MiG-29/ΜiG-35 Fulcrum: News #2

We have dealt with the issue in depth, a modern IADS can take care of VLO planes because of the redundant, multiband, multilayered detection and destruction means. But isolated SAM batteries, unless very modern, are vulnerable or at least their performance will be degraded by smart, low RCS targets using modern weapons and targeting information.

Why would Russia want their Air Force aircraft to be able to pick off weak isolated SAM batteries... they are not the US.

So what you are saying is that the fact that the US makes mostly 5th gen stealth fighters is because they are Hyenas... scavengers... picking off the weak or the already dead carcases?

Nice.

Average countries have enough with buying a few tanks, BMPS, some few fighters, helos and SAMs, that's it. They cannot create huge IADS with all the technology, infraestructure and expertise needed. Against such countries RCS reduction is indeed very interesting.

Not really. Take Pine. SOSNA-R. No radar. It uses optical systems to guided laser beam riding missiles. Take most bigger medium range Russian SAMs that can also operate in radar silent mode. Their next gen SAM will be called 9M100 which will use IIR guided missiles.

For poor countries fitting IR guided missiles with solid rocket boosters and having listening stations located around the place manned with people using hard line phones, could listen for engines... a set of thermal sights... primitive... in the sense of being basic and labour intensive, but who cares what your RCS against them?

When the CIA left Iran in a hurry when their puppet was overthrown they shredded everything.... the Iranians took that shredded confetti and started the long boring process of putting it all back together... think about that... compared with that people in Iran can sit in their front or back garden with their phone and just listen for engines... with a compass they can give their location and direction of the sound and give them a sound meter and they can give you the strength of the sound too... sounds silly on its own... but you get 50 calls from specific known locations and specific times with sound strengths and directions and you can build up a picture of what is in your airspace... without using radar.

One in 1,000 might be equipped with thermal imagers and sent a digital image via cellphone...

Signature reduction is a fact today and applies to radar, IR, visual, sound and any other way of detecting the plane. Literally all current fighters apply it, no point in discussing whether RCS reduction pays off IMHO.

Of course it is, but only a fucking idiot would make it so stealthy you can't use it in weather because the special secret sauce that holds it together and makes it work doesn't like the rain.

Further only an idiot will desperately try to take their signature from 2m to 0.5m clean... only to find putting any weapon on it at all brings the RCS back up to 1.8m again.

When pilots are not needed anymore that is going to make even more sense.

I suspect pilots will always be needed... but the ones in the future are going to look more like Comic Book Guy in the Simpsons than Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

My point is that implementing such system on a plane requires a huge amount of effort and money... Sukhoi today is as much a computer system design firm as a plane design one, they have grown huge competencies in that regard. The systems that make all that flexibility are of course much more expensive and complex than the older ones, all subsystems and computers need to communicate through hi-speed buses and modern protocols, be redundant, with very high processing power etc. etc... they are not cheap.

I would totally disagree with you. With a MiG-23 the system was hardwired like a pocket calculator. To add a new feature or capability you essentially had to design new bits and new parts replacing old things and developing new ones. An example would be the MiG-23 is a power drill... but the drill bit is fixed. You can reuse the engine and the pistol grip and the power cable and plug but you need to replace the whole front and change all the electronics to make it a ground attack aircraft (MiG-27). Lets call it a sander. You can't switch between them... once you have built the sander (MiG-27) you can't just decide to then use it as a drill because it has no drill bit (air to air radar) and only carries self defence air to air missiles that are point and shoot missiles (Short range R-60s).

A Modern MiG-29M2 on the other hand is a more modular system... it is a modern power drill where the drill bits can be changed... it can carry short, medium, and long range air to air missiles or combinations of said missiles. It can also have a sanding component attached because the radar works on ground and sea targets too... without taking it back to the shop or factory where it was made... there are even attachments to add a jigsaw or a polisher...

