MiG-29/ΜiG-35 Fulcrum: News #2

I personally think that the AESA radar failure was a huge contributer to the lack of success of the MiG-35.

The main problem is that the Russians are practical while the west is fixated with new.

If an AESA radar array is going to cost 10 million dollars and its performance is not going to be a whole lot better than the existing radar because all the various modes have not been fully developed for it yet and they are still working on the support software to take advantage of all the improvements it adds, then they are hardly going to rush it into service.

It is with production that the bits get smaller and cheaper and more reliable and better solutions in making the parts are introduced reducing dud components numbers and making the finished radar much much better, lighter and cheaper.

Rushing something into service before its problems are ironed out leads to situations like the M16 rifle and the F-35 fighter... if they remain in service they will be scarred by early history where changes have been made...

Had they been able to successfully build the Zhuk-AE and not just try to market the in-between model in the MiG-29M/M2 just because it lacked the AESA radar and the built-in target designator if I'm not mistaken, then they would've had an aircraft they could've effectively marketed as the MiG-35.

The MiG-29M2 is not just a MiG-35 without an AESA radar, most of the avionics and systems are different... essentially the MiG-29M2 is an upgraded T-72M3 or even M4, while the MiG-35 is a T-90AM. The T-72 upgrade is affordable but it sets the standard high, has good armour and good gun and with ERA and APS fitted and excellent optics and communications would be a good tank for anyone anywhere. The T-90 is the best that could be achieved in terms of everything short of designing something new from scratch (which is what the T-14 is), and could also be a good tank for anyone to use and would probably do well against any existing opponent as long as you use it correctly and sensibly with proper support.

Not saying the MiG-35 will allow you to take on the US or France in a war, but they will certainly have to take you seriously and if you have quite a few... which is very possible because it is cheaper than anything France or the US have in their inventories, then you could assert some of your own sovereignty in some situations.

I also believe that Egypt is very happy with their 46/50 MiG-29M/M2s that if they were able to get them with the AESA radar and not the Zhuk-ME doppler, they would've been even happier and it would've been the 2nd fighter in their inventory with an AESA radar, 2nd to the Rafale and I also bet they would've ordered an additional batch of them and possibly increased that number to 100 aircraft in the EAF.

Despite all the BS you hear in the west the MiG is not a bad plane... it has a record that is not wonderful, but that is largely because the East German MiG-29s spent much of the 90s and 00s training HATO pilots how to deal with a very early model... without that experience cocky HATO pilots probably would not have done so well against tired worn out outnumbered Serb aircraft over Kosovo and Serbia... back then none of the HATO aircraft had high offboresight missiles or the helmet mounted sights needed to use them.... all HATO planes were slaughtered in testing... so of course there will be disdain for these planes that embarrassed them. Fortunately there is still the Flanker series to act as the Boogeyman to justify the enormous cost of western military aircraft and spending.

The AESA radar was a huge debate at the time and people were saying they should wait until the Zhuk-AE was ready but I'm glad they didn't lol1 ! Since apparently it was never going to come to fruition.

What they needed was a customer to fund development and with the Russian AF buying them and other customers asking for them then I rather suspect the funding and urgency are now there to get the done.

If Good AESA radar were easy everyone would have them.

So IMO, the unfortunate failure of the MiG-35, is that they were never able to field the AESA radar in the Zhuk-AE.

Well the Russians have R-37M... long range air to air missiles in the Phoenix missile class which the west lacks so can we say that all western fighters are failures because they lack a long range air to air missile?

And will they suddenly become super planes just because such a missile is adopted?

The MiG-29M2 and MiG-35 are more than just about their AESA radar...

And BTW, anyone know if this MiG-35 that was flying at MAKS with this really aggressive pilot who put on a hell of a show has the Zhuk-AE? Or have they capitulated and just kept the Zhuk-ME in it and will always have it?

If it is a new plane for the Russian AF it might have an AESA radar, but if it is one of the first 9 intended for the Swifts then probably not... because putting new AESA radars in aircraft that never use them is a bit of a stupid waste of resources... it would make more sense to put them into training and combat units where their performance can be better evaluated and tested properly and feed back can be used to further improve performance.

In comparison the SWIFTS team likely never turn their radar on...

Saying lack of an AESA radar makes it a failure is like saying lack of an R-73 and helmet mounted sight for all of the 1980s and 1990s and for may HATO fighters much of the 00s makes them all failures too.

Not only the West is fixated with new

I meant just as a generalisation... in the past MiGs have been rejected as being too sophisticated and therefore too expensive for the customer... the SMT upgrade for the MiG-29 and the MiG-33 are two examples.

This seems to have changed now because they are choosing the MiG-35 for Russian service over the simpler cheaper MiG-29M2.

If they wanted to make the MiG-35 an export success, they should have taken that into account.

MiG don't make radars... how were they supposed to speed up design and development?

An AESA radar would have been a unique selling point for buyers of non-Western military hardware, and will have secured some orders I suspect.

Not sure that the premature deployment of a system that is not ready yet, and would have first generation deployment issues likely including overheating and regular array element failure would have inspired confidence in Russian gear, or whether it would have been pounced on by the gutter press in the countries that adopted them as evidence they should have gone for western products.

