MiG-29/ΜiG-35 Fulcrum: News #2

lancelot wrote:

GarryB wrote:I think the irony is that it was not long ago people were praising the YF-17 as a cheap light simple fighter and why are the Russians so stupid that they can't make a simple light cheap fighter too... well it seems they did it with the safety of two engines.

The F/A-18 Hornet was not that much of an export success either. It sold even less than the MiG-29.

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It says on Wiki that there are 25 countries with Mig 29 in service.

Why in the hell does Armenia have a handfull of heavy Flankers ? It would have been a perfect application for Mig 35. Same with Iran. But Iran wants su 35's.

Backman wrote:Why in the hell does Armenia have a handfull of heavy Flankers ? It would have been a perfect application for Mig 35. Same with Iran. But Iran wants su 35's.

Iran seeks replacement for their f-14s..
Though it would be better if they would have gone for Su-30SM2, Iran is not that small country really..
Therefore it would be better if they go for mix of Su-30/35 and MiG-35

Yeah, seems indeed to be what they are doing, refining the MiG-35 more and more when they already have the M/K versions which are basically the same, platform wise.

With the design model where you have a base cheap fighter that has all the aerodynamics and modern electronics and systems to make it a useful affordable fighter, with a dedicated naval version, and a more expensive and more capable model all on the same basic chassis... it means as you upgrade the more expensive model some of the expensive models new bits become cheaper and could be cascaded to the standard model.

I rather suspect the plan is that the carrier model is never going to be bought in numbers enough to justify a separate type, so the unified design could allow either the expensive model or the standard model to replace the naval model with the attachment of a tail hook and folding wings.

So you end up with the MiG-29M and the MiG-35 and can make either the navalised model depending on your goals with folding wings and tailhook.

Er.... no. A smaller, more basic fighter is cheaper to operate and to procure, that is the idea, no matter how little fuel you put in the Su-57 you cannot imitate the economy of a plane designed for simpler missions, with half the size, half the engines.

You mean like the F-35 is so cheap to operate?

It is not just a case of scaling down and reducing engine numbers to make cheaper... and the MiG-35 shows twins can be cheaper too.

Not to talk about export prospects being in the hundreds for one and in the dozens for the other.

Exports are what they are... more often political and subject to salesmanship.

A lot of countries that would be better off with smaller lighter cheaper aircraft went with heavy Sukhoi based fighters.

"Lighter" as opposed to light you mean?

Yes.

A lighter interceptor that is cheap to operate in numbers allows better coverage... the actual situation of whether it has one engine or two does not come in to it.

As long as the MiG-35 is cheaper to operate than its Su-30, Su-35, and Su-57 counterparts is what matters...

You know what I think of MiG-29/35: it is the plane for a less developed air force that does not have heavy fighters, for those like Russia the ideal complement extends much further into the lower end and is also cheaper, because the heavy fighters take care of the high end of the capability.

And you know that I think very small light fighters are a waste of time because while being cheaper to operate than a bigger aircraft, they often are inadequate on their own for the job so you have to use more which totally defeats any minor cost advantage per aircraft.

Heavy + medium fighters means overlapping of capabilities in many aspects and not having a really economic alternative for simpler missions. Not to talk about the absurd of having two engine types and manufacturers when only one would be needed for a proper hi-lo mix. But ok I also know what you think

The point is that it is easily to take away capability from a medium fighter and make it even cheaper to operate... the current options for the Russian military would be to have either MiG-29M or MiG-35 as the numbers fighter and if they were only interested in money the cheaper MiG-29M would make sense... cheaper to buy and just as cheap to operate as the 35 it would be a no brainer, but they are not buying the 29M, they are buying the 35 because they want quality and reduced operating costs, which I think you are missing.

A twin engined MiG-35 can outmanouver any single engined fighter.... it is just physics because two engines with TVC nozzles allow better manouver even if the same engines with TVC nozzles are fitted to the single engined fighter.

The MiG-35 will be bigger and heavier than a single engined model, but the more powerful single engine will cost more to buy and to operate.

The F-5 was a cheap plane to operate because its small engines were efficient and reliable and easy to maintain and operate and they were cheap and together they provided enough performance to make the F-5 useful .

The F-20 had a bigger much more powerful single engine and it was expensive and not simple and easy to maintain, which is why no one bought any.

It left its focus and went for capability instead of affordability.

They will spare some of the more complex devices maybe, like say the DIRCM or the L band radars, maybe, depends on the costs.

Remove its self defence capacity and its ability to find stealth targets?

With new photonic radar a separate L band radar might be redundant.

That is the whole point of the hi-lo concept and the reason why PAK-FA was so critical for the industry.

There is no lo version so at the moment the hi lo concept is not working in that regard.

Instead many of the features and components of the PAK FA are being distributed across the Su-35 and Su-30 fleet and even the Su-34.