Compared to the old system where it practically had to be remade and was very very expensive, these days adding ground attack to a plane that has little ground attack capacity can be as simple as adding a Lantirn III Pod and some bombs... no new radar or new gun or extra armour or re-profiled cockpit so ground targets are easier to see... A software upgrade and a new weapon pod or new pylons to carry different weapons that use the same cabling but in a different way.

Before you had PS/2 ports for keyboards and the mouse, and RS-232 serial ports and parallel ports and printer ports etc etc... now it can be USB which can carry all those different cables data and power requirements and more... as long as all the new stuff is compatible and are not corrupted by the evil of Apple.

If the multirole capability is one FW update away, having extra planes to cover for specific roles makes no sense, unless we talk about highly specialised ones where the platform's capabilities are critical.

How often do you think Russias MiG-31BMs will be performing SEAD missions with their ARMs?

The upgrade was probably worth it because it probably made it a much better interceptor, but they are not going to use MiG-31s in SEAD roles I suspect.

But that is OK too.

Certainly the contribution of the -33s to the defence of the motherland is not the biggest, so I can understand budgetary priorities being somewhere else.

Why throw money at something that will not be transformed by that money being spent?

Normally more functionality means more weight, not the other way around...

Really? So when they upgraded those Su-33s, which are essentially reinforced scotch guarded Su-27s with late 1970s early 1980s electronics with the new blind bombing systems from Gefest & T.... are you telling me the extra capacity to bomb from 10km altitude accurately made the Su-33 heavier?

When they digitalised the 1980s MiG-29 into the MiG-29M the cockpit alone reduced in weight by about 900kgs... do you think the Su-33s were already digital?

BTW once it is digital then simply getting a software upgrade can add all sorts of new features... try it.... if you have a spare computer you don't use anymore that is relatively new... back up all your stuff and then install Windows 95 on it and see what you do now that you wont be able to do... hint... nothing that uses USB will work... and most of your hardware will suddenly not be useable... or detected. It is very likely that it wont be able to detect and use all of your RAM either...

That is perfectly possible yes... without a carrier to even use them there are no arguments to be made about what is needed in real world operations, maybe after the K is back they get things moving a bit more in terms of naval aviation.

They now have two land based carrier simulation sites, and if they did lose a Flanker to a broken cable then they probably have every reason to move them to land bases... they have said all along they want something bigger... perhaps Flankers are actually marginal on the K and they really need MiG-29Ks, so they need bigger carriers which will likely be nuclear powered anyway so it makes sense to make them bigger, so they can put Su-57s on them.

Keep the MiG-29Ks on the Kuznetsov until the next gen MiG can replace them perhaps?

All kinds of UAVs and USVs will be used to increase the density of the ASW mesh, and they will need to be defended too. If you release them only to get them destroyed by enemy air power in a matter of minutes, you are not getting anything in terms of ASW and instead loosing a lot of money.

Managed by humans.... start your attack on a carrier by attacking UAVs and UUVs on the likely side of the attack and they will likely move to defend and defeat the attack... attack from the opposite direction with a stronger force and they will likely realise that is the real direction of the attack and move that way to defend... and then you set off the 100MT nuke mine they were operating above all the time that you laid five years before and kill them all....

IMHO the error was to make the MiG too specialised, the airframe was too optimized for a role necessary at that time and overlooked making it cheap enough for a general purpose fighter.

Well then the fault is that of the Russian Air Force... most MiG upgrades included multirole features and capabilities... it was the AF that chose not to buy them.

The irony is that the Army is always upgrading all of its stuff, which makes old models hard to ID because normally they have been upgraded and hard to identify as older productions.

The AF on the other hand seems to have a rather more haphazard method of upgrading their aircraft... and until recently a serious reticence to buy new weapons that make multirole aircraft actually multirole.

They need a smaller cheaper fighter than the Su-35, we agree on that.

The difference seems to be that you think the MIG-35 is not small enough and not cheap enough, and I think smaller and cheaper means it is useless for Russia.