And that's exactly what I was referring to when I said that had they developed the AESA radar, then it would've had a much better chance at being marketed to many other countries.

If India or any other country was desperate for AESA radars in their aircraft they could easily have gone to a Russian radar company and offered joint development and help fund and drive the process and get the product into service. The Russian military was happy with the systems it had and weren't overly interested in getting these much more expensive systems into service as soon as possible, and their other customers didn't seem interested in spending a lot more money to do the same.

Most customers of Russian kit appreciate the fact that it is usually much much cheaper than western stuff, and seem to not be interested in paying for it to improve and get better in areas where it is behind.

India removed Russian bits from the Su-30M and replaced them with parts from France and Israel to get the plane they wanted... those parts they added massively increased the cost of the aircraft, which was further increased with their demands to make it themselves, but no funding was available to develop AESA radars with Russia or to invest in a new 5th gen heavy fighter with Russia... they just want a finished product and they wont pay anything like they seem happy to pay for American and French products.

Have you seen how much they paid for Rafales and C-17s and Chinooks and Apaches?

I am not criticising those prices they paid, but what I am wondering is why they think the Russians should be able to beat the west on price AND performance.

I think a MiG-35/MiG-29M2 purchase would have made rather more sense instead of Rafale... cheaper and into service faster which is important for a stop gap purchase as older planes retire, and then talk about local production of Rafales now they know you don't need them.

But when they bought the C-17s there was no Russian alternative ready to go, and with the Chinooks were bought they claimed it was for use at high altitude even though the Mi-26 has good performance in such places too, if they want to pay that much for a helicopter then that is fine, and I totally understand their buy of Apaches because at the time it was a mature and capable system if a bit maintenance intensive it is a good solid aircraft and the Mi-28 and Ka-52s had not had any real combat experience or upgrades like they have had over the last few years of combat in Syria... I rather suspect there will be some buyers regret because these american platforms are not cheap to support and use expensive munitions... but at the time it made sense.

What I don't understand is why they moan at the price of heavy fighters costing so much like the Flankers they operate when most of their price comes from expensive foreign parts and local production and even then they are a quarter the price of medium sized Rafales they are happily buying.

They spend four times on 36 Rafale fighters what they spend on an upgrade of an aircraft carrier and a full air component of MiG-29KR fighters and helicopters including the Ka-31 AEW helicopter... FOUR TIMES... so for the price of 9 Rafales they got 12 MiG-29KRs plus about three Ka-27 helicopters and two Ka-31 AEW helicopters... and a ship that was half cruiser and half VSTOL carrier into a through deck aircraft carrier... but they still complained....

here's the problem the way I saw the whole thing transpire - MiG advertised the MiG-35 to have all these specific components and one of the main ones they said would make this aircraft the next step from all preceding MiG-29 variants was the AESA radar (or the Zhuk-AE).

And it is going to get an AESA radar... is the Typhoon a failure because the first models are being retired because they had limited capability because most of the features of that aircraft didn't get included into the design till about the third serial production version and there were so many changes in the design it is cheaper to retire and scrap the first planes than to upgrade them to the newer standard... is it a failure too?

How about the stealthy F-35 that can be seen thousands of kms away by Russian radar in Russia that could spot US F-35s on the Iran Iraq border... I would think Boeing has more control of the stealthiness of the F-35 than MiG has control of the company that makes radars for them.

But they couldn't get it done and I'm not sure they even have with this model flying at MAKS 21?

You do understand MiG don't make radars.

So if they touted that feature and fell short of it, who else is to blame but themselves? That's what I was getting at.

There is a new feature being developed for their aircraft that is on the way and they told you about it... it was a planned feature for that aircraft but it is clearly not ready yet.

Burn the witch, destroy the company, fire everyone, is what is sounds like.

Sukhoi haven't fielded a full AESA Ku/Ka band radar either despite their massive export success... why do they get let off the hook... if an AESA is so damn critical then how are they able to sell aircraft on the international market.

Most aircraft will get several different radars during their operational lifetime... what you are doing is what we call throwing the baby out with the bath water... stop over reacting.

The only sale of anything close to the MiG-35 was the Egyptian order of 46 or 50 M/M2s and then I believe Algeria bought 12 of the same MiG-29M/M2s as well and that's it.

And you have to ask yourself if MiG are dumb fucks and these plane do not have the all mighty AESA radars in their noses, and there are Su-35s available... why did they even bother? 62 planes is a lot of money to piss away on useless crap... maybe there is more to an aircraft design than what it comes with initially.

It seems if they really wanted that model to succeed and showcase a next upgraded variant of the MiG-29 line in the MiG-35 and they claimed it will have the Zhuk-AE and not the Zhuk-ME, then they should've done whatever it took to make the AESA radar and get it in there like they said they would. But they didn't, and so the onus is on them for the lack of the aircraft getting any more orders out there.

And while they were at it they could have had a word to Klimov and gotten them to upgrade their engines to make them 12 ton thrust instead of 9 ton thrust perhaps... do you think that is how things work? Maybe have a chat to the Tactical missiles corporation and get them to make 1,000km range mach 15 air to air missiles so they can really dominate the international fighter market...