They are similar sized aircraft so using related systems and the same engines makes sense, though I think having a dedicated air to ground radar set for the Su-34 makes sense the others could share radar models and engines etc.

Drones that operate with such fighters also could use the engines, but there is no need to be silly... the Americans used F-15 engines in the B-1B... can you see an upgraded Tu-22M4 with four new Su-57 engines?

The point is that the Tu-22M3 could use NK-32 engines and there is no way of getting the Tu-160 to carry 8 engines from the Su-57 and it wouldn't make any sense to try to do that.

I think the Koreans have smart plans (weapon bays in the future as a part of a well though development roadmap), but they depend a lot in what US allows them to do. That is always the big question.

The US links will limit them to selling only to countries the US does not have a problem with (a very small group) that they are not already trying to sell F-15s or F-35s or F-16s to (which makes it a tiny group of just South Korea really...)

It is a stealth plane with external weapon pylons... it is a Rafale shaped to look like an F-35 but it does not even have conformal weapon positions to minimise RCS...

At the end of the day an F-16 could be doing what Israel is doing in Syria, but the F-16 is faster and lighter and cheaper and has better range and better payload capacity and is already in service.

I think this Korean aircraft is a nod in that direction... this is an attempt to create a stealthy F-16 with no VSTOL bullshit to fuck up the aerodynamics and balance.... they even called it XF-21... F-21 is what the Americans were calling the F-16s they wanted India to buy.

Commercial aviation proves that the number of engines does influence costs.

Commercial aviation is about takeoff and long cruises and then landing and is really not very useful for the military who need their pilots to find the aircrafts envelope because they need to be able to know it off by heart so they know in combat what they can or cannot do.

Low operating costs are a factor but not a critical factor and will be looked at at a higher level... it is not an accident that all this time the Russian AF seemed uninterested in MiGs, but now Su-30s and Su-34s and Su-35s and Su-57s are operational they buy MiG-35s... maybe they want more numbers but don't want an increase in operational costs that 200 extra Flankers will impose on their operational costs.

Why in the hell does Armenia have a handfull of heavy Flankers ? It would have been a perfect application for Mig 35. Same with Iran. But Iran wants su 35's.

Economics over common sense. The accountants will be saying the Flankers have double the range so they can cover twice the territory so you only need half as many. You could extrapolate that and put an AESA radar and load R-37Ms into the large internal weapon bays of a Tu-95 and say with its 16,000km flight range they would only need four of them to cover all of Russia... but having twice the flight radius at the same speed means effectively you cover the same airspace... your increased size and drag means you cost more per hour to do it so there is often no actual saving at all.

For a small nation the range of the big aircraft would be appealing... a larger country would probably want a mix to make the coverage better while not making it too expensive.

Iran seeks replacement for their f-14s..
Though it would be better if they would have gone for Su-30SM2, Iran is not that small country really..
Therefore it would be better if they go for mix of Su-30/35 and MiG-35

I would like to see them go for Su-30 and MiG-29M and go for local production options.

I honestly think Iran could contribute to the design of each aircraft and really make it their own.

Would like to see them engage Russian companies in developing long range smart AAMs for countries facing enemy forces equipped with AWACS platforms and stealth fighters for the purpose of defending themselves from bullies.... you know who you are....

She is a pretty jet... she doesn't hear it enough.

Maybe someone already wrote this....but im curious why RU AF doesn't buy mig-35 in big numbers....do they plan to ?

LMFS wrote:Makes no sense to develop a "new" plane with old systems and engines and then put the weapons in the wings. They already have the MiG-35 for that.

By that logic, you would never develop a new light plane because it would be expensive, just take a plane from the previous generation. Light fighters use technology of the present generation and are designed to be cheaper to procure and operate than the heavy ones, you are mixing generations and cost / size issues it seems. The new light fighter by MiG (UAC) will be 5G, should be in fact 5.5G by the time of development and the fact that they hint at it being manned or unmanned goes clearly in that direction....

Good luck competing with Sukhoi then

Aswe all know MiG tried this before with MiG-35 vs Su-30 and look well that worked out

PapaDragon wrote:

LMFS wrote:Makes no sense to develop a "new" plane with old systems and engines and then put the weapons in the wings. They already have the MiG-35 for that.

By that logic, you would never develop a new light plane because it would be expensive, just take a plane from the previous generation. Light fighters use technology of the present generation and are designed to be cheaper to procure and operate than the heavy ones, you are mixing generations and cost / size issues it seems. The new light fighter by MiG (UAC) will be 5G, should be in fact 5.5G by the time of development and the fact that they hint at it being manned or unmanned goes clearly in that direction....