They have cheaper... instead of buying a few MiG-35s they could be buying a few MiG-29M2s if cheaper was important... but it clearly isn't important enough.

The Arctic and Siberia / Far East are the places where long range planes actually make sense, in order to get the theater mobility needed to reinforce the directions needed at each time without depending on tankers.

I would say the opposite.

Think of a huge country... one area will be urbanised and have concentrations of population and things needing protecting. Another area might be kms and kms of snow and ice and pretty much nothing.... that does not need protecting. Using long range aircraft to fly off and protect all that empty nothing means if there is suddenly an attack on where your planes are based you have nothing to defend it with because your super douper long range fighters are 2,000km away dealing with something that is probably still 5,000km away from its target so there is still plenty of time to shoot it down.

Having long range high speed interceptors there makes sense.... having MiG-31s and later MiG-41s makes sense... they can fly out and intercept incoming threats before they launch their missiles and 500 targets become 5,000 targets, but having Su-35s to protect these tiny little outposts would be stupid waste of their range potential... in the middle of nowhere where your base is next to the only human settlement within 3,000kms you wont have anything to protect except that base and that settlement so you don't need a long range plane. If you need to fly from one settlement to another that is fine... the MiG-35 with three external fuel tanks and one inflight refuelling top up can fly 5,000km. They are called Ferry Tanks for a reason.

The Su-35 is not faster than the MIG-35...

F-22 is said to weight 19.7 t, Su-35 is heavier than 18 t, Su-27 is 16.5 or something similar IIRC.

What has F-22 got to do with this?

Estimations for PAK-FA are 18-18.5 t, remember it needed structural reinforcements during testing.

Which means they either made it too light or they got the materials wrong.

Failed in what regard?

Pretty obvious isn't it? Your ideal LMFS would be a single engined Rafale wouldn't it? All faggy and LO... with amazing low empty weights and amazing high fuel and payload capacities... and that eye watering price... presumably to pay for all the pixie dust it takes to make them...

No, more volume means a bigger plane...

It would normally, but we know the PAK FA is a physically smaller plane than the Flankers so more available volume in a house that is smaller than a physically bigger house means less internal structure doesn't it?

Bigger rooms and less walls...

they recently said military related information is going to be state secret so I guess such loopholes are going to be closed and we are going to know each time less... bad news for us but the reason for all that is much more concerning... before any war two things happen: fast rearmament and obscuring of its nature.

Perhaps the accusations they are murderers, and all the sanctions are leading them to believe that perhaps a partner relationship is not possible with the west and the more secrets they keep the better it will be for them... after all the west is not likely to want to buy more than two...

I already see signs in Russian military procurement of fast tracking certain programs and finally bringing the most capable systems and weapons online in numbers, VKS purchases among them.

Perhaps the last time was when Nazi Germany moved its borders to the borders of Russia... so I see the similarity too. Fully justified I would say.

Worse for them, if they have to burden all VKS planes with CV relevant structural reinforcements that only apply to a few VMF units... that is like screwing the F-35 with the STOVL requirements the Marines needed, simply a bad idea.

I would say the opposite... I would think high off boresight air to air missiles plus the potential for thrust vectoring engine nozzles means a little extra weight in terms of strength is actually a useful thing... a land based aircraft taken to a motor way and having to land and take off from much shorter strips of paved ground and the potential for truck based cable arrested landings means they could operate from very small areas which after being repeatedly attacked could continue to be used by moving 250m. The problem with operating from motorways is not finding 500m of clear flat tarmac... it is the problem of bringing all the fuel and ammo and spare parts... their new fuel trucks seem to be excellent for fast refuelling lots of aircraft at once and it is all fully mobile. They showed in Europe that they can contain everything they need to set up an operational helicopter air base inside one Mi-26... which landed on an island in the Baltic Sea and an airbase was set up in hours and used and then packed up and flown away... I am sure they would have similar setups for fighter units too.... or they should.