What would you suggest... hire some assassins, make threats, bribe them with money they clearly have falling from the sky...

If you take all the 4.5 gen aircraft in the same class as the MiG-35, you'll see that most of the ones doing well are aircraft with AESA radars. The F/A-18 Super Hornet, the Rafale, the Gripen, the F-15 even and so on. It seems like they missed the boat and it's a shame.

Doing well?

The F-15 and Super Hornet only go to countries with permission and those purchases are never performance based that is just ridiculous, Rafale and Gripen, well for most HATO countries there are only approved suppliers that can even be considered and MiG is not on that list.

I guess you rate the Typhoon as a failure too because it lacks an AESA radar on most of the in service aircraft...

Until 2010 the Rafale had a PESA and not an AESA...

If they fitted the MiG-35 with laser cannons and warp drive engines the countries that bought Hornets and Rafales and Gripens would still have bought those planes... India had decided to buy Rafales before the MRCA fighter programme... it was a programme to buy 126 aircraft for 10.4 billion dollars... for 8 billion dollars they ended up buying 36 Rafales... there was nothing about that competition that was fair or made sense... it was just a lot of wasted time and money for MiG.

Oh, and when is the last time India bought French, Israeli or American armaments and replaced the electronics with Russian parts?
Honestly, a part of me hopes they buy more Rafales just so that they can bankrupt themselves and severely diminish their military capacity from sheer stupidity.

I can understand a customer wanting to spend more on a product if that gives them the right and ability to make more of their own if they need it... but for the ego of being able to say we make fighter planes it is costing them a lot of money in the case of the Flankers... such money would be much better spent on getting the production rights they can make money on.

For instance 300 Flankers is enough to learn what you are doing and train a few thousand people to work with such aircraft, but making drones or making missiles means they can make enormous numbers of drones and missiles... drones can be civilian and very useful for all sorts of things... monitoring big empty regions with no roads or rail access, weather research, surveying, all sorts of civilian and military purposes you could make tens or hundreds of thousands of these drones of all different types, and making your own ATGMs or SAMs... say Kornet or Pantsir or both... they are force multipliers... easier to make than the launchers, but able to be produced in enormous numbers... you could evolve a modular missile where anything that has an expiry date like batteries or fuel or HE material can be left out and just make the shells and put them in storage, so when you need some... and when you need some you normally need a lot... take them out of storage and insert the time sensitive stuff and you are ready to go... other countries that use them could buy the munitions from you and you can make some money... with Russian permission of course... they could get royalties...

The point is that if you want to make some of the things you buy then buy the things you can use a lot of... cow milking machines, tractors, trucks and other vehicles, ships and boats... civilian aircraft... the Ka-226T was a great idea if they can get it going with the new engines... talk of the Il-112 sounds good too... and if they can then they should look at this new An-2 replacement because it should be good for mass production in a large country with not so great infrastructure being used by practical people who will want to fix most problems themselves without the costs of returning it to the factory...

Can't beat the previous look imo though. The legacy MiG-29 is a leaner, meaner, trimmer machine, with the distinctive shark gill air intakes, smaller canopy and smaller wing extentions and tail surfaces.

Being able to switch between single and two seat is a flexibility the original MiG-29 really needed... the cost of that smaller canopy was effectively the most expensive LIFT you can get in the form of the MiG-29UB which had a ranging only radar and could not use radar guided BVR missiles making it a rather limited aircraft.

With the new MiGs you can have six variations... MiG-29M and MiG-29M2 which of course are the same aircraft fitted with one or two seats respectively, the MiG-29KR and MiG-29KR2... same again... and the MiG-35 with one seat and MIG-35 with two seats, which again are the same aircraft, so buy one plane and configure it one of two ways.

Memoranda of understanding, statements of intent, preliminary agreements... they're all empty politicking at best and mostly for show imo. When India seriously wants something, it's worth looking at how they work with the US to fast track gov't to gov't contracts, as happened with the C-17 and P8i deals.

That is the way the US forces them to deal to avoid any requirements of free and fair competition as required by Indian law.

It avoids scrutiny as to how much India is forced to pay to buy and to have their new platforms serviced.

They do it with Russian stuff too but in the last case it is emergency war contingencies that allow them to order new MiGs and Flankers and air to air missiles...

Not just the US, look how fast India negotiated the $2 Billion deal with Russia for 21 MIG-29's and 12 Su-30's after their minor skirmish with China.

That was under provisions for action allowed during conflict (ie with Pakistan in this case).

The Indians want extra MiG-29K/KUB fighters. A preliminary agreement was signed at MAKS apparently

So after all the talk about F-18s and Rafales it seems they have realised they got the best deal already...

Perhaps, I'm just reminiscing for the 'other' east-west cold war, when the RAF still had over 600 jets (including 8 squadrons of Tornados in Germany) rather than the paltry 150 or so we have now!

Yeah, that is something that confuses the Russians too... they withdrew from Eastern Europe, and the US and UK and other HATO forces moved in... but Russia is the aggressor it seems....