Good luck competing with Sukhoi then

Aswe all know  MiG tried this before with MiG-35 vs Su-30 and look well that worked out

We already said it, you can develop a single engine aircraft. Perhaps optionally manned.
The RD-33MK has 88 kN while the Izd 30 is supposed to have 176 kN thrust. That is basically the same thrust with one engine you would have with two.
You do not need to develop a new engine. This will save immense time and money.

lancelot wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

LMFS wrote:Makes no sense to develop a "new" plane with old systems and engines and then put the weapons in the wings. They already have the MiG-35 for that.

By that logic, you would never develop a new light plane because it would be expensive, just take a plane from the previous generation. Light fighters use technology of the present generation and are designed to be cheaper to procure and operate than the heavy ones, you are mixing generations and cost / size issues it seems. The new light fighter by MiG (UAC) will be 5G, should be in fact 5.5G by the time of development and the fact that they hint at it being manned or unmanned goes clearly in that direction....

Good luck competing with Sukhoi then

Aswe all know  MiG tried this before with MiG-35 vs Su-30 and look well that worked out

We already said it, you can develop a single engine aircraft. Perhaps optionally manned.
The RD-33MK has 88 kN while the Izd 30 is supposed to have 176 kN thrust. That is basically the same thrust with one engine you would have with two.
You do not need to develop a new engine. This will save immense time and money.

I believe papas point is that Russia isn't aiming to have a bunch of cheaper light fighters, but that they went with bigger, heavier fighters instead. Due to Russia's rather vast territory, it requires more heavier fighters to handle the vast airspace and be able to have the power behind it to not only do longer journeys, but have the electrical power to handle more powerful onboard electronics for the task (bigger, more powerful radar and its data linking).

MiG Jets, smaller ones, are only necessary for Russia's smaller bases. Maybe Crimea and it's external bases (Armenia and I would say Syria it would work well in).

They went with also two engine design because of reliability. We can see even failure of Western single jet engine based Jets and if the engine fails, that's it. While I believe both sukhois, mugs, F-18"s and such were able to land with one working engine.

miketheterrible wrote:I believe papas point is that Russia isn't aiming to have a bunch of cheaper light fighters, but that they went with bigger, heavier fighters instead.  Due to Russia's rather vast territory, it requires more heavier fighters to handle the vast airspace and be able to have the power behind it to not only do longer journeys, but have the electrical power to handle more powerful onboard electronics for the task (bigger, more powerful radar and its data linking).

MiG Jets, smaller ones, are only necessary for Russia's smaller bases. Maybe Crimea and it's external bases (Armenia and I would say Syria it would work well in).

They went with also two engine design because of reliability.  We can see even failure of Western single jet engine based Jets and if the engine fails, that's it. While I believe both sukhois, mugs, F-18"s and such were able to land with one working engine.

Sure it made sense when cost reduction was the main issue and they had no money to develop whole new aircraft.

Back in the Soviet Union they had fighters, interceptors, and long range interceptors. Like the MiG-21, Su-15, and Tu-128. Or the MiG-29, Su-27, and MiG-31.

The MiG-21 was basically reserved for being stationed close to the borders with NATO. Considering that is where the bulk of the Russian population still is today I think that did not stop being a consideration. Despite however convenient long range aircraft are in the rest of the country. Most of the population is concentrated over a small area.
While a single engine aircraft might have a shorter range it might not be too terrible. Just look at the range of the Grippen for example. It carries about the same amount of fuel as the original MiG-29 and has almost half the airframe weight. It has about the same range as the Su-27. Probably with external tanks but it can do it. The Grippen has more range than the MiG-29M with 3x drop tanks. I see no reason why you cannot make an aircraft with the same range with more advanced engines like the Izd 30.

As for engine out reliability, that is a fact, but over land it is less relevant as a pilot can bail out in such cases. Also modern engines are typically reliable enough. It seems good enough for the Chinese and Pakistan to fly with single engine aircraft with these same 4th generation engines. I don't see why a 5th generation engine should be less reliable once it achieves maturity.

UZB-76 wrote:

Backman wrote:Why in the hell does Armenia have a handfull of heavy Flankers ? It would have been a perfect application for Mig 35. Same with Iran. But Iran wants su 35's.

Iran seeks replacement for their f-14s..
Though it would be better if they would have gone for Su-30SM2, Iran is not that small country really..
Therefore it would be better if they go for mix of Su-30/35 and MiG-35

I agree. Word is that Russia wanted to start things off with Mig 35 for Iran. Just like they did with Egypt. It would help cool Netanyahu's head too.

But Iran said we want su 35. Period.

Posted by Garry.
I would like to see them go for Su-30 and MiG-29M and go for local production options.

I honestly think Iran could contribute to the design of each aircraft and really make it their own.

That is a very good point. It would present all kinds of options for Iran to skip sanctions in the future too. They could sell jets in parts and assemble them themselves.