It is a proper translation with imperial units. They could have spared themselves that, agreed, since US and UK are not likely to buy their planes anytime soon.

Always suspect information in imperial codes... it might be rebels trying to knock out the shield generators...

Certainly, but friction due to surface is always a source of drag.

Even if you could achieve the ideal you know how stupid that would be?

To get zero drag you get nothing, which can't do the job.

Tell me they don't look similar...

To a layman all planes with two engines look similar, to me the diamond wing and unusual tail surface makes it look slightly unique, but then you could say the YF-23 is a Su-27 copy anyway...

They have to face threats from militaries both advanced and more limited (Georgia just announced modernization of their AD by the way), it has nothing to do with scavenging.

Georgia has BUK and SPYDER SAMs and is probably better defended than half the countries in HATO.

You don't adopt equipment to cater to easy ops... a system designed to defeat a strong layered defence network can still destroy a much weaker enemy... the reverse is not true however...

Indeed, old ladies looking out the window probably have more control of the air space than any IADS can dream of

You can joke all you like but civilians that might not be the sort of quality the Army or Navy or Air Force needs can still listen and use a shotgun to bring down all sorts of swarm drones before they get anywhere near your military sites... and a bolt actioned rifle can shoot the bastard in the field that was launching those drones too.
I realise you are westernised and believe all guns belong in the hands of the military and police because they never make mistakes and are totally safe in charge of lethal weapons, but sometimes a whole population can also be part of the solution... if they give a fuck of course...

We are saying the same Garry, I was just pointing out that advanced avionics based on computer systems as newer planes need are difficult to develop and expensive to procure because of the multiple and highly sophisticated elements involved in FCS, sensors, comms, navigation etc., even when it can be made multirole for little extra cost... it was myself that was making the case the multirole fighters do you remember?

Actually they don't use the latest computer chips in aircraft systems, because the newest chips aren't robust enough for hot dusty environments with heavy vibration and pulling g. Most of it will be working with an OS similar to third upgrade Windows 98 or at best XP with plug and play and USB so they can use USB sticks to load software and store data... and comparatively it wont be the bestest and the latest but it wont be cheap either.
Software development will be specific for the aircraft type and the sensors installed and weapons carried... and new drivers will be added as new weapons get service clearance.

You said:

Sukhoi today is as much a computer system design firm as a plane design one, they have grown huge competencies in that regard. The systems that make all that flexibility are of course much more expensive and complex than the older ones, all subsystems and computers need to communicate through hi-speed buses and modern protocols, be redundant, with very high processing power etc. etc... they are not cheap.

Modern computers are much easier to network and to upgrade and adding capability is just a case of plugging in some added hardware and creating the software to allow the system to use it. Simple and cheap. Most fighters in service in the 1990s had 486 computer processors at best and most probably had 286 processors... but even these old processors were good enough for the jobs they were doing.

Well they might do it if they need to. In any case, read my sentence again, I was being specific about very specialised highly capable platforms, the best example of which is MiG-31.

But they are still not fully multirole... the MiG-31K exists to carry Kinzhal missiles... the old MiG-31s were upgraded to BM level but not as far as the original M level planned which was a more extensive upgrade and more costly too. They could probably manage a MiG-31U for universal that did everything, but unless the radar is removable then it wont be as fast as the K model when launching Kinzhal missiles...

Do you suggest they changed the whole avionics because they added the SVP-24?

Avionics are heavy and they demand space, cooling and power. Cabling is very heavy too... sorry it is like it is. Of course modern systems are way smaller for the same capacity, only now we have many more of them. The SVP on the Su-33 probably does not mean any noticeable burden, but I fail to understand how could it make it lighter.

Because old avionics and wiring is much heavier and more bulky than modern avionics that replace the old systems.

