrote:The fact that you blame the aircraft immediately without knowing any other facts suggests you already decided you don't want MiG-29s... so is it Rafales or Hornets?

Engine stalled.

Mig 29s are being phased out by Russia. Even if India wants Russia won't be able to provide it. Delivery of spare parts for Mig 29 UPG and Su 30MKI has been stopped already.
Because of the ongoing war Russia has already informed the Indian MoD that they will not be able to deliver arms as per commitment.

Therefore, Russia won't be able to supply the additional 12 Su-30MKIs that India had ordered apart from the remaining 2 regiments of S-400 whose delivery has been postponed till Dec, 2024. Even for the 3 regiments that have been delivered critical systems like targetting radar has not been supplied yet.

F-18 Super Hornet will not fit in any Indian aircraft carrier. India is therefore rolling out a naval version of the LCA to replace the Mig 29K.

I have to agree. These comments in the Indian press about lack of deliveries of Russian military hardware sound mostly like pure unadulterated BS and excuses. Possibly to try to cancel contracts to buy more Western weapons as usual.

Klimov these days is building helicopter engines, and the Pakistan order for engines for the JF-17. They are developing several new helicopter engines like VK-650 and VK-1600. But those engines are not in production yet. There should be plenty of slack capacity.

As for the S-400, sure there have been deliveries of S-500 and S-350 systems to the Russian MoD, but the war should have had zero impact in system construction. The Russians have basically lost none of their major air defense systems in the conflict thus far. At most there could be delays in deliveries of missiles but it is highly doubtful there would be delays in deliveries of launchers due to the conflict.

As for the Su-30MKI, given the present extremely low rate of production of the Su-30 at Irkut, it is highly doubtful there is any bottleneck there either. A lot more likely is that the Indians are having issues with imported components from the West, since the Su-30MKI uses a lot of those.

I wish they would try to get an aircraft carrier with 2 dozen planes from the Americans or French for the same price they got from Russia.

I would have to agree, and the problem is that they expect Russian stuff to be cheap when in many cases it is actually better than much more expensive western stuff.

India makes its own SAM based on the SA-6 SAM instead of buying BUK or the latest versions which are two generations ahead of the SA-6 that they evolved from.

They succeed in making the Russian stuff expensive by demanding to make it in India, while the western stuff is rather more expensive and they don't even make it locally... but they only seem to ever complain about the Russian stuff.

Engine stalled.

Four cases of dual engine stalls?

Sounds rather unlikely.

Mig 29s are being phased out by Russia.

Ignore the BS in the magazines and on web forums. MiG-35s are in low rate production and are being tested for use... they also have a light 5th gen fighter programme likely getting full funding now where in 5-10 years they might have a light cheap fighter that could replace the light 4th gen fighter role if they can make it affordable.

Even if India wants Russia won't be able to provide it.

If India wants it in numbers they would shift production to India. Production facilities for making MiGs is not being seriously over used at the moment as they really only have MiG-35s in low rate production and will likely be working on the new light 5th gen fighter... the MiG equivalent of Checkmate.

Delivery of spare parts for Mig 29 UPG and Su 30MKI has been stopped already.

That sound unlikely to me... Russia really does not have that many MiG-29SMTs or Su-30s in service that would take up all their spare parts support capacity.

Because of the ongoing war Russia has already informed the Indian MoD that they will not be able to deliver arms as per commitment.

There are bound to be some effects mostly from embargoes by the west, but also things they need for themselves at the moment.

F-18 Super Hornet will not fit in any Indian aircraft carrier. India is therefore rolling out a naval version of the LCA to replace the Mig 29K.

The US lobby groups will say you can buy a cheap ex US Navy carrier, and all the aircraft it operates... which will all be new... and expensive...

I have to agree. These comments in the Indian press about lack of deliveries of Russian military hardware sound mostly like pure unadulterated BS and excuses. Possibly to try to cancel contracts to buy more Western weapons as usual.

Indian press seems to be western owned...

Rodion_Romanovic wrote:Hi Sujoy, are there official or semiofficial sources about that?

Indian Air Force informed the parliamentary committee.


https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/air-force-slashes-procurement-budget-on-russia-supply-delays/articleshow/98927147.cms?from=mdr

What I get from the article is that India is not paying for components and services, because they are following Western sanctions on payments to companies in Russia, and then they expect to receive the components and services? That is rich.

Just agree on payment schemes outside of SWIFT like China and Iran have done.

lancelot wrote:What I get from the article is that India is not paying for components and services, because they are following Western sanctions on payments

Meaning you couldn't get what's written. If India is purchasing copious amount of oil from Russia and there are no hassels related to payment why should payment for components and services be a issue.

GarryB wrote:Four cases of dual engine stalls?

Sounds rather unlikely.

Three Mig 29K crashed due to technical reasons. India's Comptroller and Auditor General had flagged several issues related to the airframe, RD MK-33 engine and fly-by-wire system.

https://www.indiatoday.in/pti-feed/story/mig-29k-planes-face-operation-deficiencies-cag-673406-2016-07-26

All the pilots who were involved in these crashes were previously Mig 29UPG pilots with over 2000 hours of flying experience. The Mig 29K was supposed to be a carrier borne aircraft. However, they were found to be unsuitable for carrier operations as the airframe could not handle deck landing. Subsequently, they are only being used from shore based facilities.

Much like the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya/ Admiral Gorshkov which is a harbour queen (it breaks down every time it sails offshore) the Mig 29K also turned out to be a dud.

Furthermore, in my OP itself I had stated that the corrupt party here is the Indian Navy that decided to purchase an untested aircraft along with a destroyed carrier.

When the heirarchy doesn't want a plane they do all sorts of things to create problems, for instance the MiG-29s the Germans had could have had SMT upgrades to make them much cheaper to operate and rather more capable in terms of multirole capacity, but they didn't because they didn't want to risk that some politician might suggest just buy more MiGs instead of expensive Eurofighters, so they sold their MiGs to eastern European countries and kept using their F-4s till the Eurofighters were ready.

I rather suspect the same thing happening in India with your Eurofighter being the Tegas.

Every plane has issues... you work with the company that makes them and you sort them out... the first Mustang had an American Allison engine and was not very good... fitting it with a Merlin engine and they ended up with a plane they never stop talking about... you would think it won WWII.