BUT but but... Iran is just a terrible business partner that hardly treats Russia better than it treats the US. They could set something up with civil aviation with Russia too. They could put together Sukhoi Superjets or something like that. But when Iran signed the JCPOA, it couldn't cancel the SSJ order fast enough. They went ahead and bought Italian ATR's instead. And they actually got some delivered.

Now they have to beg the US for permission to buy parts for them the morons

https://simpleflying.com/atr-iran-parts-permission/

lancelot wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:I believe papas point is that Russia isn't aiming to have a bunch of cheaper light fighters, but that they went with bigger, heavier fighters instead.  Due to Russia's rather vast territory, it requires more heavier fighters to handle the vast airspace and be able to have the power behind it to not only do longer journeys, but have the electrical power to handle more powerful onboard electronics for the task (bigger, more powerful radar and its data linking).

MiG Jets, smaller ones, are only necessary for Russia's smaller bases. Maybe Crimea and it's external bases (Armenia and I would say Syria it would work well in).

They went with also two engine design because of reliability.  We can see even failure of Western single jet engine based Jets and if the engine fails, that's it. While I believe both sukhois, mugs, F-18"s and such were able to land with one working engine.

Sure it made sense when cost reduction was the main issue and they had no money to develop whole new aircraft.

Back in the Soviet Union they had fighters, interceptors, and long range interceptors. Like the MiG-21, Su-15, and Tu-128. Or the MiG-29, Su-27, and MiG-31.

The MiG-21 was basically reserved for being stationed close to the borders with NATO. Considering that is where the bulk of the Russian population still is today I think that did not stop being a consideration. Despite however convenient long range aircraft are in the rest of the country. Most of the population is concentrated over a small area.
While a single engine aircraft might have a shorter range it might not be too terrible. Just look at the range of the Grippen for example. It carries about the same amount of fuel as the original MiG-29 and has almost half the airframe weight. It has about the same range as the Su-27. Probably with external tanks but it can do it. The Grippen has more range than the MiG-29M with 3x drop tanks. I see no reason why you cannot make an aircraft with the same range with more advanced engines like the Izd 30.

As for engine out reliability, that is a fact, but over land it is less relevant as a pilot can bail out in such cases. Also modern engines are typically reliable enough. It seems good enough for the Chinese and Pakistan to fly with single engine aircraft with these same 4th generation engines. I don't see why a 5th generation engine should be less reliable once it achieves maturity.

The RuAF seems to be looking for a rather different solution - cheap AC in the form of drones to assist the heavy AC in combat.

I don't trust drones myself. I do believe having plenty of cheap fighters available so you have numbers, is a great idea. But the RuAF made their minds up.

I imagine in the future, further expansion of IZD30 engine development, they may look at a single jet engine jet for use. I know it has been hinted multiple times they wanted a cheap fighter.

Also, Putin did demand for a jump jet. So let's see where it goes.

Just thinking out loud. What about building an LFMS with the same 2 engines as the su 25 ?

Backman wrote:

I agree. Word is that Russia wanted to start things off with Mig 35 for Iran. Just like they did with Egypt. It would help cool Netanyahu's head too.

But Iran said we want su 35. Period.

I think economic conditions plays a role and the fact that  su-30sm2 is not yet ready, Su-35 would be cheaper to upgrade compared to su-30sm..
All it needs is byelka radar system and upgraded old system to have 55-65% of features found in first generation of su-57, not to mention pilot training.

Maybe someone already wrote this....but im curious why RU AF doesn't buy mig-35 in big numbers....do they plan to ?

They might buy a few hundred airframes, now that they are ready and in service... assuming they are up to spec and do what is promised.

Since when US scams are indicative of anything for the Russian MIC?

Without a hint of irony... it is the US that pushes the single engined low fighter as complimentary and cheaper than the big twin, yet they manage to fail worse than anyone else in the implementation.

Given we don't have figures and how they are calculated for any Russian plane, we know close to nothing.

We know Russian companies exaggerate the way western ones do, so MiG claims of low operation costs will certainly need to be shown, but what other reason would the Russian AF have to buy any at all?

Some others stopped buying Russian when they had no replacement for their MiG-21/23/27 or even 29...

Most decisions are political... the countries not buying MiG-35s now are new HATO members who don't really have a choice, and India seems to want to buy some love from the EU and US instead.

We can continue from here, when they actually but MiG-35. I mean to actually equip squadrons and not for the GLITs / Swifts, and in decent numbers.

You think they will only buy MiG-35s for the swifts aerobatic team... that would be American level logic in making a cheap to operate aircraft as expensive as you could manage.

No, it will be cheaper than two smaller engines.

The F-5/F-20 example suggests otherwise.

Simply for the fact that you need more spares and twice the maintenance tasks, not even going to overheads in the procurement and manufacturing and issues like efficiency, weight / thrust ratio, cross sectional area etc.