Half the old Su-33 avionics were probably not even digital and would have had to be replaced to become compatible with the SVP equipment... the original MiG-29M had the dials and cockpit displays replaced with CRT screens which are hardly light in themselves and that reduced the aircraft weight by 900kgs just in the cockpit... I would think new LCDs would further reduce the weights.... I would expect even more weight reduction for the Su-33 simply because it is bigger and of a similar vintage to the cockpit the MiG-29M cockpit replaced.

That is a reason to repair the arresting gear above anything...

Even when the arresting gear is working perfectly individual cables can break over time... that is why they have four cables and the cables are easy to replace... if you lose a plane every time a cable breaks because the plane is too heavy to recover and go around then that means you need smaller planes until you can get bigger carriers...

Odds are replacing the arrester gear will be needed rather than repair.

I don't know what their plans are, but the Flanker is quite compact once wings, tail and sting are folded, I see no problem to use them further on the Kuznetsov. They don't normally load it with planes to its maximum capacity either.

It is not a question of how small they fold down to... it is whether you lose a plane every time a cable snaps that is the issue...

The failure to request a plane that was not sufficiently differentiated from the Flanker, IMHO.

They could very easily have asked for a simpler MiG... a MiG-29M2 in fact that was simpler and much cheaper but a good workhorse that can carry most of the weapons they need to be carried over reasonable distances.

They are instead demanding the MiG-35...

The M is probably cheaper to procure but probably as expensive to operate as the -35 and it probably lacks some features or at least has not been developed with the VKS requirements in sight.

As soon as you put probably in that sentence it looses all meaning, but if that is correct then the MiG-29M has no point... spend a bit more and get a better aircraft that is still cheaper to operate than a Flanker or any western aircraft for that matter.

Do you make an airbase next to every Russian Arctic settlement then?

Is every little hick village or settlement in Ohio worth destroying with a nuclear missile? Do you think the US invasion of Russia will start by taking on the three or four family settlements first?

An airfield would make surviving in the Russian Arctic cheaper and safer and easier but each individual one does not need its own air base.... where you have a cluster of settlements maybe 100km apart just one could have a military airfield that defends the properties around it along with anything actually worth protecting nearby.

Covering the NS Route and Russian Arctic sea approaches demands long range aircraft.

Actually I would say the opposite... a very long range aircraft means help is hours away... or do you think a Flanker can fly out to 2,000km in the same time a MiG can fly to 1,000km... and I would add if both are heading out in a hurry neither will be flying out that far... more like half that each...

There are ports all along the NSR... even if you just have an airfield at each of those ports it would be fine... WTF do you think a fighter plane is going to be doing anyway?

If anything they would have Tu-22M3Ms along there and any ships being problematic can be buzzed... anything opening fire can be hit with a Kh-32 or Kinzhal... but what are you thinking a Flanker or Fulcrum will be doing?

They certainly wont need Flankers to defend the air field or the port right next to them...

A lot, it is the only operational 5G fighter of similar size and roles and therefore a necessary reference, unless you have something better because you made a very accurate model of the Su-57 at home and run extensive structural simulations of it, according to Sukhoi requirements and technical practice. Both have RAM/RAS, weapon bays, composites, importantly they have very similar wing area... do you think Su-57 will weight 14 t?

The F-22 is an invasion tool to break the target countries IADS and take down their air force. It is nothing like the Su-57... I could care less what the weight comparison is.

The F-22 is intended to destroy poor countries with 4th gen fighters... that is why it has radar homing BVR missiles and no IRST or any radar designed specifically to detect stealthy targets.

The Su-57 is intended to destroy colonial fighters like F-22s and F-35s, so it has a range of new missile types on the way and uses IRST and L band AESA radar arrays to detect an invader with Stealth fighters and bombers.

Now seriously, the fact that TTZ were written calling for single engine fighters mean all those claims about Russians being against them by principle are just fairy tales.

Considering at the time (late 80s early 90s) was the period when all their single engined fighters and fighterbombers were withdrawn from service I suspect they just woke up to reality... they were fighter concepts but there is no evidence there were any TTZ that required single engined aircraft...

