unlike the Flanker's one, MiG-29 configuration is not a good starting point for a fifth generation plane given that being its engine pods too small and too close one to the other, most of its payload had to be put on wings, a real no go for a stealth plane.
I agree, but for different roles and different phases of conflict the light 5th gen fighter the needs and expectations will be different.
For WWIII, the main use... but also the least likely to actually be realised role you will start out trying to blunt a full scale attack... in that role where stealth is important all weapons will be internal and limited but then no fighter in history has gone into combat with 12 plus missiles and needed to use all of them.
If the threat is serious then external carriage of AAMs just to deal with the number of threats would be an acceptable compromise on stealth performance.
For later in the conflict... ie phase two or three, the light 5th gen fighter will be a fighter bomber so external stores will be rather more acceptable and much heavier loads can be carried.
For regional conflicts you again can pretty much divide the roles into stealthy and non stealthy... bearing in mind that with such a small aircraft the stealth will only be effective against high frequency systems.
Much of the time the light fighters will be light bomb trucks hitting point targets of opportunity... more serious targets like bridges or HQs will be attacked with Su-34 and PAK FA and even PAK DA type aircraft or cruise missiles or unmanned drones.
A simple light fighter with the capacity to carry 6-8 AAMs internally is really all you need... the fact that you will have numbers of them will compensate for the lack of 14-16 missile pylons per aircraft...
What I hope to find different from the said sketch is instead the rudders and the canards, to be replaced by T-50 like solutions.
I agree fully with this... those canards would interfere with the pilots view and offer something near the front of the aircraft that moves in combat that could attract the vision of the enemy. Tail mounted horizontal control surfaces and TVC engine nozzles is already mature and mastered and vastly superior to conventional only controls.
Canards will be used so the air will still flow over control surfaces like on Rafale which is more manouvrable than the Typhoon, depend where you put them.
The MiG-29 uses a lifting body design... the leading edge root extensions generate vortexes of energised air that allow the vertical tail surfaces to stabilise the aircrafts flight even at high angles of attack.
Putting canards there would ruin that effect and lower performance... not improve it.
Plus with the OLS and R-74 it doesn't need to point the noise at the target. So there is no need for increasing cost with TVC or another engine.
The first two seconds of a missiles flight is critical... it is the part of its flight when it has the most thrust and has to accelerate through the sound barrier. If you have the missile pointing directly at its target it will accelerate in a straight line to maximum speed and allow it to have maximum range and energy. If the missile has to turn hard at launch much of the energy is wasted and speed and range will be dramatically reduced.
Stalling the aircraft and pointing the missile directly at a target... say 90 degrees of flight track to fire a missile will cut the normal flight speed from the missile, but its acceleration will be normal and its achieved flight speed will be high and its ability to then turn with the target if it tries to evade the missile will be maximum.
If you just fire off the rail and the first thing the missile has to do is a hard 90 degree turn it will not accelerate to anything like max speed and by the time it has turned to point at the enemy target aircraft the enemy pilot can turn so that the missile keeps needing to turn hard in the same direction and burn off more energy... low energy missiles are much easier to evade...
Its direct competitors will be F-35 and J-31 which are not known to be good doghfiters ... The stealth and new avionics will assure it to have first look down/shoot down over F-15/16/18 series and in dogfight none of them would be better if it's carrying R-73 and OLS. So what your saying is not useless but overkill.
What I am saying is that missiles can be defeated... a decent DIRCMS system should be able to defeat optically guided missiles and an enormous AESA radar in the nose of most new fighters will be able to fry any ARH guided missiles... so that leaves guns... are you still sure you want one engine and high off boresight missiles because there is no such thing as high off boresight cannon except on helicopter gunships.
If you think OLS and R-73s and R-74s will make dogfighting obsolete then why not have an AN-124... you could fit an enormous AESA front and back and in the cargo bay have hundreds or thousands of R-74s and R-77s and R-37Ms and even S-500s ready to launch. Not cheap to operate but you would only need two or three per military district...
Personally I think a semi stealthy twin engined light fighter with widely separated engines makes rather more sense... Enlarged engine nacelles can contain internally mounted missile launch positions where a door opens and a missile is pushed out with a catapult... as with the R-77 and R-37 missile types... perhaps even a few upward launching launchers...
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