Having a large spares pool mitigates having to use them up at twice the rate of a single engined aircraft, and most of the things you do to maintain an engine... taking it off the runway and putting it in maintenance and putting it up on jacks and removing one engine would not take any longer taking out both engines... having a larger ground crew that could service both engines at once would mean the actual service time would not be any longer.... it has more to do with engine access and design than the fact that there is a second engine to look at.

Engine overhauls are in depth things, but assuming you have enough mechanics looking at the engines having twice as many is not much different.

Normal maintenance like checking the oil is trivial and with modern engines the engine management system will warn of problems or issues as they come up.

No other plane apart from Su-57 has DIRCM or L band radars, the MiG-35 among them.

Su-35 has L band radar, and most modern Russian aircraft are getting DIRCM, including attack helicopters and transport helicopters (Mi-17 and Mi-26), as well as transport planes. Their deployment is expanding.

I think if you don't compromise, you are not going to get your cheap fighter any cheaper than expensive ones...

If you want cheap and expendable then you are thinking of a drone.

Which ones? The only features that are publicly slated for broad use in the Flankers are those of the Su-35.

So you currently agree the equipment and engines of the Su-35 are being deployed on the other flanker variants, so why would it be so hard to use the systems and equipment from the Su-57  as a future upgrade path for the non stealthy flankers?

Flankers have already been used to test flat engine nozzles and various types of vectored thrust engine nozzles, but they can't ever be fitted with stuff from Su-57s... is that a rule?

The Su-57 is going to be a bigger aircraft than the LMFS... how do you propose fitting that stuff in there?

If they could make it smaller and lighter I would think it already would be... there are no bonus points for big heavy stuff in aircraft.

Exactly, they do all the work for designing and integrating the plane, but relying on the US for the engines (and other components), they have them by the balls, to put it simply.

You mean they are ass holes and the plane simply has no future.

Current missile carriage is conformal, internal bays in the future. It seems a well thought plane.

Of course... they can use TARDIS technology for the weapon bays...

It is the opposite of a well thought out plane.... it is like making a strategic bomber but there are no engines powerful enough and fuel efficient enough to make it fully strategic yet so we will just make it very short ranged and then when bigger more powerful engines are ready we can just add them to the design.... except that never happened.

By the time the new engines became available a new aircraft design was used... if there is no space now for internal bays... where will they come from in the future?

It would need a complete redesign to create space for internal weapon bays... so why not do that now... not having space ready now is the opposite of a well thought out plane... what they have now is just an F-16 with an F-35 like body but without the weapon bay or the ability to take off and land vertically... the idea that in the future some internal space might suddenly free up and allow an internal weapon bay to be used is delusional and childish and not good design.

They might as well make an F-16... with external weapons it is never going to actually be stealthy so no point in shaping it to be that and still use external weapons.

The Tornado used conformal weapon points on its belly... it isn't a potential new stealth plane for the future... just needs weapon bays added...

It is a medium fighter and it will have the bays as said, it has them already planed and in place, only not enabled and used.

So it has internal weapon bay space, but they haven't bothered to make it work?

What tranche will the customer finally get a working fighter?

If it has a weapon bay that means a large internal cavity is it a fuel tank so they can fake flight range figures?

I don't see that point you make has to do anything with the number of engines.

A car engine that is used by a 90 year old that barely exceeds 3,000rpm, and gets regular but docile use, compared with a turbocharged hot rod engine taken to top RPM during most drives suggests different uses and different problems and different goals of the maker and the user... which makes experience for one not very valuable for the other.

So yes, operational costs are a factor. Which is obvious regardless, because anything you decide in the military planning depends on how much it costs.

But it is also a case of life and death so putting your pilots in second rate fighters that are cheaper might get them killed.... so the Russian Air Force is buying MiG-35s when they could save some money buying MiG-29Ms instead... the difference is likely to be purchase price and capability.

Some of us suspect that they are essentially buying the plane as little as it is needed to convince foreign customers (mainly India) to buy with the confidence that they are not going to be used as guinea pigs by MiG.

You mean like they did with the MiG-AT?

A cheap trainer would be very useful about now, and ironically the plus for the Yak-130 because a cheap single seat model could be developed as a cheap small fighter is meaningless because they have not done that... and the drones they were planning haven't been made either...

The Russian military is not a charity... they only buy things if they have a use for them.

Suggesting the Russian Military would buy 6 MiG-35s so that the Swifts aerobatic team had nice shiny aircraft to fly in while they withdraw all their MiG-29s from front line service is quite frankly insulting... the whole point of the design is to be more affordable than bigger fighters it would be operating along side, so how could a fleet of 6 aircraft actually achieve such a goal?

Or do you suggest that they not only buy 6 to fool customers into buying some but also fake the operational costs so they can boost sales... wont the long term damage of such deception cost MiG and Russia rather more money and future sales than this sham could possibly generate... I mean countries are not stupid and when a plane touted as being cheap to operate ends up costing them $30,000 US dollars per flight hour to operate... are they not going to want their money back?