I do not understand how those things are related to the weight increase

You don't understand how a plane made stronger to endure higher g forces in flight effects empty weight?

Having a plane super light and therefore able to turn faster means nothing if the turning faster makes the plane break in half.

No need to make an absurdity out if it, the Su-57 has more wing area and that means more friction, despite having other associated advantages.

Oh no.... it has extra drag because it has a big wing area and it also has extra drag because it has two engines instead of one and oh no... it actually flys rather well and seems to have excellent performance but lets change it into an F-35 because small wing and one engine is always best right?

Interesting.

Nice... two seat canopy with one crew... a MiG-29M.... or MiG-35 single seat... no tail hook so not a MiG-29KR single seat model.

Militaries are shaped depending on the perceived threats and always with criteria of economic efficiency.

Perceptions change, and often perceived threats have nothing to do with reality... for instances HATO is ideally equipped to invade Iraq or Kuwaite or Libya, but not so well modelled to take on China or Russia...

If you make even a superficial research you will see systems and avionics today hold a huge share of a plane's costs and that supports the case for multirole planes that get a big increase in functionality via multifunctional avionics with a small increase in cost above that of single role ones.

I totally disagree... it is more than a computer upgrade and software reload to make an A-10 into an F-16... ie an Su-25TM...

Changing the software and hardware are just step one because having the electronics to become multirole is only step one.

I mean on paper you could take any 4th gen pure fighter and make it a fully multirole fighter bomber light strike platform simply by fitting a navigation and targeting pod... you can make Apple computers and you can make IBM Clone PCs... the latter is expensive and exclusive and on paper marginally more sophisticated and better, but in practical terms the IBM model is going to be cheaper and more flexible...

That has nothing to do with the plane's size and all with the braking system itself. If a smaller plane catches a wire, is decelerated and finally the cable breaks because the braking is not smooth, it will fall into the water all the same than a bigger one.

Wrong.

All planes land and as they touch down they apply full power.... the cable wont slow them down to low speed and then snap... it will either slow them down properly or it will snap... it can't do both.

A heavier plane hits the wire and breaks it doesn't have the excess engine power and deck space to get to a safe flying speed again and drops into the water. A lighter aircraft is more likely to recover enough speed to get airborne and recover.

Planes bigger or small land with their engines in full power to be safe if they don't catch a wire, but if they do and it breaks at a random point of the braking they can obviously crash into the water.

Lighter planes are more likely to get back into the air, for heavier aircraft there is not enough space on the angled deck to accelerate to minimum safe flight speed so they drop off the end of the deck and they hit the water...

How much weight does the "colonial" characteristic add to the F-22 that does not burden the Su-57?

You are the one fixated with weight... you tell me...

The moment a program is started you need to set up requirements for suppliers to prepare their proposals.

What makes you think the number of engines will be part of the requirement?

Engines take a long time to develop and get right... it is rather unlikely they would get much of a choice because the aircraft design bureaus tended to work with engine design bureaus so engine sizes and powers will be decided fairly early on and that would include whether one or two are to be used or not.... it is pretty clear that the RD-33 and AL-31 were designed to be fitted to twin engined aircraft from the outset... there were models and design sketches of single engined flanker designs but they never amounted to anything... didn't Sukhoi make a single engined Flanker for use as a LIFT in competition to the Yak-130 and MiG-AT at some stage... but it would be way too big and heavy and likely too expensive for such a role obviously with an engine similar to that fitted to the F-16.

The new vertical stabilisers must not be cleared for flight yet. I'd love to know what benefit they offer over the old ones.

I would guess differential vertical tail surface deflection to be used as an airbrake replacing the spine mounted system perhaps?

Plus perhaps potentially fuel storage space...

India doesn't have the technical abilities of the US navy. And isn't familiar with the F-18. They'd probably run into bigger problems with the F-18 than they have with the Mig 29.