Wont all the customers of the MiG-35 returning their aircraft and wanting full refunds end up being bad for the brand and also rather expensive for the Russian Air Force?

But western source come up with this shit because that is exactly the sort of thing a western company would pull... the US is doing it right now with F35 sales... and western experts doing their best to cover up the problems....

Aswe all know MiG tried this before with MiG-35 vs Su-30 and look well that worked out

Not really a fair competition till now really because the MiG-35 is only just ready now.

We already said it, you can develop a single engine aircraft. Perhaps optionally manned.

The difference between the design of a single engined aircraft and a twin engined aircraft is huge... you make it sound so simple to just take a twin jet engined design and take one engine off and reduce the weight by 50% and suddenly it will automatically be a cheap light aircraft.

Doesn't work like that.

The RD-33MK has 88 kN while the Izd 30 is supposed to have 176 kN thrust. That is basically the same thrust with one engine you would have with two.
You do not need to develop a new engine. This will save immense time and money.

The engine you develop for the LMFS can be used in the MiG-35s in use.

RD engines are made by Klimov and I rather suspect they have invested money and time on new replacement engines... are you going to compensate them for that?

Saturn will likely struggle to make enough new engines for the Su-57s and S-70s let alone any new aircraft...

Money invested in developing new more powerful and more fuel efficient engines is not wasted... these are Russian engines made in Russia... most of Russias current problems is not having engines in various thrust classes for different things and you want to get rid of another thrust class...

MiG Jets, smaller ones, are only necessary for Russia's smaller bases. Maybe Crimea and it's external bases (Armenia and I would say Syria it would work well in).

Most of western Russia has plenty of air bases close together that don't require 2,000km radius heavy fighters to defend. Using smaller lighter cheaper fighters means they can operate more without blowing the operational budget.

They went with also two engine design because of reliability. We can see even failure of Western single jet engine based Jets and if the engine fails, that's it. While I believe both sukhois, mugs, F-18"s and such were able to land with one working engine.

They have a policy of not using single engined aircraft... off the top of my head only the Yak-52 and Yak-152, the L-39 jet trainer, and the An-2 aircraft they use in the military have single engines and are in service.

They are working on a single engine replacement for the An-2 and the single engined Yak-152 will replace the Yak-52 and the L39 will likely be replaced with something multi engined.

Sure it made sense when cost reduction was the main issue and they had no money to develop whole new aircraft.

Frontal Aviation does not need long range aircraft.

Back in the Soviet Union they had fighters, interceptors, and long range interceptors. Like the MiG-21, Su-15, and Tu-128. Or the MiG-29, Su-27, and MiG-31.

The MiG-21 was used by the Frontal Aviation but the others were PVO interceptors... the MiG-29 essentially replaced the MiG-21 and MiG-27 and Su-17 fitter series, while the Su-27 replaced the MiG-23 for longer range fighter and interceptor roles.

The MiG-21 was basically reserved for being stationed close to the borders with NATO.

The MiG-21 was a cheap simple numbers fighter used by Frontal Aviation.

Just look at the range of the Grippen for example. It carries about the same amount of fuel as the original MiG-29 and has almost half the airframe weight. It has about the same range as the Su-27. Probably with external tanks but it can do it.

To achieve the flight range of an Su-27 it gives up most of its payload and is agility... meanwhile a lightly loaded Su-27 can match it in range and be fully armed.

When your light plane carries external fuel tanks all the time then you need a bigger plane with more internal fuel.

The Grippen has more range than the MiG-29M with 3x drop tanks. I see no reason why you cannot make an aircraft with the same range with more advanced engines like the Izd 30.

No it doesn't. The Gripen has a combat range of 800km, the MiG-35 has a combat range of 1,000km.

Ferry range means nothing because when actually ferrying they don't normally carry lots of fuel tanks... they just use inflight refuelling, which means their ferrying range depends on onboard oxygen supply... which is unlimited for the MiG.

As for engine out reliability, that is a fact, but over land it is less relevant as a pilot can bail out in such cases. Also modern engines are typically reliable enough. It seems good enough for the Chinese and Pakistan to fly with single engine aircraft with these same 4th generation engines. I don't see why a 5th generation engine should be less reliable once it achieves maturity.

Chinese and Pakistan experience is kinda irrelevant.... Russian policy seems to require two engines...

But Iran said we want su 35. Period.

There was a lot of behind the scenes problems with MiG sales to Iran... I suspect the problems are political rather than practical.

Now they have to beg the US for permission to buy parts for them the morons

I agree... they like to sabotage themselves by sucking up to their enemies... what can you do...

The RuAF seems to be looking for a rather different solution - cheap AC in the form of drones to assist the heavy AC in combat.

The Su-57 might fly around a lot at supersonic dry thrust cruise speeds and rather than having expensive supersonic drones following them they might locate the drones around the place in a support role. The drone will have sensors and weapons and could operate at subsonic in an area, while the Su-57s go around looking in the gaps between the drones for threats... any threats found the Su-57s could loiter at the edge of the visibility of the enemy forces while they direct the drones to either attack from the front and retire or to sneak around from behind... either way the threats will be focused on the drones and there will be a good chance of some kills without risking any manned aircraft and without needing spending a lot more money on more sophisticate supersonic drones.

With the MiG-35s I rather suspect they will be a similar price to an S-70 and with external weapons capacity they wont need drone support as such.

Essentially the lower operational costs of the MiG-35s will mean the LMFS could operate with a MiG-35 instead of a drone with full supersonic and altitude operation capacity...

In fact ironically in the lower weight class it could be that manned MiG-35s operate with unmanned stealthy drones based on the LMFS.

I don't trust drones myself. I do believe having plenty of cheap fighters available so you have numbers, is a great idea. But the RuAF made their minds up.

I suspect the Russian military will be just as conservative as you and that there will be S-70 drones to operate with the Su-57s and perhaps Su-35s and Su-30s, but that smaller airfields will have MiG-35s in numbers and that manned aircraft will still make up the bulk of the force.

Drones will be used to add numbers and fire power and be used in cases where eyes on target are needed but potentially could be lost...

But certainly during peace time it is critical that you have manned interceptors.

I imagine in the future, further expansion of IZD30 engine development, they may look at a single jet engine jet for use. I know it has been hinted multiple times they wanted a cheap fighter.

The MiG-35 answers that better than anything Sukhoi could come up with.

Also, Putin did demand for a jump jet. So let's see where it goes.

Unless they can come up with some fantastic new technology... been there and failed before.

Nothing wrong with trying, but don't expect a different result.

Just thinking out loud. What about building an LFMS with the same 2 engines as the su 25 ?

The 4 ton thrust engines of the Su-25 have less thrust than one of the new RD-33s at 9 tons thrust.

I think economic conditions plays a role and the fact that su-30sm2 is not yet ready, Su-35 would be cheaper to upgrade compared to su-30sm..

Su-35 does not need an upgrade, but it is not cheap, and export prices will be higher than domestic prices.

All it needs is byelka radar system and upgraded old system to have 55-65% of features found in first generation of su-57, not to mention pilot training.

A fleet of MiG-29Ms to replace all the old stuff they have... F-4s, old MiG-29s, Mirage F1s, Chinese MiG-21s, and F-5s... they could continue with their F-5 programme to make trainers and light fighters... perhaps replace the two existing engines with one RD-33MK engine... a similar upgrade that the Americans proposed to upgrade the F-5 to the F-20.

The Su-30s could replace the F-14s, but with upgraded avionics the MiG-29Ms and Su-30s could carry the RVV-BD export model of R-37M... which is a longer ranged Phoenix type weapon that many of their aircraft could carry.

There is no conflict between light fighters and drones, Rostec talked abut the new light fighter as to be produced in manned and unmanned version. Two birds with one stone.

An unmanned model could be cheaper to operate and make... they might end up going for the opposite of the Su-57 and S-70 pair... perhaps design the LMFS for high g manouvers... say 20g in the unmanned version.

So manned MiG-35 with unmanned S-90 or what ever it might be called, with manned Su-57s and unmanned S-70. Manned Su-35s and Manned Su-30s upgraded to Su-35 level could be used with either S-70 or S-90 drones or MiG-35s depending on the situation.

It seems to me that for minimal outlay and arse covering protection in case one or other was crap, they have ended up with an excellent stealth fighter and two excellent heavy fighters... essentially the Su-30 is becoming a two seat Su-35. The MiG-35 is single or twin seat optional with a new lighter stealth fighter and drone on the way... they are honestly spoiled for choice.

Over time as the AI gets better

@GarryB
You are basically comparing the price of older su-30sm with su-35, you will have consider that training pilots can actually be very costly and the fact the Russia will try to gain lot of money spent in R&D and upgrading su-30 from export contracts. So, there is a possibility that su-30sm2 can actually be costlier.
And regarding su-35 upgrade, I was talking about after 5-10 years of usage

GarryB wrote:No it doesn't. The Gripen has a combat range of 800km, the MiG-35 has a combat range of 1,000km.

Ferry range means nothing because when actually ferrying they don't normally carry lots of fuel tanks... they just use inflight refuelling, which means their ferrying range depends on onboard oxygen supply... which is unlimited for the MiG.