Not to mention the F-18 is older than the MiG-29 and before they had F-35s to set the bar much higher there were a lot of complaints about the F-18 super hornet about how its performance was worse than the older models because of changes to make it more stealthy and of course the purchase price was much higher than older models too.

The obvious other hidden cost is that if you go for F-18s or the Rafales they are going to have to make bigger carriers and fit them with catapult systems... which is going to add further billions to the purchase... not to mention the factor that while I am sure they will get permission to use them against China any time they like, they might not always be allowed to use them as they please... any spat with Australia for instance might get support cut... despite the enormous cost of that support too...

At 23:00 he says that when the USSR came down, some of engines had issues at that time. But then at 25:00 he says that he went on to do 1000 missions with the aircraft with no failures.

A lot of the problems that MiGs supposedly had can be found to have developed because of the way the customers got them.

Instead of paying full price and paying for a proper spares and support package when they bought the planes, they saved money by buying aircraft from existing users who didn't want to operate them any more, so they got reduced prices and might have bought their spare parts pool as well but when they went to buy more parts they got less and less alternatives and eventually they had to buy from MiG... well MiG make money selling planes and offering support contracts... if you don't buy the planes from them then they can only make money on the support contracts so of course parts will become more expensive because you didn't buy planes from them why would they offer a good deal on parts and support?

For a while it was a dangerous boogey man that the west feared, and this was confirmed when they tested themselves against it, but there was a bigger beast in the form of the Su-27 and they realised if they kept saying the MiG-29 was a good plane then countries might buy it instead of what the west has to sell.

Germany could have upgraded their MiGs instead of getting rid of them and using F-4 Phantoms well past their use by dates while waiting for Typhoons for instance... so suddenly the MiGs became useless crap because they didn't need it as a boogie man to generate sales and scare allies into buying Rafales and Gripens and Typhoons and F-16s... there were Flankers for that...

With a decent AESA or PESA radar and modern missiles it is no worse than anything the west currently uses in terms of a 4th gen plane...

It was proven with its high off boresight missiles and helmet sight to be deadly at close range and its old BVR missiles are not up to scratch any more but R-77-1 and R-77Ms should address that. R-73s have been seriously effective when used in combat.

The_Observer wrote:

slasher wrote:Twitter
Samir @obretix:

looks like six MiG-29 fighter jets were deployed to the Russian air base in Hmeymim besides the usual Su-24 and Su-30/35

https://twitter.com/obretix/status/1349866467869786114?s=20

Interesting....there seem to be two different color schemes present. I don't ever remember Russia using Mig-29s in Syria since the 2015 intervention.
I'm wondering if some of the MiGs are to be transferred to SAA.

That is the rumor amongst Syrian twitters that it is a new transfer.

They did test some MiG-29SMTs, and they had some issues with them... mostly centring around the fact that they are just upgraded older aircraft rather than brand new aircraft.... a bit like improving the CPU and memory and hard drive on an IBM clone PC... you do improve performance and get new features and capabilities... but with the old motherboard and old architecture you still have a 486.

Just looking at the images... they are rather poor and small images but they do appear to be old model single seat MiG-29s rather than the new model MiG-35/KR/M/2 models which all have two seat canopies.

GarryB wrote:They did test some MiG-29SMTs, and they had some issues with them... mostly centring around the fact that they are just upgraded older aircraft rather than brand new aircraft.... a bit like improving the CPU and memory and hard drive on an IBM clone PC... you do improve performance and get new features and capabilities... but with the old motherboard and old architecture you still have a 486.

Just looking at the images... they are rather poor and small images but they do appear to be old model single seat MiG-29s rather than the new model MiG-35/KR/M/2 models which all have two seat canopies.

If memory serves me correctly, didn't the first batch of Mig-29's to the Syrian AF a few years back have some level of upgrade to a SM level. Perhaps more of the same.