I should have been more specific. I was talking about the Gripen E not the Gripen C.
Gripen E has 1500 km combat range.

miketheterrible wrote:.....I believe papas point is that Russia isn't aiming to have a bunch of cheaper light fighters, but that they went with bigger, heavier fighters instead.  Due to Russia's rather vast territory, it requires more heavier fighters to handle the vast airspace and be able to have the power behind it to not only do longer journeys, but have the electrical power to handle more powerful onboard electronics for the task (bigger, more powerful radar and its data linking).

MiG Jets, smaller ones, are only necessary for Russia's smaller bases. Maybe Crimea and it's external bases (Armenia and I would say Syria it would work well in)....

Correct

VKS needs predominately larger heavier jets due to the geography and doctrine

If MiG wants to compete for leftover segment they need to make something that can compete on the price because they will never be able to get VKS to commit to another full 5th gen aircraft and they will never match Su-57 specs anyway

Which simply means they have to focus on designing high end airframe and fill it with existing components to keep the price down (similar to Molonya-class missile ships for Navy)

They can of course make upgrades later as better components become affordable but the guts of the aircraft will have to come from current MiG-35

You are basically comparing the price of older su-30sm with su-35, you will have consider that training pilots can actually be very costly and the fact the Russia will try to gain lot of money spent in R&D and upgrading su-30 from export contracts. So, there is a possibility that su-30sm2 can actually be costlier.

Pilots don't learn to fly in front line two seat aircraft, they learn to fly on Yak-52 propeller trainers, and then L39 jet trainers and then Yak-130 twin jet trainers.

At operational airfields a two seater aircraft would be used for conversion training to get the pilot familiar with the type, as well as simulator flights of course.

The most expensive part of upgrading Su-30s into improved models with Su-35 gear will be the Su-35 gear.

Having the Su-35 and Su-30 using the same equipment will improve commonality and training for pilots and support crew, and producing avionics of one type for both aircraft will increase production runs and reduce costs and mean spares can be kept for both types that are the same and can be shared if needed.

Hopefully they wont make the mistake most western countries then make and assume because they have one set of spare parts instead of several different types they don't need as many spare parts which is stupid and leaves them short of parts which creates problems all on its own.

And regarding su-35 upgrade, I was talking about after 5-10 years of usage

Spreading commonality across all three heavy Sukhois would make sense, but keeping the Su-57 state of the art would be useful too, though obviously having some planes with state of the art systems will lead to each being used for different things but that is going to happen anyway with the Su-57 having stealth advantages obviously.

I should have been more specific. I was talking about the Gripen E not the Gripen C.
Gripen E has 1500 km combat range.

Is that relevant though... wandering a further 500km away from the things you are supposed to be protecting is not really a great thing for a fighter.... if it is endurance you want then they both have inflight refuelling probes so that is not a problem.

VKS needs predominately larger heavier jets due to the geography and doctrine

I disagree, with HATO on its borders flying off on long range missions is going to leave your airfields vulnerable to attack.

Having fighter interceptors that do not wander is a good thing.

If MiG wants to compete for leftover segment they need to make something that can compete on the price because they will never be able to get VKS to commit to another full 5th gen aircraft and they will never match Su-57 specs anyway

They seem to have orders for the MiG-35. We will see going forward how the VVS feels about using big heavy Sukhois as a front line fighter and light strike platform... it might consume their operational budget a bit too quickly and leave them short of airframes.

Which simply means they have to focus on designing high end airframe and fill it with existing components to keep the price down (similar to Molonya-class missile ships for Navy)

No one is going to by an F-22 stealth fighter with F-15A bits in it... if you are just going to use existing parts you would just keep using MiG-29s or F-16s.

They can of course make upgrades later as better components become affordable but the guts of the aircraft will have to come from current MiG-35

I would expect they would reject such an offer out of hand...

They want capable new modern fighters, not flashy new stealthy shells that are not stealthy because they carry their weapons externally on their wings.

GarryB wrote:

Pilots don't learn to fly in front line two seat aircraft, they learn to fly on Yak-52 propeller trainers, and then L39 jet trainers and then Yak-130 twin jet trainers.

At operational airfields a two seater aircraft would be used for conversion training to get the pilot familiar with the type, as well as simulator flights of course.

The most expensive part of upgrading Su-30s into improved models with Su-35 gear will be the Su-35 gear.

Having the Su-35 and Su-30 using the same equipment will improve commonality and training for pilots and support crew, and producing avionics of one type for both aircraft will increase production runs and reduce costs and mean spares can be kept for both types that are the same and can be shared if needed.

Hopefully they wont make the mistake most western countries then make and assume because they have one set of spare parts instead of several different types they don't need as many spare parts which is stupid and leaves them short of parts which creates problems all on its own.

When upgrading su-30sm into sm2 standards, you are basically gutting the whole aircraft's electronic systems and changing it. That is going to be costly especially the first models, for each su-30sm2 you are going to need two pilots at bare minimum..
While su-35 needs only one in comparison, that also plays a role